Success Stories
Kamehameha Schools & The Hawaii Department of Education
Challenge
Hawaii’s native private school system faced a tough challenge at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comprised of three campuses, Kamehameha Schools offers a unique Hawaiian culture-based curriculum to Hawaiian students, many of which live in small and low-income communities. With the transition away from in-person learning, they needed a custom online education platform that continued to preserve and promote Hawaiian culture in addition to providing a high quality, standards-based education.
Solution
ASU Prep Digital worked hand-in-hand with Kamehameha Schools to create the Kamehameha Digital Platform powered by ASU Prep Digital, a highly customized online education solution designed specifically to meet the needs of Hawaiian learners. Blending the best of ASU’s proprietary K-12 virtual courses and Kamehameha Schools’ Hawaiian culture-based education modules, this unique tool brought the school system to the forefront of online learning in record time.
The partnership was so successful, the Hawaii Department of Education also approached ASU Prep Digital and Kamehameha Schools to pilot Hawaii’s elementary school teachers to use an additional online elementary school program for K-5 students across Hawaii. ASU Prep Digital trained Hawaii’s elementary school teachers on how to use the new online platform.
Results
ASU Prep Digital was able to successfully leverage digital tools to create a powerful blended learning experience for the community. The Kamehameha Digital Platform powered by ASU Prep Digital was up and running in less than 100 days, reaching more than 18,000 Hawaiian students and ensuring they still received a high-quality, culture-focused education in a time where traditional in-person schooling wasn’t possible.
The three-way collaboration among ASU Prep Digital, Kamehameha Schools and the Hawaii Department of Education also brought cutting-edge online learning capabilities to an additional 2,000 elementary school students, including the charter school in the historic fishing village of Miloli’i: a remote and often overlooked community of young learners.
