SARAH TEEHEE / HAWAIIAN MISSION ACADEMY Sophomore Mary Reiber logs onto Hawaiian Mission Academy's Edline to check her grades.

Programs help students
make the grade

Edline and Success Teams encourage
the involvement of parents and teachers

Student Q & A
Trips cultivate student-teacher bonds

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By Sarah Teehee
Hawaiian Mission Academy

You've been sick at home now for four days. You're behind in your class work. You phone your friend for missed assignments. She's not at home, so a whole day of sheer boredom awaits you. The biology trip to Kauai is coming up soon, and you won't be eligible with incomplete work. Major dilemma -- what are you going to do?

At Hawaiian Mission Academy, Edline is a new way of checking grades, missed assignments, events and teachers' notes online. Each student has a user name and account to check his or her grades. Because parental involvement is important, parents also have accounts to access grades, as well as confidential messages. Teachers' e-mail addresses are also listed online.

During the last Open House, parents learned how to use Edline to check grades. After the lesson, Vice Principal Jerry Gilkeson encouraged parents to go to Edline, create their own accounts and visit the site regularly. Gilkeson also held classes for parents who missed Open House or needed help with their accounts.

Teachers usually post grades every week or two, so grades are more current than tri-term printouts were. Accessibility to grades helps parents monitor students' success or areas of difficulty. Parents can then spend more time helping their children.

Most parents are concerned about their child's grades, friends and school in general. With Edline, parents can find out what's really happening at school.

Principal Josué Rosado also implemented a new program to improve the success rate among students experiencing academic difficulties. "From time to time during the school year, students may encounter an occasion when they confront problems or are in need of assessment and encouragement," the Student Handbook says. "At such times, there may be a need for offering the student support. A Student Success Team (SST) will meet to discuss the student's concerns."

Occasionally, one or two teachers may express concern for a student. The faculty and administration work together to solve the student's problems, taking time to evaluate a student's misbehavior or poor grades.

Teachers have always been aware of various styles of teaching and learning, and they frequently can help a student with special processing problems cope and become successful.

In one SST case more than a year ago, a student raised his GPA to above 3.0 from below 2.0. This improvement resulted from following the recommendations of a professional counselor who assessed the student.

The staff at HMA makes an effort to help its students reach their goals and be as successful as possible. The SST exists to meet the needs of students requiring help.

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You asked

If you could meet one person who has lived in the last hundred years or is living today, who would it be, and why?

Natalie Beltrán
Freshman
"Princess Diana. She was compassionate and initiated a lot of humanitarian projects instead of just relaxing in her luxury."

Layla Ohara
Sophomore
"The people who killed Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. I would ask them what they were thinking when they killed the two men."

Adam Hori
Junior
"(Albert) Einstein. I would like to know what he thinks of the developments in science and technology."

Heather Zane
Junior
"Ben Carson. As the world's greatest and busiest neurosurgeon, he must be under great pressure to perform. I'd like to know how he copes."

Rusty Oft
Senior
"The person I want to meet the most is Chris Farley because he was so funny and seemed a fun person to be around."

Tatiana Beltrán
Sophomore
"Jennifer Lopez. We have the same ethnic background. She is one of the most amazing Puerto Ricans I have always wanted to talk to."

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