WAIKOLOA — During the day, Stephanie Landers spends hours planning meetings, brainstorming on projects, events and fundraisers and volunteering at Waikoloa Elementary School, where her son is a second grader. In the evening, she focuses on her real job as a nurse supervisor at North Hawaii Community Hospital.
Fortunately she has a little help, or actually a lot, juggling the two.
Elected president of the school’s Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) last May, she led the first 2016-2017 school year meeting on Aug. 4, successfully recruiting 45 parents to join the team effort — a big increase from eight volunteers last year. Even her husband, John, participates in the effort.
In order to draw parents to the meeting, Landers hosted a “Boo Hoo Yahoo” breakfast the first week of school — a creative way to draw parents feeling separation anxiety from their children for the first time and others who are ready to return to their regular routine.
“Our PTSA meeting was right after the breakfast and everyone stayed,” she said. “I explained to them there’s research that shows the more parents are involved in the school, your child actually performs better because you are more vested in their education.”
In her two-year term, Landers’ first priority is increasing parent involvement.
“At the end of the meeting, all 45 attendees signed a new ‘Two-hour pledge,’ vowing to give two hours of their time during the school year,” she said. “We also talked about our goals and making them realistic.”
Her second priority is hosting more family-centered activities and events at the school.
“There are things that are already on-going, such as a book fair and discount card sales but our focus isn’t just about fundraising,” Landers said. “We want to provide more family-centered activities and events, such as a guest speaker for cyber safety, free movie nights, free trivia nights and a back-to-school bash for next year.”
Pedestrian safety is an issue that concerns Landers.
“Paniolo Avenue is quite the busy road out here,” she said. “We have lights and some volunteers out helping with the flow in the morning and afternoon, but it’s a bit hectic. So I put in a call to the County of Hawaii — Public Works Division last Friday and they are now contacting the traffic division for pedestrian flags to put at the intersection of Hooko and Paniolo and the crosswalk on Paniolo from the school to the Waikoloa Community Church.”
Moving forward on the school’s approved playground project is another priority on her list.
“The PTSA raised $15,000, the school is matching $20,000 and the DOE was putting in $100,000,” Landers said. “We’ve chosen the equipment and are now revising the layout.”
She says her biggest challenge this year will be convincing the state government to add Waikoloa Elementary to the list of schools receiving air conditioning and heat abatement in the classrooms, where temperatures can range from 84-100 degrees.
“The Governor approved the ‘Cool Our Schools’ bill for $100 million and they’ve announced the first 1,000 classrooms. The majority are on Oahu, with just one on the Big Island,” Landers said. “Heat effects children with their studying habits and how they do in school. It can cause nausea, dehydration and vomiting, and they don’t concentrate. That’s why this is our big push.”
She is optimistic that the PTSA’s top priorities will come to fruition.
“I see how coming together, coming up with these goals together as a team and working together will make the differences that are needed,” Landers concluded.
Waikoloa Elementary PTSA meetings are held the first Thursday of each month. Info: 443-8574