Former Pāhoa Elementary teacher to replace longtime Hilo UD Rae Yamanaka
Posted: January 19, 2023
The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association welcomed Hawaiʻi Island teacher Tiffany Dela Cruz as Hilo Chapter’s UniServ Director Tuesday.
Dela Cruz grew up in Kāneʻohe and east Hawaiʻi Island and attended public schools her entire academic career. She went to Ahuimanu Elementary School before moving to Hawaiʻi Island in middle school, and attended Waiākea Intermediate and Waiākea High School.
She graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo with a bachelor’s degree in both sociology and administration of justice. Originally looking to pursue family law, Dela Cruz switched courses to education and earned her elementary teaching certification at UH Hilo.
Her teaching career started with instructing grades 2 through 6 at E Makaʻala School, a private Christian school in Hilo, and spent her summers teaching 3rd grade at Kamehameha Hawaiʻi Kula Kauwela (summer school). After teaching in private schools for five years, she decided to work for the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education.
Dela Cruz started teaching 4th and 6th grades at Pāhoa Elementary, where she taught for the past 12.5 years before joining HSTA. “I fell in love with the kids, the community, and the Puna culture,” Dela Cruz said.
During her last year at Pāhoa Elementary, she served as an HSTA school-level leader and was a member of the newly formed HSTA Hawaiian Education special committee, and has been informally helping teachers navigate their contract for years — standing by her colleagues, and providing emotional and social support while guiding through them their contractual rights.
She recalled many times when she called upon HSTA to support her with her own contractual concerns and HSTA was always there to assist.
As UniServ Director, Dela Cruz plans to continue to support educators who are in need of advocacy, support, and contract interpretation.
“I look forward to advocating for not only the teachers at my school, but for all the teachers,” she said. “I feel like it’s something that has to be done, and done with passion and sincerity.”
In her free time, Dela Cruz enjoys staying active through Tahitian, basketball, soccer, and canoe paddling. She has run her own pupu ori o Tahiti (Tahitian dance group) for the past 18 years, Merahi Productions, where she teaches Tahitian dancing to students of all ages. She grew up dancing in her uncle’s hālau hula in Kāneʻohe and started her own after wanting her three children to have a solid Polynesian cultural foundation.
She and her husband have three children. Her son graduated from Kamehameha Schools and now plays football at Southern Oregon University. Her older daughter graduated from Waiākea High and plays soccer at Fresno Pacific University. Her second daughter will graduate from Waiākea in May and join the crew team at Long Island University. According to Dela Cruz, she’s excited to tackle a slightly different sport and cold weather!
Dela Cruz replaces longtime UniServ Director Rae Yamanaka, who retires on Jan. 31 after 15 years of service at HSTA.
Prior to working at HSTA, Yamanaka taught at Waiākea High School for nearly 20 years, her last position being a teacher to pregnant and parenting teens. She was also the department head for the school’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) program.
Yamanaka was active in HSTA as a teacher and served as Hilo Chapter’s president. When the opportunity arose to become Hilo Chapter’s UniServ Director with HSTA, she took it.
Of her proudest accomplishment at HSTA, Yamanaka said, “Making a difference for individual teachers and their issues, concerns, and problems — whether we filed official grievances and investigations or not, but making a difference and for them to know that they were not alone, that they had HSTA to help them.”