Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 36, Number 1, 1 January 2019 — The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has supported education efforts for and by Native Hawaiians across the state, in vital and varied ways. Some highlights include: [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has supported education efforts for and by Native Hawaiians across the state, in vital and varied ways. Some highlights include:

HO'ONA'AUAO EDUCATION

The OHA Board of Trustees in October approved distributing $3 million directly to Hawaiian-focused charter schools over the next two years, changing the way OHA provides its longstanding support to the schools to maximize the amount of funds that go to the students. Direct distribution eliminated the use of the third-party entity, and so the administrative fee usually collected by a third-party vendor was distributed to the schools. Since 2006, OHA has provided $18.6 million to support these schools in their collective mission to provide innovative culture-based education to their students, nearly threequarters of whom are Native Hawaiian.

Hawaiian immersian charter school students gathering for morning assembiy at Ke Kula Kaiapuni o Kualapu'u on Moioka'i. Photo By: Kaipo Kīaha

Four students whose Hawaiian-language science projects qualified for the 2018 statewide science fair eaeh received a certificate of recognition and $100 from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs at the 61 st annual Hawai'i State Science and Engineering Fair awards ceremony. The students were also given kukui plants, whieh represent enlightenment in Hawaiian culture. In August 2017, Awaiaulu, ine., a non-profit entity "dedicated to developing resources and resource people that ean bridge Hawaiian knowledge from the past to the present and the future," was awarded an OHA grant in support of the only 'Olelo Hawai'i-English translation-trainer program in Hawai'i. This grant goes to the next two years of training and production. If ◦ 1 1 goes well, byjuly 2019 Awaiaulu will have 15 fully trained translators working on texts and teaching.