Connections Public Charter School
The School - Mission
Chartered by the State Board of Education on May 5, 2000, and authorized under signature of the Governor of the State of Hawai`i, the President of the State Board of Education, and the State Superintendent of Schools, "Connections" New Century Public Charter School (CPCS) has been established as the result of a joint effort between parents, community members and educators. The school opened in August of 2000, for grades K-6 with 184 students, and expanded to a K-12 program with 360 students in August of 2001. The desire for this unique charter school is evidenced by an enrollment waiting list and is further evidenced by the broad-based community representation in the operation of the school.
Resulting from their innovative work, CPCS has been designated as a "Demonstration Site" for the University of Hawai`i – Manoa Curriculum Research and Development Group (CRDG) and as such will be a major clearinghouse for emerging curriculum as well as a center for teacher staff development.
The centerpiece of the CPCS mission involves the learner, parent, and teacher working together to identify strengths and weaknesses, and agreement upon learning objectives appropriate for that learner. While state and national frameworks provide guidance and criteria for measuring ultimate success, the order and manner of learning new material is adjusted to the needs of each child. When the pupil has contributed to deciding his or her own goals there follows a sense of commitment to accomplish those goals which does not occur when objectives are set from above.
The primary mission of CPCS includes both the nurturing and education of the children served. Specifically, we strive for every child to leave CPCS as a technologist, a life-long learner, a caring and concerned citizen, a creative and quality producer, and a critical thinker and cooperative worker. CPCS has created an ‘Ohana that is conducive to the recognition of individual talents. Where:
When CPCS learning experiences are related to the real world, children do not view their schooling as separate from life. Consequently, the mission of CPCS is driven by principles such as individual responsibility, personal mastery, self-esteem, shared responsibility, and community.
One pillar of the school is Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, which asserts that learners rely on linguistic, mathematical/logical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, spatial, musical, and possibly other ways of thinking, in varying degrees. Another pillar is found in the philosophy that nurturing which produces social growth goes hand in hand with academics. Teaching must reach out to each learner, to find those ways of nurturing and learning, which works best for individual students.
Open to all students, who by parental choice wish to attend, CPCS focuses resources and efforts on refinement and management of established and highly successful curriculums such as the "Developmental Approaches in Science Health, and Technology (DASH)" project. DASH is an elementary program developed by the CRDG. Based on research and successful practices, CPCS addresses and follows widely accepted research reflecting that curriculum should be presented in many different forms to reach students who learn in many different ways.
The School - Instruction Curriculum and Focus
Because CPCS is not a place, but rather a set of experiences under the guidance and direction of teachers and parents, students are not constrained by time and it’s limitations. CPCS uses a variety of alternative approaches designed to meet the individual needs of students. Design of a mentoring model addresses the needs of educationally at risk students at both ends of the cognitive spectrum. An individualized and small group delivery model has been designed to address the needs of behaviorally at risk students within the school population. A continuous progress model has also been designed to address the needs of students when they are in project-based experiential learning situations.
CPCS links student needs with sound educational practices, flexibility of structure, and freedom from select curriculum mandates that bring time constraints and inhibit learning. An integration of current and emerging technologies, based on research and models of best practice across the nation, provides CPCS students a relevant hands-on learning community.
Specifically, the CPCS model and its local systems design have been demonstrated as appropriate to address the learning needs of the projected student population because it provides for:
The CPCS Educational Framework is predicated on the belief that all instructional strategies need to revolve around the concept and practices of experiential learning. Instructional methods that support engaged experiential learning focus on preparing students to be problem solvers able to use information, not just remember it.