Teacher looking for a good middle school (or high school) to become part of staff in Maui, HI (Kihei: home)

[Angiepie]

Hello there

My husband just got offered a job in Maui and since there are no jobs for teachers here in Michigan, we figured that we just couldn't pass up the opportunity. I've tried researching the 'good' school districts in Maui online, but there are a lot of biased sources out there. I'm looking for the insider's opinion on this. Where are the good schools? Where are the ones to steer clear of?

To help, I'm endorsed in secondary English and history (which I would assume would translate to 'social studies' since Hawaii doesn't really-according to my research-recognize history teaching endorsements) and would prefer to teach grades 7-9. I prefer non-urban schools and I'm definitely open to charter or private institutions. We will probably be moving in August in order to prepare for the school year (are most schools in Maui year-round?).

Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[whynot?]

You won't have any trouble avoiding urban schools as we have no cities on Maui. If you meant "urban" as a euphemism for something else, you will likely find that at any school on Maui IMHO. I don't have kids in school, so my only knowledge of them is casual and from the news. You might want to consider where your husband's job location is and where you might be living; traffic here is a consideration believe it or not -- especially at typical mainland rush hour times.

Best of luck.

[newUHprof]

One problem is that you can't contact schools directly about jobs. You have to contact the state dept. of ed and look for a placement, and you may have no choice in the matter. (You can always say you won't take a job more than x miles from where your husband works or whatever, but who knows if they will accommodate that or not?)

Second, I'm a math/science person so I don't know this for sure. But my impression is that "social studies" in Hawaii is heavily heavily focused on Hawaiian history & culture. So your certification in that area may not hold much weight because you wouldn't have experience teaching the class as it exists here.

You can look here for info about teaching in public schools:
Hawaii Department of Education, Office of Human Resources Home Page

As far as I can tell, there's only one charter school on Maui (this comes from the State Charter School webesite): Kihei Charter School

There are private schools also, which you might want to look into if the DoE can't place you someplace you want to be.

[newUHprof]

Oh, and the district question... things work a little differently here. Maui is a single "district" in as much as that means anything here. The division in schools is really into "complex areas". Here's a list of the complex areas on Maui:
Complex-Area information

[elaineo]

A couple of private schools are Seabury Hall and St. Anthony.

[hotzcatz]

There is only one school district and it is statewide. DOE is the employer and they are pretty strange to get hired by and to work with from what I've heard. Mainland experience doesn't really mean much from what I've heard so all the mainland teachers pretty much start out at the same level.

Teaching English in Hawaii will not be anything like teaching English on the mainland. Many of the students speak another language at home and use pidgin a lot. Being able to understand pidgin would be of benefit to you, I'd think. Actually, teaching school in Hawaii isn't anything like teaching on the mainland from what I've heard. I have a few friends who are teachers and retired teachers and I listen to their stories. If you are teaching History, a large part of it will be Hawaiian history, especially the Kingdom of Hawaii period, so you may want to brush up on that.

If I were to be hired as a teacher at a school in Hawaii, I'd ask around and so who the most respected teacher is and then ask them for advice. Having an on campus mentor would be very helpful, IMHO.