Lanai School Gets Hawaiian Immersion Classroom … The creation of a Hawaiian language immersion program comes seven years after a Lanai mother filed a lawsuit against the DOE.
Lanai High and Elementary established its first-ever Hawaiian language immersion classroom this school year, seven years after a Lanai parent of two Hawaiian-speaking elementary-age children filed a lawsuit against the Hawaii Department of Education for failing to provide a program on that island.
The program is a combined kindergarten and first grade classroom serving 13 kids, according to Douglas Boyer, the principal of the island’s only K-12 DOE school.
The two children at the center of the 2014 lawsuit were in first and third grade at the time their mother, Chelsa-Marie Kealohalani Clarabal, sued, saying the DOE was in violation of the state constitution for failing to provide access to an immersion program on Lanai despite propping up programs on other islands.
