LAHAINA - This was supposed to be a "cruise" year for seniors at Lahainaluna High School.
Instead, the 234 students in the Class of 2009 were tasked with creating and completing the first generation of senior projects at the school in a program that, beginning next year, will be an optional program available to seniors at all Hawaii public schools.
"We wanted to make their senior year relevant," said Lahainaluna English teacher Anne Goff, one of the primary leaders of the program to require all seniors to complete a special project. "We didn't want them to sit around and cruise."
Students grumbled, even complained about the project requirements - a research paper, 30-hour work logs, a portfolio including visual documentation, a PowerPoint presentation and a formal oral presentation before a panel of students and adults.
"There was an initial attitude of 'this is incredibly difficult, too hard and too much work,'" said Ryan Granillo, another teacher who instigated the senior projects. In the end, all but two seniors completed projects.
"It really bridged a student's personal interests with their academic work," Granillo said.
It also turned out to be a lot of fun, said librarian Sharyl Seino, who served as a mentor on at least one project and assisted with research materials in many others.
The goal of the projects was for the students to demonstrate some of the skills they've learned in their 13 years of schooling. Each senior could choose either community service, self-development or career for his or her project.
Tyler Kia, 17, created a mosaic depicting a whale and his school's name using red and blue tiles and cracked mirror, which was installed on a 4-by-12-foot section of wall on campus. He called his piece "Intro to a Labor of Love."
He worked five days out of his winter break to complete the project.
"I thought I had a lot of patience, but I learned I really don't," Kia said.
His mentor and art and ceramics teacher George Kahumoku Jr. (also a Grammy-winning slack-key guitarist), encouraged him along the way.
Having contributed to a painting at the Kalama Park bathrooms in Kihei and now a mosaic at his school, Kia has been asked to do a mural at the Kahului Airport, and said he's seriously considering the offer.
After high school, he's enrolling at a community college in Las Vegas with plans to transfer to the College of Southern Nevada.
"My biggest passion is photography," Kia said, adding that he hopes to get into the field once he finishes school.
Seniors Keola Ah Nee and Floribelle Mae dela Cruz both completed career projects, with Ah Nee studying the life of a juvenile police officer and dela Cruz trying out the work of a fashion coordinator.
"My passion is to help people," Ah Nee, 17, said. His PowerPoint presentation focused on his knowledge of the job of a Maui police officer, the laws pertaining to juveniles, and his ride-alongs with his mentor, Lahainaluna School Resource Officer Scott Perry.
"It really helped me," Ah Nee said about his project. "It gave me a glimpse of what I can do in the future."
Ah Nee's immediate plans after high school are to enlist in the United State Marine Corps. He's scheduled to report to training June 15 and is contemplating serving as a police officer in the Marines.
Ah Nee's advice for future seniors doing projects is to "follow your passion" and choose a topic "that you love or want to get to know."
Dela Cruz said she found her senior project - a prom fashion show production - to be "stressful but very rewarding."
With Seino as her mentor, dela Cruz coordinated the annual Lahainaluna prom fashion show from start to finish, contacting vendors, fitting student models for clothes, writing the show's script, coordinating entertainment and even making Spam musubi for the student models to eat on the day of the event.
Seino said, and both Kia and Ah Nee agreed, that dela Cruz's fashion show was one of the best the school has seen.
"It was just like the professionals," said Ah Nee, who also happened to serve as one of the student models for prom fashions.
Dela Cruz is heading to Maui Community College in the fall and will take fashion courses there. She hopes to continue her studies in Los Angeles where she'll pursue a career in fashion.
Principal Mike Nakano served on numerous panels to review senior projects and accompanied his staff to other schools to showcase the Lahainaluna program.
"I'm really proud of them," Nakano said.
He said seniors had hoped to relax in their final year of high school, but the project challenged them.
"By the end, they felt really accomplished. They felt proud of themselves, and they were all, 'I'm glad I did this,'" Granillo said.
Beginning next school year, the state Department of Education will offer seniors a chance to earn a Board of Education Recognition Diploma. The optional program is similar to Lahainaluna's, and requires students to create a portfolio and complete a service learning project.
The idea is to challenge a senior to plan, execute and even evaluate a project from start to finish, said Daniel Hamada, the assistant superintendent for the Office of Curriculum Instruction and Student Support.
"At the end of the day, it has to be relevant and make sense to the student," Hamada said.
The Board of Education Recognition Diploma will require that the student present his or her project in a PowerPoint format to a panel of students and adults who can ask questions and provide a critique of the senior's work.
Hamada said he believes it will help students to prepare for college and work. Each student will be offered an adviser or mentor to work with, and Hamada said the program could start as early as a high schooler's freshman year.
"It's really about building the whole child," Hamada said.
* Claudine San Nicolas can be reached at claudine@mauinews.com.
