The Power of Partnership

Now there’s a word that can have so many different meanings depending on the context. When I think about partnership, my mind goes to many different places. I think about how my spouse and I are both partners to each other and as parents for our son. I think of how I have partnered with the father of my older, Jr.-in-college, son and how our co-parenting partnership has changed over the years. As a teacher, I always asked students to work with a partner or talk with their “shoulder partner,” or I engaged with colleagues as partners to develop an English unit on identity or a history unit on monotheistic traditions.

But this week, I’ve been engaged with the word partner in a different way. Starting on Sunday, I began my four-day stay in O‘ahu to serve on the Kamehameha Schools Kapālama (KSK) accreditation team, and I closed my week with our team hosting four Kamehameha Schools (KS) educational leaders. 

In O‘ahu, I partnered with other Heads of Schools and other educational leaders to form the KSK accreditation visiting team for HAIS (Hawai‘i Association of Independent Schools) and WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges). I spent full days, a few going as long as 15 hours, immersed in the self-study process that we too will undergo with a visiting team in a year. Why do we do these accreditation visits? Because we are partners in supporting each other to be our best as educational institutions. The accreditation process relies on educational leaders volunteering their time to support schools to critically review their self-study to identify distinct areas of strengths as well as opportunities for growth. 

It is not unusual for a new head of school to wait to serve on a visiting team after year one. HAIS and WASC understand that the transition into a new role can be overwhelming, and taking on the accreditation process is a lot to ask. However, when the request came in for me to serve on the team for KSK, I could not say no. 

One of the reasons I was attracted to join Island School as Head of School is because of our KS partnership. And while I knew some about KS before I arrived, I knew little about our partnership. Spending time at KSK was the best way I could both be an engaged partner member for HAIS and WASC as well as experience first hand the type of education that can happen in a KS environment. I can’t tell you the number of times I was moved beyond words. In observing and engaging with students, I could feel their pride in their school, in their identity. I believed their intention to make the most of the opportunity to be a KSK student who one day will be a champion for their people, and ALL people, as they become engaged community members wherever their future takes them…That was powerful.

And then, today, leaders from the KS Hi‘ialo Group joined us for a few hours to discuss our partnership with KS. They met with us, visited classrooms, and toured campus. It is through our partnership with KS that we began to be able to increase our Native Hawaiian student body, establish our ‘Ōleleo Hawai‘i program, and begin the process of enhancing opportunities across our school for Hawaiian cultural-based education. And this development for Island School, this working towards having our school more fully represent the island of Kaua‘i in our student body (which now has 20% of students identifying as Native Hawaiian) and in our programming, has helped us grow in so many important ways. I know for me, this partnership is part of why I’m here.

And now that I am back and fully immersed in Island School life, I look forward to how we will continue to grow our partnership with each of you as our families, with KS and other community organizations, and amongst our team right here at Island School. Our work is to support all our families and students, faculty and staff, so that everyone can bring their full selves to Island School and partner with others who are both like them as well as different. 

Partnership takes time, it takes work, and it takes an openness to the gifts our partners bring…taking advantage of the opportunity when those gifts are in concert and taking time to listen and be patient when those gifts feel in tension with our own.

I am so honored to be in this partnership with you, and I look forward to all that we will make possible together in the years to come. 

Together,

Nancy Nagramada

Head of School

P.S. Thank you to all those who have already re-enrolled, and if you haven’t yet, thank you for re-enrolling by our deadline of 2/15. If needed, you can find 24-25 tuition here and re-enrollment details here.