The following letter to a member of the Hawaii School Board of Education was written to give an opposing view of the Year Round Multi-Track System of education. The letter was written August 18, 1997. Obviously there been many changes in the DOE's plan, but they still plan to force the Mililani community to accept the multi-track schedule. I welcome anyone to respond to any point raised in this letter. The purpose in placing it on the WWW is to hear from school districts who have already gone to the multi-track system. I am very much interested in finding solutions, not just complaining. 

• Specialty Classes do not have enough students to fill each track.
• Band and sports suffer when students are on vacation.
• Training of sixth grade teachers to change from generalist to specialist.
• Overlapping days provide little education due to overcrowding

• Unacceptable percentage of families will not get first choice of tracks.
• Families with children in two or more schools have no options for family vacations due to no common breaks.
• Only one week common break for all students - Christmas vacation.

• Churches and other community groups work with students in all four tracks. There are no common breaks to get all students together for camps, retreats and mission trips.
• Families with both parents working could resort to leaving their sixth, seventh, and eight grader to supervise them self during the day.
• Truancy becomes almost impossible to enforce.
• The additional cost of $300,000 to $400,000 per year could be better spent.

1. Keep Sixth Graders at the Elementary Level. Click here to go directly to this solution.
2. Make Wheeler Intermediate school sixth and seventh grade, Mauka Middle school Eight and ninth grade and Mililani High School tenth, eleventh and twelve grade. Click here to go directly to this solution.
3. Install Portables. Click here to go directly to this solution.

Monday, August 18, 1997 

Dear Francis McMillen, 

I just wanted to say mahalo for taking the time to visit with me about the Mililani Mauka Middle School proposed year round multi-track schedule. I decided to give you a written explanation of my concerns which may make it easier to voice to those in a position to make appropriate changes. 

Let me begin by stating for the record, that I am in favor of single track YEAR ROUND SCHOOL. I am also in agreement with the age grouping 6th, 7th, and 8th graders for the middle school education concept. However, I am in opposition to the Multi-track system for reasons in the following three categories: 1). Education 2). Family 3). Community. These reasons come out of past experience with a middle school year round multi-track school system.

Most educators agree that multi-track is not the ideal situation educationally for students. For one, specialty classes such as language, industrial arts, home economics, news writing, and computer normally do not have enough students to fill a class per track. Secondly, band directors have a difficult time rehearsing a group of young musicians when one fourth of his/her players are always on vacation. What happens to that first trumpet player's chair when they go on vacation and there happens to be a concert scheduled during the vacation? Most likely they will lose their chair to someone who is able to be at the concert to play that solo. Every track will go on their 15 day vacation sometime during the football season. What happens to the athlete whose family goes on vacation during the "Big Game?" We begin to place our children in a position to resent "having" to go to Grandma's house during their 15 days of vacation instead of being able to play ball. 

On top of the above reasons, central Oahu School District is attempting to implement a huge change in educational philosophy. To change the sixth graders to a middle school system will require the teachers to be recertified as middle school teachers instead of elementary teachers. For a teacher to be retrained as a specialist, learn a new set of lesson plans and adjust to a multi-track school is asking a great deal from our teachers. 

In order to meet the 183 required instructional days a year, the multi-track system will be forced to add several "overlapping" days. This means that all four tracks will be attending school on the same day. If the school is able to support all four tracks for these overlapping days without being overcrowded, why could it not support all students on a single track? 
 

The most important reason I am in opposition to the multi-track system is because I believe the fundamental factor in America being a strong country rests in the heart of her families. Multi-track year round school cannot be pro-family when by the B.O.E.'s own estimates 15% of the families will NOT get their first choice of tracks. How can any family who has children in High School and Middle School or Middle School and Elementary School be able have their kids on the same track when none of the current schedules for middle school are the same as the elementary or high school's single track schedules? This means, during the years children are in different schools families will not be able to take a vacation or have all their kids out of school at the same time. This is unacceptable in a country or state striving to put family first. 

One of the reasons I brought my family from the mainland and made Hawaii our home was because the pro-family attitude portrayed in the people we met in our interview process. Five years from now we will have three children in three different schools with three different schedules. When will our family, for example, be able to go to Alaska (my wife's home) to visit grandparents? If the proposed multi-track system is forced on this community we could see the family unit fragment. 

Christmas is traditionally a family time for many people who live in Hawaii. However, the latest schedule model I've seen only has one week common break between Christmas and New Year's. (This schedule did not go through because the teacher's union required the traditional two week Christmas vacation). This break, by-the-way, is the only common break for all four tracks during the entire year. The make up of the Mililani community is such that many students have extended families on the mainland. The financial investment of flying home to see grandparents and extended families is so high that many families want the freedom to take longer than the one week during Christmas for vacation.

Community groups such as churches, who have students on all four tracks, will be unable to take all their students for a week long camp or mission trip. I am a Youth Pastor. I know the importance of getting large groups of teenagers away from their everyday routine to bond together as spiritual beings and to meet with their creator. 

Community groups such as the YMCA could be forced to discontinue some programs currently offered during the summer months due to only one fourth of the students being eligible to participate at any given time. 

Many families have both parents working. This most likely will create an atmosphere where sixth, seventh, and eighth graders will be unsupervised during the day. I, for one, do not feel that the average sixth or seventh grader is mature enough to spend all day left to supervise them self for three weeks at a time. Kathy Kawaguchi said at the Uka Elementary parent orientation on Thursday, August 14, 1997, "Adolescents are most likely to become involved with gangs at the middle school level." If this is the case, should we as a community do everything in our power to encourage more supervision at this age level instead of less supervision? Because 400 students are on vacation everyday, truancy becomes almost impossible to enforce. Police begin to impose an atmosphere of guilty by association when they ask to see every teenager at the mall what color of ID they have. The police also will need to keep track of which color is on vacation at any given time. 

Finally, the financial estimates I have received from the District office is that the multi-track will cost an additional $300,000 - $400,000 more than single track each year. As a tax payer, I am not sure that this is a wise use of funds. With that kind of money each year a school could add the dreaded "portable." I had several classes, when I was in Jr. High and High School, which met in portables and actually survived to tell about it. These portables are not all that bad. No, they are not ideal, but a much better option to multi-track.

The only real reason a school system would consider a muti-track system is to solve an over crowded problem in a community which does not have the available resources to build additional schools or classrooms. What solutions could be possible this late in the development of the Mauka Middle School.

The elementary schools have figured out how to deal with an over-crowded school. Mililani Town elementary schools are not growing in numbers because there are no more houses being built in Mililani Town. Because of additional military housing and the fact that Mililani town is getting older the theory is that the elementary schools are at their peak. In fact some of these elementary schools have already begun to decline. Yes, Mililani Mauka is growing, however, in 5-6 years it is my understanding that a new elementary school will be built.

This is not my idea, but I do think it warrants another look. This solution solves the over crowding for the entire complex. I am aware of some of the earlier discussions about keeping the Mililani students all intact without mixing them with other schools. However, many school districts do this very successfully.

Use the $300,000 to $400,000 per year the state has already allocated to the multi-track system, to erect portables at $120,000 to $130,000 each. If managed correctly, bathroom facilities could be added in a year or two at no additional cost to the state. 

One last word about these solutions. No solution is perfect. In an overcrowded school system, it becomes choosing between the lesser of the less-than-ideal solutions. The people who are given the responsibility of solving the overcrowded situation are able to see the multi-track system as a good solution without necessarily addressing the bigger picture of the effect on the education of our children, the impact multi-track will have on our families, and how it will impact our community as a whole. What I am asking is to place the MULTI-TRACK SYSTEM at the bottom of the list of options. Possibly it could even be removed OFF the list. 

Mahalo for taking the time to read this letter and consider some alternatives to the multi-track system. The above is the perspective of one parent, who works with teenagers in the community, and tax payer in Mililani Town. 

Sincerely, 

Andrew Large

Thank you again for taking the time to read this opposing view. I welcome any comments you may have regarding any point that has been raised here. You may reach me (Andrew Large) at mysc@pixi.com 

Together let us make Hawaii the best place to educate our children.

Click here to go to Mililani Baptist Youth Parent's Page