Video: UH Hilo’s K-12 Hawaiian immersion laboratory school Nāwahī receives national award
The award recognizes UH Hilo’s Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu Iki Lab Public Charter School for creating a bright future for AAPI youth by embracing history and culture.
By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.
The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo’s K-12 Native Hawaiian language laboratory school won a prestigious national award this summer recognizing its impact on the education of Native Hawaiian youth that engenders a sense of cultural identity and a rich heritage.
Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu Iki Public Charter School, located in Keaʻau on Hawaiʻi Island, won the prestigious 2025 Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award from the National Education Association. 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.
The award was received at NEA’s annual Human and Civil Rights Awards Dinner held in Portland, Oregon, in July.
“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,” says Nāwahī kumu (teacher) Kaleihōkū Kalaʻi-Aguiar who traveled with colleague Kēhaulani ʻAipia-Peters to Portland to accept the award on behalf of their school.
“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,” she adds.
Nāwahī is the K-12 laboratory school of Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani, UH Hilo’s college of Hawaiian language. The history of the ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) immersion school illustrates the long, hard work of a core segment of Hawaiʻi’s population, including faculty at UH Hilo and several community groups, to revitalize the distinctive linguistic identity of the islands. Nāwahī was founded over three decades ago with an initial enrollment of 36 students; today, it has 550 students.
- Learn more: “The history of Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu, UH Hilo’s Hawaiian language medium laboratory school” (UH Hilo Stories, Sept. 21, 2021)
The Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award is an NEA Human and Civil Rights Award, and in this case specifically awarded for recognition on the educational work done for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) youth.
“As the pioneering Space Shuttle Challenger astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka inspired the Asian diaspora to explore ‘brave new worlds,’ Hawaiʻi’s Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu Iki Lab Public Charter School is creating a bright future for AAPI youth by embracing history and culture,” says the NEA’s statement about the award.
More from the statement:
Nāwahī was conceived as a beacon for Hawaiian Language Education, providing young people with a sense of their identity and rich heritage. Their mandate is to restore Hawaiian as a living, breathing language. Knowing where one comes from is the key to knowing where one can go.
As the most developed school teaching through Indigenous language in the United States, Nawahi connects young people to linguistic identity, as Hawai’i is the only one of the fifty U.S. states that allows for a non-English language to be utilized as a fully operational voice in public education administration. This is crucial to prevent the “othering” of the region’s youth…
Nāwahī accomplishes their mission in a number of innovative ways. They enroll an entire family in the program rather than individual students to make it completely immersive. They promote the concept of honoring the Ancestors through the achievements of their descendants. They emphasize collective, communal work. And, they treat all students, regardless of gender, with equal rights and responsibility.
“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”
Kalaʻi-Aguiar, who teaches math through Hawaiian, and ʻAipia-Peters, who teaches English and social studies in Hawaiian language, traveled with a group of Hawaiʻi educators to Portland to accept the award.
“We have a really important kuleana (responsibility) to uphold, and that’s to bring our Hawaiian language back,” Kalaʻi-Aguiar says. “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.”
“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 Hawaiʻi,” she adds.
A unique network to provide Hawaiian immersion education for keiki from preschool through the college level
As the NEA notes, 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 says 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,” says ʻAipia-Peters . “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.”
“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,” ʻAipia-Peters says.
ʻAipia-Peters says that many of Nāwahī’s faculty members are also parents of students there.
“My son graduated a couple of years back,” she says. “I have a child who is going into the third grade. I think about 95 percent 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.”
See more at Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association website.
Story by Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
