HSTA welcomes Hilo Intermediate counselor as state secretary-treasurer

As treasurer of the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association’s Hilo Chapter, Cheney Kaku applies a simple test to evaluate every expense: “Is this something we really need to spend money on?” That’s the same principle she plans to use as HSTA’s new secretary-treasurer, a position she assumed on July 17.

Kaku serves as a school counselor at Hilo Intermediate, where she has worked since she began her career in public education in 2008. She started as a high-risk counselor and also served as a half-time counselor and half-time librarian one school year. In her current position, she works with 7th graders and then follows the class through the 8th grade.

Being a counselor, she says, is “always different.”

“The group of kids that I have for this cohort is different from the eighth graders I had just left behind, and you get attached to certain kids. So I enjoy that and working with the families and trying to see them change and they share a lot with you,” Kaku said.

A Hilo-area native, she attended public elementary, intermediate and high schools in Waiākea. Kaku majored in psychology and minored in sociology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and then earned her Master’s of Science in Counseling Psychology at Chaminade University.

Kaku was deeply involved in public education from a young age, since her father Gary Kaku taught in East Hawaiʻi public schools and served on HSTA’s Board of Directors. Her dad was an English and social studies teacher at Pāhoa High and Intermediate as well as Hilo Intermediate.

As a result, she said, when she was a kid, “That’s a lot of summers we used to go help set up his classroom.”

When he transferred to Hilo Intermediate, she and her sister would attend spelling bees and other school functions with their dad.

“My mom would joke that he took the Hilo teaching position because we’re (his kids) gonna go to Waiākea Intermediate and we cannot survive in the same school, you know, as teacher and students,” Kaku said with a laugh.

When she began working at Hilo Intermediate in 2008, her father served as registrar at the same school.

Her initial involvement in the union “couldn’t really be avoided because I would have to go to HSTA stuff with my dad,” Kaku said.

She would attend Hilo Chapter representative assemblies (RAs) with her father, and volunteer with the chapter at political signwaving and community events.

“They needed to find people to fill these positions and, you know, Gary’s daughter’s not going to say no,” she said.

“They made jokes about how when he retired he needed to bring somebody on board for (Hilo Chapter’s) executive board. It was the trade-off, right?” Kaku added.

At Hilo Intermediate, she has served as a volunteer HSTA leader in several roles, including as a faculty representative, and as a teacher representative on both the Association Policy Committee (APC) and School Community Council.

She also served 12 years on HSTA’s Charter, Bylaws and Resolutions Committee.

“When you describe it to people, it doesn’t sound very fun because you have to go over a lot of documents and a lot of times you’re looking for grammatical errors or misspelling or when you say it, does it make sense? Or are there any questions? We spend a lot of time on one sentence sometimes so it can feel tedious, but it’s interesting and important work, and you get to hear a variety of different perspectives,” she said.

“Once you get the process down — and it takes many years for those who are new to our committee to really follow it all the way through — then the process makes sense,” Kaku said.

Kaku served as an elected board director from Hilo Chapter and an appointed member of the HSTA Judicial Panel until last week, after being elevated to the state secretary-treasurer position.

When asked to reflect on her new leadership role, she said, “I certainly didn’t expect to be here. Who would have thought? I think even my friends are kind of shocked at this. But, you know, I like to try new things,” she said.

“I’m pretty level headed. Once I know there’s a task to do, we’ll get it done,” Kaku said. “I know that my fellow state leaders have kindly offered to help me out a lot. So I’m very grateful to them. This should be fun.”

Whether educators are new to the union or their school, Kaku recommends the same hands-on approach, no matter how intimidating it may seem.

“I remember being a new counselor and being in the new teacher orientation and wondering, what I was doing there? But no matter what, I think it is best to jump in. Because I think you don’t realize it at the beginning, but you’re going to need somebody to just ask weird questions, too, and just complain and say ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ or ‘Is this happening at your school too?’”

She encourages educators to get involved in the union and “just reach out to anybody that’s in your chapter. We would love to see new faces at our events. And the more that you come out and spend time with people, the more connections you make, and that’ll help you get through this difficult job.”

In her spare time, Kaku collects and enjoys comic books.

“My grandma used to work at Comic Center, a small comic store in Hilo and she would bring home us comics to read,” she recalled.

She’s also a fan of anime, manga, and Pokemon Go. Kaku has traveled to Oʻahu several times to attend Comic Con Honolulu.