I have a great job. I truly believe that Okoboji Community Schools have taught me a lot in my short (6 yrs) time here. One of the many things I am grateful for is the fact that I can take my vacation days anytime during the school year. Let me tell you a little about my vacation that Victoria and I took last week.
We were able to spend 5 ½ days in Honolulu, Hawaii. I don't know how many of you have ever had a chance to go there but it should be on everyone's bucket list. It is truly amazing and as beautiful as advertised. We did the quintessential tourist things – snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, a helicopter ride around the island, swimming in the ocean, and shopping in all the ABC Stores (there's one on every block, literally).
The hotel we stayed at gave us a complementary newspaper everyday, the Honolulu Star Bulletin. I read the paper daily, with great interest, of the education articles. Look, I know things are tight, budget-wise, in Iowa. And living in upper northwest Iowa, we occasionally hear of budget woes in Minnesota as well. I was very surprised to hear of such budget problems in the Hawaii school systems. In order to make budgets balance, the state has imposed on the teachers 17 furlough days over the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years. So far, the schools have been closed for 6 days this school year. Read about the furloughs in this short newspaper article from the past. That's close to a 10% cut in class time. And everyone in the state of Iowa is trying to figure out where we can reschedule snow days. What a contrast.
There was other evidence of poverty in Honolulu. I should not have been surprised that in a city the size of Honolulu (876,000 in the year 2000) that there should be poverty. Not everyone who lives in Hawaii lives on the beach. Many people think the same thing about the Okoboji schools, that everyone lives in the nice, big house on the lake. By way of comparison, Okoboji Elementary has a F/R rate of over 30%. But I digress. The number of homeless people we saw was stunning. Living on the beach, in doorway stoops, under stairs just reminds me again of how I'm the luckiest person in the world.
I hope to blog some more about Hawaii and the reflections I've had. Spending a lot of time on airliners will give you the time to reflect.
