It’s part of an effort to rename chapters with Hawaiian names
Posted: June 9, 2026
The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association Board of Directors voted on Friday to rename HSTA’s Central Chapter, now calling it Oʻahu Wālua Chapter.
Wālua means the center or middle portion in Hawaiian. Its first letter can be pronounced with either the W or V sound.
HSTA’s Hawaiian Education Committee completed a thorough research process before making the recommendation to state and chapter leaders.
“The Central Chapter covers a land division that spans at least three moku (traditional land districts). We have done our best to base our name suggestion on input from respected Central area kupuna (elders), archival research, and member feedback,” said Kalae Akioka, a teacher at Pūʻōhala School in Kāneʻohe who chairs the HSTA’s Hawaiian Education Committee.
After consulting and sharing findings with the chapter president, board, and school-level leaders via their representative assembly, the chapter voted to approve the name change. A ceremony marking the chapter name change is being scheduled for late July.
More than 40 public schools and roughly 2,100 HSTA members are located in Oʻahu Wālua Chapter, which includes the ʻAiea-Moanalua-Radford and Mililani-Leilehua-Waialua complex areas.
HSTA’s Hawaiian Education Committee now begins work on finding a new name for the union’s largest chapter, Leeward Chapter, which represents 3,000 educators in West ʻOahu. In 2025, the union renamed the former Windward Chapter as Koʻolau Chapter.