‘What we’re doing is pono,’ Nāwahī educator says
Posted: July 7, 2025
Ke Kula ‘O Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu Iki Public Charter School on Hawaiʻi Island was honored Wednesday night at the National Education Associationʻs annual Human and Civil Rights Awards Dinner in Portland, Ore.
Nāwahī, as the school is known, won the prestigious 2025 Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award from the NEA. The award honors an individual, group, or organization whose activities in Asian and Pacific Islander affairs have a significant impact on education and the achievement of equal opportunity for Asians and Pacific Islanders.
Nāwahī educators Kaleihōkū Kalaʻi-Aguiar, who teaches math through Hawaiian, and Kēhaulani ʻAipia-Peters, who teaches English and social studies in Hawaiian language, both traveled to Portland to accept the award on behalf of their school.
Kalaʻi-Aguiar said, “It’s such a great honor for the hard work that we’ve been doing in Hawaiian language medium education over the past 30 years or so in the DOE system. And this is just to showcase and confirm that what we’re doing is pono, and it’s for the benefit of not only our Hawaiian language speaking community, but for everyone who calls Hawaiʻi home.”
Nāwahī was founded three decades ago with an initial enrollment of 36 students; today, it has 550 students.
“We have a really important kuleana (responsibility) to uphold, and that’s to bring our Hawaiian language back. It was so close to the brink of death, and if it weren’t for our kaiapuni ʻōlelo programs, immersion Hawaiian language medium programs, using education as the tool through which we can revitalize our language, we’d still be in a state of despair,” Kalaʻi-Aguiar said.
”Everyone understands that it is important to see the language and the culture live and thrive in Hawai’i, because there is no other place where you can get that except for Hawai’i,” she added.
According to the NEA, Hawaiʻi is the only one of the 50 U.S. states that allows for a non-English language to be utilized as a fully operational voice in public education administration, and Nāwahī connects young people to linguistic identity.
ʻAipia-Peters noted that Nāwahī has established a unique network to provide Hawaiian immersion education for keiki from preschool through the college level.
“We do a lot of collaboration with ʻAha Pūnana Leo, which is focused on kula kamaliʻi or preschool programs. We have the charter school part, which is the K–8 program. We have the (Hawaiʻi State) Department of Education, kula kaiapuni side, which is grades 9–12. We are in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo,” ʻAipia-Peters said.
“I think that’s what makes it unique, that you can come together with private, public partnerships, and yet have this robust type of education that you know, from a child at four years old all the way to a doctoral level of education, and supporting families along the way as well and keeping the language as our focus,” she added.
ʻAipia-Peters said that many of Nāwahīʻs faculty members are also parents of students there.
“My son graduated a couple of years back. I have a child who is going into the third grade. I think about 95% of us on the campus have kids who have either graduated or are currently in the program. So I think that speaks a lot to our own personal investment in this school,” ʻAipia-Peters said.
Read about this year’s other NEA Human and Civil Rights award winners here.
