Over the past four years, Pauoa Elementary School has made remarkable strides in improving English Learners’ progress toward proficiency. The school's Strive HI performance data  reflects this growth, with the percentage of students on track for English proficiency rising from 44% in the 2020–2021 school year to 71.4% in the 2023–2024 school year.

 

This success didn’t happen by chance. It is the result of a multi-year investment in professional learning that has empowered educators to provide high-challenge, high-support instruction for English Learners. With the strategic leadership of the Kaimuki-McKinley-Roosevelt (KMR) Complex Area  and a partnership with Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) at WestEd, Pauoa Elementary has built a culture of collaboration, innovation, and instructional excellence.

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From Professional Learning to Classroom Impact

Pauoa Elementary is not unique in that it serves a linguistically and culturally diverse student body, with 22% of students identified as English Learners. In 2021, alongside other KMR schools, they recognized the need for an instructional approach that would both accelerate language development and deepen content learning.

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To meet this challenge, key educators first participated in QTEL’s professional learning institute, Building the Base, in the 2021–2022 school year. With this foundation in place, small teams of KMR educators—including those at Pauoa—further engaged in cycles of QTEL Collaborative Coaching, a job-embedded model that brings teachers together to apply their learning about best practices for English Learners through planning, observing, and refining high-quality lessons.

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This ongoing work has transformed classroom practice. Teachers now design lessons with English Learners at the center, integrating meaningful scaffolds that support deep engagement with rigorous content. According to Linell Dilwith, KMR’s Complex Area Superintendent, “By engaging in the QTEL Collaborative Coaching cycles, educators are better equipped to meet the diverse needs of our students. The combination of rigorous instruction and meaningful scaffolds allows KMR students to thrive in and beyond the classroom.”

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Empowering Teachers as Leaders

For educators like Ivy Newton, Pauoa Elementary’s English Learner Coordinator, the coaching cycles have been a turning point in how she approaches instructional planning: “It’s not about waiting for English Learners to become proficient—it’s about designing instruction that anticipates and nurtures their potential from day one. Working collaboratively with colleagues has helped me integrate scaffolds that ensure students build their learning from both me and their peers.”

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This shift in mindset has had a ripple effect across grade levels, with teachers actively co-planning and refining lessons. Fourth-grade teacher Minna Chanhboury, who also participated in the coaching cycles, found that this structured collaboration deepened her understanding of how to support English Learners: “Collaborating with my colleagues has refined my teaching. Our students engage in rigorous learning across grade levels, and we ensure that every student—especially our English Learners—has access to complex thinking and deep understanding.”

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At the heart of these instructional shifts are intentional learning tasks designed to promote critical thinking, language development, and collaboration. By working together, Newton and Chanhboury didn’t just improve their own instruction—they built a shared culture of high expectations and support for their students.

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Collaborative Poster: Deepening Comprehension Through Discussion

A key focus of Pauoa’s coaching cycles was to plan various learning tasks to strengthen students' development of English language arts practices and the associated language, with a particular emphasis on fostering high-quality oral interactions. During a lesson on the importance of voting, students engaged in multiple readings and discussions to analyze an informational text. Working in small groups, they created collaborative posters, visually representing key ideas while negotiating meaning and language use through oral discussions.

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As teachers observed students engaging in the collaborative poster task, they noticed that some students would benefit from additional support in organizing their ideas and fully participating in discussions. Recognizing an opportunity to enhance engagement, Chanhboury developed a collaborative poster planning sheet to provide more structure to students’ thinking and collaboration. This adaptation helped ensure that all learners, regardless of proficiency level, could successfully contribute, engage in meaningful discussions, and deepen their understanding of both content and language.

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Triple-Entry Journal: Strengthening Structured Conversations

Building on this success, Newton continued to design and facilitate tasks that encouraged meaningful student discussions. She introduced a Triple-Entry Journal, a tool that helped students deepen their comprehension while engaging in collaborative conversations. Reflecting on the impact, she noted that students “cited evidence, built on each other’s ideas, and provided peer feedback like, ‘Thank you for sharing’ and ‘Good job using evidence from the text.’ It created a classroom environment where students felt confident and eager to express their thoughts.” Through these intentional scaffolds, Newton reinforced a culture of rich academic dialogue, ensuring that English Learners had the support they needed to take risks, articulate their ideas, and develop their academic voice.

 

Sustaining Change Through Leadership

While teacher collaboration has been key to this success, Pauoa Elementary’s progress would not have been possible without strategic leadership. Principal Dale Arakaki ensured that professional learning wasn’t just a one-time event but an embedded part of the school’s culture and followed with job-embedded support. He noted that, “By dedicating time for regular coaching cycles and structured collaboration, we ensured that teachers had the resources and support needed to implement effective instructional practices. This approach has transformed how we teach and how our students learn.”

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Beyond site-level principal support, Pauoa Elementary also had the support of the complex area to sustain and scale these efforts. Under the guidance of Linell Dilwith, Ted Mura, Lorri Kondo, and Kara Ono, the English Learner Leadership Team, Pauoa teachers received ongoing mentorship and access to high-quality resources, reinforcing their school and complex area’s commitment to English Learner success.

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Pauoa's work has been recognized at the state level as they showcased their strategic approach to professional learning and instructional transformation at the 2024 Hawaii Educational Leadership Institute. The presentation wasn’t just about sharing strategies—it was a celebration of what’s possible when educators, leaders, and partners unite around a common goal: ensuring English Learners receive the high-quality education they deserve.

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Final Thoughts

Pauoa Elementary’s transformation is a testament to what’s possible when educators commit to designing high-challenge, high-support learning environments and invest in building the capacity of all educators who support and serve English Learners. Through collaboration, leadership, and strategic professional learning, they have created a sustainable model for English Learner success—one that will continue shaping student outcomes for years to come.

Strive HI is Hawaii's locally designed performance system for public schools and public charter schools and measures school performance and progress.

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In Hawaii’s public school system, a complex area is a regional administrative unit that includes a high school and its feeder middle and elementary schools.

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 Strive HI is Hawaii's locally designed performance system for public schools and public charter schools and measures school performance and progress.

 In Hawaii’s public school system, a complex area is a regional administrative unit that includes a high school and its feeder middle and elementary schools.