Community Partners: PALS

 

The Program for Afterschool Literacy Support (PALS) is a program offered through the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa to provide learning opportunities for a predominantly Native Hawaiian population of children on the Wai‘anae coast. This partnership served as the primary afterschool program for grades 4-6 at Kamaile Academy for years. In SY20111-2012, PALS agreed to train at no cost the Kamaile teachers who would lead the grades K-3 afterschool program modeled directly off of the successes of PALS named Ka Ulu Pono. After last year’s exciting collaboration, the partnership deepened further this year as PALS agreed once again to train our K-3 teachers while also identifying Kamaile as the first site to pilot a PALS program for grades 7-8.

 

Since October 2012, the Navigators’ Center has offered 3 levels of this reputable after-school model to our students: PALS Jr. courses for grades 1-3 (with a kindergarten course planned for the fourth quarter), PALS courses for grades 4-6, and PALS Sr. courses for grades 7-8. Classes are offered at no cost to families for 90 minutes 3 days per week.

 

Below is an overview from their website, which you can visit at www.palshi.org.

 

"PALS uses a place-based cultural project (PBCP) curricular framework that embraces the multiple cultural locations in which the children exist and utilizes community and place as the springboard for learning.  PBCPs engage real-life, ways of knowing and doing and provide integrated opportunities for literacy teaching and learning across the curriculum.

“Students in PALS engage with teachers and other community members in projects that have relevance to their own lives and that nurture children’s identities as learners, community activists, and as stewards of the environment. PALS partners with multiple cultural and educational organizations and individuals including the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Ka‘ala and Hoa ‘Āina O Makaha farms, and numerous local artists, engaging these community partners as both co-planners and co-teachers within the projects.”