Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 5, 1 Mei 1990 — Our Readers Write. [ARTICLE]

Our Readers Write.

Open letter

To the Editor An open letter to Kamehameha Schools I attended a parents' meeting at Kamehameha, to help our child "eope" with not being accepted back into Kamehameha Schools in the seventh grade. 1 have known for six years that I wasgoing to eome face to face with this as my daughter progressed from grade to grade. Now that this is reality, it saddens me to think that my child will now have to piek up and go to a strange new environment. Life is always taking new turns and ehallenges. Granted, if she were in any other elementary school she would indeed be going to a new school but along with her would go most of her peers. We parents are now searching for alternatives while our children are grouping together and trying to apply for the same schools so that they will not have to face this new challenge alone. Sixth grade is the only grade that asks students to leave if they are not accepted back in "because there was someone smarter than you" that got in. lt is said the fop students will be chosen Islandwide. Our children's egos will be shot down as they think they did not pass "the test," their own test. Your statistics scare me that only about 30 percent of the sixth grade will remain in Kamehameha School. Our children have no control over the area in whieh they live, the financial abiiities of their parents, and the parents' marital status but they will have to "bear the ax." Right now we ean tell our children "it doesn't matter" and prepare them until we are blue in the face and they are tired of our drilling into them that they may not be back. 1 ask you, could you, would you, go to these sixth graders when they get "The Leiter ' of acceptance or denial and be with them through this time of need and tell them "it's okay, it doesn't matter"? As parents we considered taking our daughter out in the fifth grade just so that she would not have to go through this pressure but we held back with the hope that she would be one of the "lucky chosen" ones to get back in. Our daughter is not a top student academically but she tries. as we have taught her to be the best person she ean be. I eannot grasp the thought that Kamehameha Schools will be accepting approximately 320 students at seventh grade and won't keep the 100 students that you have nurtured, helped blossom and gvow for the last six years.

Do you think it was the Princess' wish to have neh men — or happy children? Just another displeased Hawaiian parent Norman K. Brown Jr. Kaaawa, Hawai'i