Last week, we found out that our funding from the state of Hawai’i was cut in half for this upcoming year by the house, and in full next year by the Senate.
This puts us at risk for losing nearly $870K of our funding, which goes to bringing over 100 teachers each year to some of Hawai’i’s schools. We work hard to…
- provide a Public Private Partnership - For every public dollar, TFA Hawaii matches over 4x this amount in private funding for education. A loss of $870,000 in funding is itself a blow to our overall budget; but, in addition, the loss of public support will jeopardize matched private funds, which collectively could be catastrophic to our program and a significant loss of private funds currently benefiting our keiki.
- have Kama‘aina Come Home - We are projecting 40% of our incoming corps, with heavy recruitment efforts to continue growing those numbers.
-> have alumni move into key leadership positions to support Hawai’i’s keiki: Patricia Halagao (State Board of Education Member), Stephen Schatz (Assistant Superintendent, HIDOE), Takashi Ohno (Vice Chair, Education, House of Representatives), David Miyashiro (Press Secretary, Sen. Mazie Hirono).
-> provide teachers in Title I schools, where there continues to be a high need for teachers. Principals have reported that our teachers are effective educators in the classroom and contribute additional value to their schools by infusing innovative ideas and initiatives and stepping into a variety of leadership roles.
->provide teachers for our Native Achievement Initiative.
How You Can Help
-> Reach out to your Hawai’i State Representative (http://1.usa.gov/1kjW89Y) and Senators (http://1.usa.gov/1kjWgpV).
-> Reach out to us (christina.torres@teachforamerica.org) and share your stories about how TFA has helped your keiki/community so that we can share that with supporters, Senators, Respresentatives, and other key members.
Thanks so much for your support, and mahalo nui loa for the already continued support of…
- The Hawai'i DOE
- Senator Jill Tokuda
- Representative Roy Takumi
- Representative Takashi Ohno
