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| By 8 a.m., more than 430 people had reported online to the USGS feeling the earthquake from such faraway places as Hana on Maui and Makawao on O`ahu. The most reports came from Kona, Hilo, Kamuela, Pahoa, Kea`au, Mountain View, Volcano and Honolulu. |
According to Wes Thelen, HVO’s seismic network manager, “these earthquakes were most likely structural adjustments of the Earth’s crust due to the weight of the island on the underlying mantle. The earthquake likely occurred on a near-horizontal fault plane in the mantle, which has hosted earthquakes in this region before. Despite their location near Kilauea’s summit, it’s unlikely that the earthquakes were volcanic in nature due to their depth, which is below and offset from the volcano’s known magma plumbing system.”
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| Jim Kauahikaua |
HVO scientist-in-charge Jim Kauahikaua added that the earthquakes had no apparent effect on Kilauea’s ongoing eruptions. “HVO monitoring networks have not detected any significant changes in activity at the summits or rift zones of Kilauea or other Hawaiian volcanoes.”
The magnitude 4.8 earthquake was felt throughout the Island of Hawai`i, as well as on parts of Maui and O`ahu. The USGS “Did you feel it?” website received almost 400 felt reports within the first hour of the earthquake. Some of the reports follow:
Kauahikaua said the larger event is only the second earthquake with a magnitude greater than four to occur at this location and depth since the start of Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption in 1983. The first one occurred on February 17, 2000. There were six such earthquakes in the 20 years before Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption began.
For information on recent earthquakes in Hawai`i and eruption updates, see hvo.wr.usgs.gov.
KA`U COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE meets Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Ocean View Community Association Center. Public comment on agenda items is welcome.
The meeting focuses on recently released additional draft Ka`u CDP appendices. Appendix V4B: Community Building Analysis focuses on land use, infrastructure, services, design and redevelopment strategies for Pahala, Punalu`u, Na`alehu, Wai`ohinu, the Discovery Harbour area and Ocean View.
Documents are available online at kaucdp.info; at libraries and community centers in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, and Ocean View; and at Hilo and Kona Planning Department offices.
To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.
SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.
ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.
The magnitude 4.8 earthquake was felt throughout the Island of Hawai`i, as well as on parts of Maui and O`ahu. The USGS “Did you feel it?” website received almost 400 felt reports within the first hour of the earthquake. Some of the reports follow:
- Volcano – windows cracked, doors opened and a refrigerator slid across the kitchen.
- Kea`au – table, house, and computer shaking, animals hiding, chicken clucking softly.
- Hapuna beach – woke up to the hotel bed shaking.
- Kamuela – little wake-up call.
- Honoka`a – very loud shaking; house and windows rattled loudly.
- Honolulu – I woke up due to the feeling of shaking of my bed left and right.
- Honolulu – Just happened to be awake, and my bed slightly shook for a couple seconds.
Kauahikaua said the larger event is only the second earthquake with a magnitude greater than four to occur at this location and depth since the start of Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption in 1983. The first one occurred on February 17, 2000. There were six such earthquakes in the 20 years before Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption began.
For information on recent earthquakes in Hawai`i and eruption updates, see hvo.wr.usgs.gov.
To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.
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| Owen Allsopp is a new recruit, teaching first grade at Pahala Elementary. Photo from Allsopp's Facebook page |
PAHALA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER Owen Allsopp made national news yesterday in an Associated Press story. “The 22-year-old graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is settling into teaching first grade at Pahala Elementary on the Big Island and sharing a house with three new teachers,” the story reports.
The story notes that “before the first day of school, he already had a good grasp of Hawaiian names and words. And he’s aware of the pressure to keep him.”
It quotes him saying, “I know it’s so important because it’s hard to create lasting change if there’s so much transition happening.... There needs to be serious commitment.”
Allsopp is one of the new teachers that the state Department of Education is courting, hoping to keep them with pay bonuses and training in local cultures and language dialects.
The AP story, which is headlined on MSN News as Hawai`i Schools Struggle to Keep Teachers from Quitting, states that Hawai`i “has to recruit most of its teachers from the mainland, then struggles to keep them in the face of a high cost of living, culture shock and isolation.”
The story leads off by writing about Jonathan Sager, who was “an idealistic 22-year-old recent college graduate when he arrived in Hawai`i in 2006, yearning to make a difference in the lives of children in hardscrabble neighborhoods like those on the Waianae Coast.
“About an hour’s drive from bustling Honolulu, the stretch of unspoiled beaches and looming mountains is home to a high concentration of Native Hawaiians and some of the state’s lowest-performing schools. So Sager learned their culture, bought a condo and planned to stay.
“After seven years, Sager, now 29, quit, packing up this summer for Texas and becoming the latest teacher Hawai`i could not keep as it tries to fill a seemingly perpetual teacher shortage. He said he was frustrated by constant educational experimentation.”
The story states that when he first arrived to teach in Hawai`i, “Sager, of Warren, Ohio, took a bus tour along with other new teachers and saw the poverty on the Waianae Coast.
“Settling in required developing an ear for the pidgin English his students spoke and learning to pronounce vowel-laden names he never heard before. Even as he earned their acceptance, Sager said, he grew frustrated with feeling like he and his students were lab rats for experimental programs.
‘We start, and it’s not perfect, so we scrap it and start over,’ he said.”
It quotes him saying, “I know it’s so important because it’s hard to create lasting change if there’s so much transition happening.... There needs to be serious commitment.”
Allsopp is one of the new teachers that the state Department of Education is courting, hoping to keep them with pay bonuses and training in local cultures and language dialects.
The AP story, which is headlined on MSN News as Hawai`i Schools Struggle to Keep Teachers from Quitting, states that Hawai`i “has to recruit most of its teachers from the mainland, then struggles to keep them in the face of a high cost of living, culture shock and isolation.”
The story leads off by writing about Jonathan Sager, who was “an idealistic 22-year-old recent college graduate when he arrived in Hawai`i in 2006, yearning to make a difference in the lives of children in hardscrabble neighborhoods like those on the Waianae Coast.
“About an hour’s drive from bustling Honolulu, the stretch of unspoiled beaches and looming mountains is home to a high concentration of Native Hawaiians and some of the state’s lowest-performing schools. So Sager learned their culture, bought a condo and planned to stay.
“After seven years, Sager, now 29, quit, packing up this summer for Texas and becoming the latest teacher Hawai`i could not keep as it tries to fill a seemingly perpetual teacher shortage. He said he was frustrated by constant educational experimentation.”
The story states that when he first arrived to teach in Hawai`i, “Sager, of Warren, Ohio, took a bus tour along with other new teachers and saw the poverty on the Waianae Coast.
“Settling in required developing an ear for the pidgin English his students spoke and learning to pronounce vowel-laden names he never heard before. Even as he earned their acceptance, Sager said, he grew frustrated with feeling like he and his students were lab rats for experimental programs.
‘We start, and it’s not perfect, so we scrap it and start over,’ he said.”
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| Owen Allsopp's Facebook cover photo is Green Sands Beach, showing his immersion into Ka`u. |
AP reporter Jennifer Sinco Kelleher writes that “now, administrators’ efforts to retain teachers have taken on a new urgency as they try to make progress on promised reforms that won Hawai`i a $75 million federal Race to the Top grant. Teacher retention is one of the keys to those reforms.”
The story notes that the state offers $1,500 bonuses to teach at “hard-to-staff” schools and plans to increase the bonus to $3,000 for the 2014-15 year.
Remote schools like Ka`u bring bonuses as high as $6,000 per school year, the story states.
To orient the new teachers, the story reports, “they are also holding classes in Hawaiian culture and language, and teaming new arrivals with veteran teachers to help ease the transition.”
The story notes that the state offers $1,500 bonuses to teach at “hard-to-staff” schools and plans to increase the bonus to $3,000 for the 2014-15 year.
Remote schools like Ka`u bring bonuses as high as $6,000 per school year, the story states.
To orient the new teachers, the story reports, “they are also holding classes in Hawaiian culture and language, and teaming new arrivals with veteran teachers to help ease the transition.”
The article states that the reason the school system is turning to the mainland for teachers is “because local teacher education programs can’t produce enough graduates to fill classrooms across the islands, especially in remote schools. Getting the newcomers to stay is difficult, as they face culture shock, a high cost of living and a vast ocean separating them from their families.”
The story also reports on teachers who are staying here, sharing the experience of 46-year-old Dennis Tynan, who arrived in Nanakuli ten years ago. He told the AP reporter that he may have stayed longer because he was older when he arrived “from Texas, arming him with more life and classroom experiences. Now that he’s one of two left in that group, he’s starting to wonder about his future.
“But those doubts are eased by his students, who no longer treat him like an outsider. He feels he owes it to his students to stick around.”
The story quotes him: “Here is a community of a marginalized ethnic group, and because of the way everything gets structured in a bureaucratic schools system, they just get screwed over and over again.”
The AP story also deals with the cost of living, giving the example of “Kristen Wong, who left her job teaching special education on the Big Island to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard University.” It says she “met her fiancé in Hawai`i, but the costs of visiting their families on the mainland started to seem more daunting as they looked forward to having children.
Wong, 29, worked a second job most of her time in Hawai`i to make ends meet. The entry-level salary for the current school year starts at $33,169.
‘‘It was really, really hard to make things work,’ she said. ‘I have student loans. I have a car loan.... I’m actually pretty fiscally responsible.”
See more at news.msn.com/us.hawaii-schools-struggle-to-keep-teachers-from-quitting.
The story also reports on teachers who are staying here, sharing the experience of 46-year-old Dennis Tynan, who arrived in Nanakuli ten years ago. He told the AP reporter that he may have stayed longer because he was older when he arrived “from Texas, arming him with more life and classroom experiences. Now that he’s one of two left in that group, he’s starting to wonder about his future.
“But those doubts are eased by his students, who no longer treat him like an outsider. He feels he owes it to his students to stick around.”
The story quotes him: “Here is a community of a marginalized ethnic group, and because of the way everything gets structured in a bureaucratic schools system, they just get screwed over and over again.”
The AP story also deals with the cost of living, giving the example of “Kristen Wong, who left her job teaching special education on the Big Island to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard University.” It says she “met her fiancé in Hawai`i, but the costs of visiting their families on the mainland started to seem more daunting as they looked forward to having children.
Wong, 29, worked a second job most of her time in Hawai`i to make ends meet. The entry-level salary for the current school year starts at $33,169.
‘‘It was really, really hard to make things work,’ she said. ‘I have student loans. I have a car loan.... I’m actually pretty fiscally responsible.”
See more at news.msn.com/us.hawaii-schools-struggle-to-keep-teachers-from-quitting.
To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.
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| Ag use of water from Old Plantation Spring is the topic of a meeting tomorrow. Photo from Conservation District Use Application to DLNR |
THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY regarding a proposed pipeline to carry water from Old Plantation Spring for ag use at a public hearing tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center. The Conservation District Use application is available for review at Na`alehu Public Library and at hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/meetings.
KA`U COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE meets Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Ocean View Community Association Center. Public comment on agenda items is welcome.
The meeting focuses on recently released additional draft Ka`u CDP appendices. Appendix V4B: Community Building Analysis focuses on land use, infrastructure, services, design and redevelopment strategies for Pahala, Punalu`u, Na`alehu, Wai`ohinu, the Discovery Harbour area and Ocean View.
Documents are available online at kaucdp.info; at libraries and community centers in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, and Ocean View; and at Hilo and Kona Planning Department offices.
To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.
KA`U PLANTATION DAYS IS THE TOPIC at a community meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Pahala Community Center. Ka`u Multicultural Society invites residents to attend and help plan the Saturday, Oct. 12 event. For more information, call Darlyne Vierra at 640-8740 or Liz Kuluwaimaka at 339-0289.
THE NATIONAL GUARD PRESENTS A CONCERT AT PUNALU`U this Friday, Aug. 16 from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Called Shaka’s Free Beach Concert, it is sponsored by South Side Shaka’s Restaurant & Bar as well as the National Guard unit in Hilo. Rory Koi, a Shaka’s owner and its manager, is putting together the entertainment, which so far includes Bruddah Waltah, Randy Lorenzo and Keaiwa with Demetrius Oliveira. Koi said this morning that the National Guard is sponsoring $4,000 worth of giveaways. There will be games for the kids and information on joining the National Guard. Other sponsors are KARMA, Big Island Image and Big Island Top Team.
SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.
ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.
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