This project was designed to help teachers retain their jobs and educational assistants obtain compliance given new, more stringent National and State educational standards. RDP retained the services of Edwin Ginoza, a retired Department of Education (DOE) teacher, receipient of the 1988 Teacher of the Year Award, with 31 years experience as a teacher of chemistry, physics and math.

The training workshop series focused on the Pre-Professional Skills Tests (PPST) in reading, writing, and mathematics. Several workshops were offered on a quarterly basis and a few weeks prior to scheduled exams.

A total of fifty-two (52) participants attended the workshops. Twenty-two successfully passed the exam. Of the 52 participants who completed the program, 22 passed all components of the exam. One other participant has passed portions of the exam with math results still pending. Of those who passed the exam, one is a consultant/entrepreneur; another is operating and teaching in an alternative school for ninth and tenth graders; 16 are substitute teachers and educational assistants; one is a teacher of Hawaiian Immersion with the Punana Leo pre-school students; and another also teaches Hawaiian Immersion at the High School. Eight (8) individuals formerly enrolled in the program are no longer interested in teaching and have assumed other areas of work.

A final report on workshop outcomes and recommendations was submitted by the instructor. The report discussed the math weaknesses prevalent among Hawaii’s teachers and potential teachers, which was once again observed in the attendees of the workshop. The following is a quote from the report: “We have a group of potential teachers and teachers who are wonderful teachers, and very bright, with one weakness: mathematics. They, unfortunately, are a product of the system. They learned math in a mechanical method. They learned to do math without understanding. The PPST math exam and the way that a lot of students learned math are not congruent….. The sessions were designed to teach teachers and prospective teachers patterns and interrelated concepts. Just as important, the sessions were conducted in such a manner that the students’ attitudes were changed as a result of the new learning style. Once the psychological barriers were broken down, attitudes turned positive and students started to enjoy learning mathematics.”

A pilot “pre-college math” program is being developed by the Statewide Educational Assistant (EA) Mentor to address the math “issue”. The Mentor was responsible for guiding EAs through the process of earning college degrees as required by the federal government for continued employment as an EA starting January 2006. The biggest challenge faced by the EAs was coping with the required math curriculum. As with many of our programs, poor basic math skills are once again a stumbling block. The EA Mentor researched and put together an offering of a self-paced, on-line PLATO Interactive Math Curriculum which is equivalent to pre-college math. The Mentor designed a program intended to provide remedial math skills which will qualify students for acceptance into the required Math 100 (Survey of Mathematics) Course. Based on the results of the pilot project, the EA Mentor developed this curriculum and presented it as an alternative math pathway to any DOE employee who needs math skills improvement. RDP’s Statewide long range goal is to develop, and have available, a variety of methods for delivering math to Hawaii’s residents.