Week of 8/16/24

It is with great pride that we officially announce the beginning of a truly momentous occasion — our 75th anniversary! Throughout this school year, we will celebrate together and invite you to join us in remembering that we are all — alumni, students, parents, faculty and friends — Ka Makani. Take a stroll through our historical timeline, meet just a few of the many Ka Makani who make us proud, and read about our vision for the future in the 75th Anniversary feature just launched on our website. There, you will also find information about planned gatherings for the year ahead, and have a chance to pre-order our very special 75th anniversary aloha wear collection. Make sure to follow us on Instagram @HawaiiPrep to stay in the loop about all of the festivities.

Schedule
Our Upper School 2024-2025 Daily Schedule will resume as a Mamo day with in-person instruction on our Upper Campus on Monday, August 19.

We encourage all students and families to access the School Calendar in myHPA for the most up-to-date information. In addition, a list of Key Dates (school opening and closures) can also be located on the Upper School Family Resources tile located in myHPA.

Coming Up
• Friday, August 23, from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm: Upper School Class Retreats
• Monday, August 26 at 8:30 am: Upper School Convocation in Davis Memorial Chapel
• Wednesday, August 28, from 8:30 to 10:00 am: School Picture Day; Taylor Commons conference room
• Monday, September 2: Labor Day holiday, no classes K-12, school closed
• Friday, September 20: Faculty Work Day, all divisions, no classes K-12

Student Support
Should your child need additional learning support, we encourage you to reach out to Amanda Aragon, our Upper School Learning Center Coordinator, by emailing aaragon@hpa.edu. In addition, our counselors are ready to assist any student who needs additional support to navigate these unusual and unprecedented times. Please feel free to reach out to the Upper Campus counseling team of Tiffany Freitas at 808-881-4038 or tfreitas@hpa.edu and Steve Furchner at 808-640-4441 or sfurchner@hpa.edu.

Student Life
Ka Makani Athletics
Another fall season is ready to roll. Let the games begin! Here’s the updated fall athletic schedule and the weekly schedule. GO KA MAKANI! You can also access the athletics schedule on the myHPA calendar.

Opening Days Information Sessions

We were so excited to welcome our families to campus for Upper School Opening Days. We covered a lot of information during our orientation sessions, much of which you can find when you log into myHPA, click on the Resource Board tab, and select either the Upper School Family Resources tile or the Upper School Student Resources tile.

Class Retreat Information
Class Retreats will take place on Friday, August 23 from 8:30 am to 3:00 p.m. Class Leaders will send out detailed information to families with an agenda and items to bring.

Senior Class of 2025
Class Dean: Pualani Lincoln Maielua
Class Leaders: Robert Burchell and Julie Camarillo
Activity: Hike up to the Kamakani Tree Laʻelaʻe, class lei making, photo, and advisory. End the day on campus with a social waterslide, pool time, games, and ice pop sharing as the HPA Student Community.

Junior Class of 2026:
Class Dean: Cindy Montgomery
Class Leaders: Laura Swarz-Burt and Robyn Scarth
Activity: Field trip to Waimea Nature Park – Ula Laʻau community partner for connection and service, and then on to Hāpuna. Please wear a t-shirt that is red, white, or has an HPA logo. End the day on campus with a social waterslide, pool time, games, and ice pop sharing as the HPA Student Community.

Sophomore Class of 2027:
Class Dean: Robyn Brewer
Class Leaders: Vaipuarii Tapiero Kight and Willie Quayle
Activity: A focus on culture and belonging. Students will embark on a campus walkabout to learn about our HPA community. End the day on campus with a social waterslide, pool time, games, and ice pop sharing as the HPA Student Community.

Freshmen Class of 2028
Class Dean: Crystal Sebastian
Class Leaders: Daena Craven and Patrick O’Leary
Activity: An introduction to our HPA Community and high school. Icebreakers, and team-building activities designed to deepen our connection to HPA and each other. There will be a pool party, and outdoor games for those who do not want to swim. End the day on campus with a social waterslide, pool time, games, and ice pop sharing as the HPA Student Community.

School Photo Day
Our Upper School Photo Day is scheduled for Wednesday, August 28, from 8:30 to 10:00 am in the Taylor Commons conference room, located in the dining hall.

If paying by cash or check have your child bring payment to the photographer on the day of their photo session. Photo Order forms will be available at the Student Life Center. You can also access the photo order form on the Upper School Family Resources and the Upper School Student Resources tile in myHPA. Students will not be allowed to charge school photo’s to their Kamakani cash card. Students can place a pre-order online by using the photo order form.

All students must take a photo for the yearbook and receive a School ID. Students do not need to order a photo package to have their photos taken.

If a student is unable to take their photo on their assigned day, they should reach out to Mrs. Wengler-Ioane at lihau@hpa.edu as soon as possible.

Hele-On Bus Passengers – Shuttle from Village Campus to Upper Campus
For students who ride the Hele-On Bus to school each day, HPA will offer a shuttle from the Village Campus to the Upper Campus. Route 76 Green Line arrives at the Village Campus at approximately 7:45 am. The HPA Shuttle will wait for students behind Isaacs Art Center. Students need to get off the bus at Longs Drugs and walk across the street to board the shuttle to the Upper Campus. For students who take the late bus, the shuttle will be parked at the bus stop just past the Waiaka Bridge on Kawaihae Road by 8:20 am. For questions or more information, you can contact Auxiliary Services at 808-881-4041 or email auxiliary@hpa.edu.

Day Student Locker Assignments
If you have not completed a Locker Request form and you would like a locker, please go and see Mrs. Wengler-Ioane in the Upper School Academic Office.

Students can find their locker number and locker combinations in their myHPA student accounts under Student profile → Contact Card → General information or by following these instructions.

Day Student Check-in and Check-out
All day students must check in at the Student Life Office before attending their first commitment of the day, even if they are running late to class. Students must sign out at the Student Life Center if they are leaving campus before their last commitment of the day, including athletics and co-curriculars. If a student is returning to campus during the academic day, they must sign in at the Student Life Center before heading to class along with a note from their appointment.

As a reminder, HPA is a closed campus, so if a parent or guardian wishes to come to campus during the academic day, they will need an appointment with one or more of the following:

• Upper School Office (upperschool@hpa.edu)
  • US Administrative Assistant, Līhau Wengler-Ioane (lihau@hpa.edu)
• Assistant Head of School for Upper School, Mark Noetzel (hpaus@hpa.edu)
• Curriculum & Instruction Coordinator: Dr. Amanda Aragon, aaragon@hpa.edu
• Capstone Program Coordinator: Pualani Lincoln Maielua ‘01, plincolnmaielua@hpa.edu
• Athletics: Steve Perry (sperry@hpa.edu)
• Extra-curricular programs: Kaʻai Spencer (jspencer@hpa.edu)
• Student’s Advisor
• Student Life Center (studentlife@hpa.edu)
• Health Services (infirmary@hpa.edu)

Day Student Attendance Protocols
A parent or guardian must email attendance@hpa.edu before 9:00 am if they need to excuse their child for that day. Please note that students will only be excused for appointments or family or medical reasons. Unexcused absences will result in conduct points which can result in the student being restricted to campus for boarding and/or ineligible for academic awards, i.e. the Dean’s List. Students are responsible for checking their conduct points and attendance records and should reach out as soon as possible if there are any errors.

For long-term absences, please also reach out to the Upper School Office and the student’s advisor to coordinate a plan for the missing classes.

If a day student is ill, please do not send them to school, but email attendance@hpa.edu and include Health Services (infirmary@hpa.edu), and a nurse will follow up with the proper return-to-class procedure. If a student already on campus begins to feel ill, they must report to the infirmary, where the nurses will take care of them. If a student fails to do so and is absent to a class, the absence will be unexcused.

Ka Makani Travel
Ka Makani Travel, HPA’s student travel program, is offering four trips for the 2024-25 school year:

• Thanksgiving 2024 – New York City: An Urban Adventure (tentative itinerary & cost); the deadline to enroll is September 3, 2024
• Spring Break 2025 – Japan: Land of the Rising Sun with EF Tours, the deadline to enroll is November 8, 2024
• Spring Break 2025 – The Alps and the Mediterranean Coast with EF Tours; the deadline to enroll is November 8, 2024
• Spring Break 2025 – Heights of Peru with EF Tours; the deadline to enroll is November 8, 2024

A limited number of Ka Makani Travel grants are available. The deadline to submit an application to be considered for an HPA travel grant is 10:00 pm on Monday, August 26, 2024. EF Tours offers scholarships for their trips, the application can be found here: EF’s Global Citizen Scholarship Fund. The deadline to apply is August 13, 2024. To apply, you must be enrolled in an EF Tour.

Please contact Ka Makani Travel Coordinator Adrienne White (awhite@hpa.edu) for information on registration, eligibility, and travel grants.

Whom to Contact at HPA
If you are unsure who to contact regarding a specific question or issue, please refer to our Whom to Contact guide.

Residential Life
It is hard to believe that it was only a week ago that many of you were on campus and our residential students first arrived for the new year! In that time, your children received lots of information about life at HPA, advice on how to navigate our various policies and schedules, went on adventures around the island, relaxed at the beach, shopped for room decor, and — most importantly — made lots of new connections in our community! They are a few days into class now and starting the real routine of life at our school. Next week, there will also be the addition of after-school co-curricular activities, for those not already in a varsity sport.

As we discussed last weekend, we look forward to partnering with all of you on the care and development of your children. Our community is strong and full of wonderful faculty, staff, and students. There are many different opportunities for students to get involved, make new friends, and get the most out of their time here. But there will also be challenges. As we work to teach our students to be more independent, we will encourage them to tackle these challenges head-on. Our support staff is prepped and ready to assist them and to catch them if they stumble too far.

Homesickness is a common condition for first-time boarding students, and it is important to empathize with your children if they are feeling it, and to let them know that they are not alone. Living away from their families can be a daunting new challenge for some of them, but again, know that we are here to help. I would ask you to join us in our quest to help them develop their independence and problem-solving abilities with a simple question: “Who at the school have you gone to for help?”

Whether dealing with homesickness, academic challenges, interpersonal issues with their peers, health issues, and so on, we have people who can help, and we ask for your assistance and support in getting the students to us so that we can help them. In time, most every student at HPA will be able to find that thing that brings them some joy and that they can excel at, but if they are struggling it is hard to see those opportunities, so we thank you for encouraging them to seek support here at school.

We are at the start of a grand new adventure! This semester will bring a cavalcade of fun events, new opportunities, joy, and memories! We look forward to living and working with all of our students this year, and thank you again for your support!

College Counseling
Aloha Mai Class of 2025! A warm welcome back to our seniors! We are so excited to work with you as you continue on your college search and application journey. We have snacks, coffee, and spectacular college counselors (if we do say so ourselves!) waiting for you, so please stop by our office once you’re back on campus. We can’t wait to see you!

Please know that you never need an appointment to hang out in the College Counseling Center. We love students socializing, “talking story,” or studying in our shared space. You are now seniors, and this is your College Counseling Center.

Below are some simple but important senior fall tasks to help you get started:

TASK 1: Work on your College Counseling TO DO list
Below is a list of tasks to work on in the weeks ahead. You may have already completed many of these tasks. If so, keep up the great work! If not, please work towards completing these assignments before your first senior individual meeting:

• Please ensure that both you and your parents/guardians can successfully log in to Scoir, and reach out to us if you have any trouble.
• Complete and submit the Self-Input Form
• Complete and submi the  Parent/Guardian Input Form.
• List all of the colleges you are thinking about in your Scoir account in either the “Following” or “Applying” column in the “My Colleges” section.
• Request two letters of recommendations for your college applications and then officially request the letters in your Scoir account (Colleges and Applications → Manage Applications).
• Complete or edit the “Overview” sections with your personal information.
• Revise and update your Common Application.
• Spend time on the “Activities” section of the Common App  to truly highlight your extracurriculars.
• Draft your main college essay and send it to your college counselor for feedback.
• Add all of your Common Application colleges to your Common Application.
• Organize and draft the supplemental essay prompts for colleges on your list that require supplemental essays.
• Register for ACT and/or SAT for the senior fall (if applicable).

TASK 2: Schedule an Individual Check-in Meeting
Beginning on Wednesday, August 14, Mr. Kelsey and Mrs. Montgomery will be available for individual check-in meetings. Please click below to select a 30-minute time slot for an individual appointment with your assigned counselor. All meetings will be in the College Counseling Center.

Kelsey Appointment Link

Montgomery Appointment Link

If you are a new senior, or are unsure of your assigned counselor, please contact us directly at college@hpa.edu.

TASK 3: Register for the SAT and/or ACT and Test Prep (if appropriate)
We will offer the following SAT and ACT tests at HPA. Seniors register and pay for these tests by logging on to their College Board or ACT accounts and paying with a credit card. Listed below are the fall test dates that will be offered on the HPA Upper Campus this fall.

SAT Dates –Fall 2024

• Saturday, August 24
• Saturday, October 5 (registration deadline September 20)
• Saturday, November 2 (registration deadline October 18)
• Saturday, December 7 (registration deadline November 22)

ACT Dates– Fall 2024

• Saturday, September 14 (late registration deadline is August 25)
• Saturday, October 26 (registration deadline September 20)
• Saturday, December 14 (registration deadline November 18)

ACT/SAT Test Prep Boot Camp–Register Now!
HPA will once again partner with Tutors Across America to provide an Online ACT/SAT Test Prep Boot Camp from Friday, September 6 through Sunday, September 8. The online Boot Camp has been designed with a focus on 11th and 12th graders, but all grade levels are welcome to participate. For underclassmen, this course will serve as early preparation for the PSAT in October and any future SAT/ACT testing.

ACT/SAT Test Prep Virtual Boot Camp
Friday, September 6: 4:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Saturday, September 7: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm (break for lunch from 1:00 to 2:00 pm)
Sunday, September 8: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm (break for lunch from 1:00 to 2:00 pm)

Students who have attended the Boot Camp have averaged 3 to 7-point improvements on the ACT and 150-200 points on the SAT, representing a 30-40 percentile point increase. The program includes two practice exams for each test — using actual past ACT and SAT exams.

While the cost to attend the camp is typically $399, HPA students qualify for a discounted price of $199 using the coupon code HAWAIIPREP at checkout.

How To Enroll in the ACT/SAT Class

1. Go to: http://TutorsAcrossAmerica.com/ACTcourse
2. Scroll down to find your course.
3. Enroll as directed.
4. Use coupon code HAWAIIPREP at checkout to get the 50% discount.

If you have questions about the program, you may contact Wendi Whitteker at wendi@tutorsacrossamerica.com, or feel free to reach out to  testing@hpa.edu. This course is offered in a virtual format only. There is no in-person option.

Past Email Communications
All past email communications can be accessed by visiting the Upper School Family Resources tile on myHPA and scrolling down to ‘Past Email Communications, 2024-2025’.

myHPA
myHPA is where you can find all the resources related to your child’s learning. Two key resource boards that we would like to draw your attention to are the ‘Upper School Family Resources’, and the ‘Upper School Student Resources’.