Hawaii Technology Academy

Great edication, and great to make friends, amazing staff and teachers, over all a great school and I'm looking forward to continuing my high school career here :3

Just love this school. It worked out for me and my family. Love the blended learning with virtual and in person 2 times a week.

This is an excellent program for parents who home school their children and want the option of having a place to keep them accountable and a place where their children can gain social skills. The majority of the work is done online via the K12 curriculum. It's nice because you don't have to come up with your own lesson plans and all materials are free! You also have the option of renting a computer for your child. The kids attend a 3 to 5 hour learning center once or twice weekly depending on what grade they are in. At the learning centers, they are given extra practice in certain subjects, do science experiments, collaborate on group projects, or give presentations to practice their public speaking skills. The school even provides field trip options. We've been to the Bishop museum, Pacific Aviation Museum, the NOAA, the water reclamation center, Kualoa Ranch, and the Honolulu Museum of Art just to name a few. The teachers my daughter has had are wonderful. Ms. Adler teaches 4th grade and Ms. Bradley teaches 5th grade. The teachers are very accessible for help and quick to respond to emails. They are receptive to feed back and are always willing to help both student and parent. They offer regular face to face appointments for parents to get and give feedback. I'm so glad I found out about HTA and my daughter has been able to attend the past 2 years. You do have to be disciplined, organized, and have good time management to keep up with the pacing guide required to follow. They do practice tests for the mandatory state testing and they hold the SBA at their learning centers in April. It's a great alternative to traditional home schooling.

Wow! Can I just brag about this school? We are enjoying our 4th year here. My sons were struggling with grades, confidence, and other things in their former school. After their first year at HTA, they got straight A's! I can't tell you how much more greater the teachers are involved with the students and the parents. We actually have real time communication with the teachers through phone and emails without having to miss a beat with homework. I was so impressed that the staff is so committed with the kids' well being and growth that they know the kids by name and face and is always finding ways to improve. I thank God that I don't have to buy and label every single pencil, pen, etc. off their previous school's long school supply sheet. Ugh. I did that for 5 years! Never again. My kids each bring their lunch, laptop, 2 pencils, 3 pens, 3 notebooks, 2 folders, and a binder to school.The school offers clubs, field trips, electives, training classes, student support, computer rentals, etc.! They have an Ohana Committee who organizes fundraisers, contests and gatherings for the kids and families. Come join us!

This review is for the Hawaii tech academy on Maui. When we first started with them 2 1/2 years ago it was a really good experience. My son was in first grade and he has special learning needs. We had a good teacher who worked with us to be flexible. However when we started second grade things really changed. The director became more involved into my sons IEP's And things became a Nightmare. All flexibility was gone And my son and I just could not keep up with all their last minute changes to the program and The inconsistencies. Because it is the only homeschool public-school hybrid available we stuck it out. In hindsight this was a bad decision. The hell we continued to go through having 12+ hour IEP meetings just to hear their circular double talk over and over was insane. I started seeing other parents jumping ship due to the lack of adequate planning by administration and the reduction in the parents voice into the child's education. We continued to stay through second grade trying to make it work. At the beginning of this year They arbitrarily made so many changes to my sons program that they set him up to fail. We begged them not to in the year end iep but they just insisted it was for policy and school changes they were making. As we feared The new policy and lack of supports lead to my child not being able to attend. Instead of being supportive and trying to help their answer was to threaten truancy. It was a nightmare.I can honestly say that the amount of unethical Behavior from school staff has been the worst I've ever seen. I had been warned by others in the community Who had had unfortunate encounters but I always give everybody the benefit of the doubt. For example, one teacher went on maternity leave And the Substitute teacher took her job.. The teacher was considering filing a lawsuit for wrongful termination and was really angry that when she was ready to come back from maternity leave they didn't give her her job back. The teacher did end up coming back under a different role but It was sad that they were treating this teacher The same they do as parents , not letting her know anything until last minute and being unethical imo.A fellow parent enrolled her son into second grade and she let them know upfront that he was struggling with reading . She was reassured it would not be a problem and that they would work with him. After they started school and she let another spot go at another charter school they told her that her son was too far behind and that it would be best for her to unenroll him. She was devastated.For me the hardest things was dealing with all the double talk and deceit. Also the "seat of their pants" type of management made it quite a roller coaster. I think there's hope for the school if they get a director Who is more able to envision the original goal of the charters Agenda (the concept of a True blended learning with tailoring to the child's individualality).I fear with the public school requirements though those days are gone.Also the school really needs to get a director and an SSC coordinator who has more integrity. That was the source of Most of our problems.Aside from the personnel issues, The blended learning set up as they now have it is a huge burden on the parents. Basically they have the requirements of a public school system, which is a lot of busy work and criteria that has to be met. Then you as the parent will be administering over 80% of that. I mean really it's a great game for them because you're doing all the work for free and all they have to do is provide a teacher for a few hours a week. Then the other part of the burden is having a bunch of last-minute changes And demands that you have to try to juggle . Very stressful.My advice is if you're going to homeschool, homeschool all the way without all the extra stress. We now have a home program for my child and he is thriving. The change in just three months has been huge. I'm able to select curriculum for him that actually works for his learning style and with the pressure being off he is just such a happier child. Having the flexibility in his education is so so huge and worth it's weight in gold. For example he is studying engineering and coding and is loving it. Seriously if you're going to be doing all the work you might as well have the freedom to tailor it to your child. I think a lot of people navigate To HTA because they're afraid to homeschool on their own and then also for the curriculum. The curriculum is not worth it when there are so many free resources available. Seriously the hoops you have to jump through is just not worth it.

We went to an informational session here and everything seems really great. Our daughter will be entering high school next year and we were thinking this would be a great option for her. We even took the online assessment and scored 10 out of 12, and the website says a score of at least 8 means your child is probably a good candidate. There was a question about whether the learning coach would be available for meetings during school hours, but it didn't seem like that was a daily requirement, and even selecting no to that question kept us over the score needed for the site to determine the school was an option for us.So, after getting all of the info today, we were disappointed to learn that one of us would have to be home during school hours on the days our child is doing independent or virtual learning (3 days per week, MWF). Not a huge deal, the school is obviously just not for us, as we both work full time during the day and although I can be flexible in my working hours (6-2, 7-3, etc), there is no way I would be able to be home from 8-3 or even 8-12 on those days, and my husband's work schedule is not flexible. I love that the school encourages parents to be involved in their child's learning, as this is something we have always done and will continue to do no matter what school we send our child to, it's just easier when the school is cooperative and communicative with us as well. However, I don't necessarily agree that in order to do this, I have to be home to monitor my child's schooling when they have virtual classes; especially at the high school level.I am writing this review because I feel as if I would be less unhappy and disappointed if this information were given to us before we went to the info session and I'm hoping other parents will see the info here and save themselves the trouble and disappointment we experienced this morning (I don't love getting up at 6am on my day off and going to an info session from 8-9 o'clock in the morning, only to learn that the school is not even an option for our situation). Hopefully the school will decide to make this requirement known ahead of time in the future, as I'm sure we are not the only family unable to work with the strict scheduling requirement for parents and it would be nice for the families, as well as easier for the school, not to have those people taking up spots in informational sessions that are completely booked up.

This is the best school any of my kids have ever attended. The environment is relaxed and the kids really get to focus on learning the material and not just getting a grade. My daughter loved the mix of the virtual, in class, and self paced environment. It eliminates the stress of getting up early, deciding what to wear etc. The teachers at HTA really care about the kids learning the concepts and the material and really dedicate their time to truly create a learning environment where kids feel comfortable asking for help. We really loved this school and would definitely recommend it!

Not too happy with my first interaction with HTA. Drove an hour from home, then was lost for about 30 mins because the address I was given was for their old location, then turned away at the door for being 8 mins late. No apology , no understanding, nothing. Just turned away. I could understand if we were late of our own accord but that wasn't the case. All the great things I've heard about this school and I'm turned away at the door because of their clerical mistake. Smh. Gave it two stars solely for whomever is in charge of sending out my email. Hoping my view of this school changes... disappointed.

This is a great school and my kids are all doing better than they were in public school. I was against sending my kids here at first, but I quickly realized the advantages. My only problem with this school is some genius keeps propping the bathroom doors in the "open" position. This allows full view into the boys and girls bathroom. I have called the school about this and even make a point to close the doors when I am there, but someone keeps propping them open and even taped a sign to "Keep open." I don't want anyone peeping into the bathroom when my daughter is in there. This to me is just completely wrong.

First of all, I'm a student at this school. Their homework is way too much and at times I feel like giving up and doing nothing because the homework would be extremely difficult. Also, to add onto the stress all the teachers always have an assignment everyday, ESPECIALLY on Mondays. The grading system is also RIDICULOUS. Let's say I get an F on an assignment, my grade will go down a full 2-9%. BUT, when I get an A on an assignment, assessment, or test, my grade goes up like 0.2-0.4%. This makes it even MORE difficult to bring up my grades and I honestly get so frustrated.If you complete the assigment, the teacher will grade it in a few weeks or days. When you don't do an assignment, the next day the teachers give you an 0 on the assignment. This makes me even more stressed and worried about my grade.Also, these teachers do NOT know how to control their students. The classes are always so loud because of very disruptive kids and the teacher always calls them out on it, but they continue talking. The teachers never know control the students. Mr. Goodwin can be very irritating at times. He will call you out in front of the whole classroom and embarrass you. He asks you so many questions, when you literally look like you're about to scream. And he takes a VERY, VERY, VERY long time to explain, it takes up 2/3 of the class time.Mrs. Trotter and Mrs. A are probably my favorite teachers, they can be both strict but also fun at the same time. They know how to control the classroom and they have my respect for it.Mrs. VSA is a fun teacher but sometimes takes math lessons into world context current events, and I don't agree with her beliefs but she teaches her beliefs and thoughts to the whole class as if true. Ms. Tuttle is, in my opinion, slow at talking. I get tired in the first 5 minutes. She also does not know how to quiet down the class.Mr. LaChance has a rude, know-it-all tone and I dislike him because of that. Although, his lessons and projects were fun and interesting. He even targets certain students in his classes.Apologies, if this offended whoever is apart of the staff and is reading this.