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If anyone could give me some information on good high schools or charter schools for high school kids, I would be so appreciative.
Charter School Profiles | Charter School Administrative Office (http://hcsao.org/hicharters/profiles - broken link)
The only one I'm familiar with on the list is the Education Lab at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. That has a good reputation. Its students go to good universities.
If you do a search of this Hawaii subforum you'll find other discussions about good high schools in Hawaii both public and private.
We live in Kailua and our kids attend Lanikai charter school. I would rate it as "decent to good", but not excellent based on the school our kids attended in the midwest. The good things - teacher and educational assistant per classroom, NO FURLOUGH DAYS, staff does seem to really care/try. And the charter school is able to do that with less funding per child than the public schools. The only negative thing to us is the pace of work. Our school in St. Louis was much faster paced. Our second grader probably could have easily just gone straight into 3rd grade here.
OK, I think that people have a misconception that there are DOD schools in HI. There are schools where many DOD kids attend because they are close to the bases, but these schools are run by the HI DOE. They are not part of the DoDEA system (the DOD run schools). I don't live in HI yet, but this is what I have learned from my research, so I wonder why people keep talking about DOD schools.
In the US, all schools are bound by the IDEA law to give services to special ed students. However, that translates into how each state/district/school wants to provide those services. Once again, I don't live in HI so I don't really know, but I would assume that a state in which the DOE has serious financial problems (requiring furlough days), the special ed services may not be first rate. I do know that HI has a shortage of special ed teachers. In my research I have found a few special ed- specific schools. I have no idea what these schools are like, but you might want to check into them.
expat - I think you're right. I work near a military base. The schools the military kids attend on base or near the base are run by the local Department of Education. I think there was some discussion a few years ago about establishing a DOD Charter School here but I don't know what came of it.
You should stick to the school on base, they seem to have a much better reputation.
The only thing is the schools on base or post in Hawaii are also State schools subject to the same problems that exist in some public schools schools here. They aren't DOD schools per se.
Makalapa Elementary which is 70% military, according to its own website, serves children from the Aliamanu Military Reservation and Pearl Harbor Naval Station, among others. The school is ranked about 65th in the entire state. Hickam Elementary which serves Air Force dependents is ranked 98th in the overall state (links to information below).
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I understand that. It's the same here in Socal. Even though the schools on base fall under Oceanside school distrcit they are rated much better and from experience here ARE much better than the public ones out in town.
I have ready through many of your posts and live in HI and have a special needs child in the school system. We do not have DOD schools here in HI, we have DOE school subsidized with Fed money based on how many military kids are in the school. We have had to deal with 17 Furlough Friday days this year and it has been really bad for the kids. As far as the learning environment I have had my child in both an on base school and an off base school, for me the off base school fit better for his special needs. I found that the on base schools are smaller and the SPED kids tend to be a target.
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