Susan Hagiwara Special Education Grants

Susan Hagiwara had a passion for special education and was the consummate educator
with a reputation for genuine care for children, their families, and fellow teachers. She was truly a rare gem.

Athough she passed away on Aug. 4, 2026, her memory and legacy live on through the next generation of special education teachers. The HEA//HSTA-Retired Special Education Micro Grant program was established in her honor to award grants to provide resources
for special education educators to effectively help their students grow and flourish.

In this second year of the grant program, HEA is proud to award17 educators with a grant. They collectively are building on the solid foundation that Susan established and are carrying on special education in our islands in the same spirit of caring that Susan had for others.

The educators who received the grant awards know their students well and the grants are giving them the resources to design and implement their own curriculum so that they can realize positive outcomes for their students. Congratulations to all and mahalo for your commitment to special education and continuing the legacy of Susan Hagiwara!

Kristy Arakawa
‘Ilima Intermediate School
Kristy Arakawa will use her grant to engage 7th and 8th grade students as environmental engineers in designing and testing sustainable solutions to restore and protect Kalauhaʻihaʻi  Fishpond. The project connects students to a critical local challenge: the health of Hawaiʻi’s ocean and coastal ecosystems. Students will explore how healthy water flowing from mauka to makai impacts fish, limu, native species, and the overall balance of the ecosystem. They will investigate authentic problems affecting the fishpond and develop potential  engineering solutions. The goal of the program is to support environmental stewardship, problem-solving, collaboration, and a deeper connection to Hawaiʻi’s natural resources.

Rayme Ann Awaya
Webling Elementary School (Halawa)
Rayme Ann Awaya says she struggled as a student because she was not an auditory learner.
She needed to touch, build and learn by doing. That experience inspired her to become a special education teacher and has made it her life’s mission to ensure every student, regardless of how their brain works, is given the opportunity to learn in the way that suits them best. Instead of creating her own materials, she will use the grant for commercial-grade, durable hands-on materials for her
classroom that she can use for years to come.

Catherine Baldaino
Ala Wai Elementary School
Catherine Baldaino’s project will provide handson learning activities for fourth grade students with
significant learning needs. The grant will be used to purchase different materials to make concepts more concrete and accessible. These resources will support small-group instruction, intervention, independent practice, and participation in whole-group lessons. The goal is to help students
access grade-level standards while receiving instruction and practice at their individual learning levels, and help students develop greater independence and confidence. The program will provide students with disabilities the tools and multiple ways of learning to make academic progress, and experience success alongside their fourth grade peers.

Rochelle Borja
Mokulele Elementary School

Rochelle Borja will use her grant to help her students recognize letters, master phonic sounds, identify numbers and two- and threedimensional shapes, and solve basic addition and subtraction
problems using hands-on resources. Her program will also support differentiated instruction, supply
teachers with adaptive learning materials while empowering students to independently explore
stations, build self-regulation, and meet their individual goals in a fun environment.

Katherine Brown
Wailuku Elementary School
Katherine Brown is a special education teacher at Wailuku Elementary School and many of her
students have Autism Spectrum Disorder. She plans to have special lighting for her classroom for students with sensory disabilities who are overwhelmed by the fluorescent lighting. The goal is to reduce sensory overload occurrences, and to create a calming environment and keep her students
from becoming overstimulated. The alternative lighting will help her preschool special education students reach their goals for toileting, communication, numeracy, literacy, fine motor skills, and
physical therapy. In addition, many students can improve their cognitive abilities, executive functioning, and approaches to learning.

Maureen Burnham
Kalani High School
Maureen Burnham will put her grant to good use by implementing the “Falcons for Inclusion,” a yearlong, school-wide awareness campaign designed to reduce stigma and promote authentic
inclusion for students with disabilities at Kalani High School. The Laulea Club, currently 35 members including students with disabilities and general education peers, will wear custom “Inclusion” t-shirts every Monday throughout the school year, creating a visible, recurring statement about belonging
and wants to double membership to 70 with half of the members with disabilities.

Jason Dettweiler-Pavia
Ka‘iulani Elementary School
In March 2027, Jason Dettweiler-Pavia plans to take his students on a field trip to watch a performance of Hawai‘i Theatre for Youth’s Heart Strings, which is set during the territorial days of old Hawai‘i. The story is about two hanai sisters who face a powerful storm, a clash of cultures, and the challenges of sibling rivalry. The story is told through the use of hei, traditional Hawaiian string games. The sisters must untangle what it means to be family and learn about the kuleana that comes with loving someone.

Jonathan Drayton
Kaua‘i High School
Jonathan Drayton will use his grant to develop a steambending station to expand handson
instruction in wood science, construction materials, and fabrication as part of the the Kaua‘i High School Construction Program. Steam bending allows students to investigate how heat and moisture
affect wood that can be bent into curved components. This experience will allow students to connect
math, material science, design and craftsmanship.

Tracey Murata
Ahuimanu Elementary School
Tracey Murata is a fifth and sixth grade mathematics teacher at Ahuimanu Elementary, and plans to
implement Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) with her students. As part of the BTC program, she wants to create a classroom where students actively think, persevere, collaborate, and develop their problem-solving skills rather than simply mimic procedures demonstrated by a teacher. She will use the grant to purchase rolling whiteboards for her classroom to create a dynamic classroom where  students become confident, independent mathematicians.

Kelsey Muromoto
Pearl City Elementary School
Kelsey Muromoto will use this grant to create an inclusive outdoor gathering space to provide
students with a comfortable, welcoming place to eat lunch, enjoy picnics, and spend time with their
peers. Her goal is to encourage meaningful social interactions and help students develop communication, cooperation, and friendship-building skills in a natural setting. For our special education students, opportunities to interact with same-age peers are especially valuable, as they benefit from observing and modeling positive social behaviors.

Becky Naeole
Kailua Elementary School
This project is an observational study of a shortterm immersive experience through the Japan Preschool Exchange. As a parent of a child receiving special education services, Becky Naeole will observe how educators in Japan naturally integrate neurodivergent and diverse learners into unstructured, outdoor settings and explore how Japan’s nature-centric, inclusive early childhood practices support holistic development, social integration, and emotional resilience. She also hopes to learn about another country’s inclusive practices, including mixed-age collaborative play, sensory-rich forest exploration, mud play, and harvesting local crops, and to nurture confidence
and non-cognitive skills beyond language barriers. She hopes to gather actionable insights, inclusive strategies, and pedagogical methods for inclusive outdoor learning in her school district.

Luciane Pimentel
Aliamanu Elementary School
Luciane Pimentel will use this grant for a real-world project that culminates in March 2027 with her students operating an art store that they helped design, plan, implement and operate. Students will sell their art to raise funds for an organization that supports and cares for the Hawaiian endangered animals they learn about through this project. Students will practice and learn the values of living pono and aloha and its impact at their school community, in Hawaii and the world, building empathy, collaboration, communication and other important academic and life skills while caring for  Hawai‘i’s unique natural resources.

Spencer Serrao
Leilehua High School
Spencer Serrao will use this grant for his sophomore biology resource students at Leilehua High
School and to provide hands-on learning experience through classroom dissections. He will  purchase preserved specimens, dissection tools, and other necessary materials, rather than only reading about them in a textbook. His goal is to make biology more engaging, meaningful, and  accessible for his special education students while building their confidence, curiosity, and understanding of science.

Lisa Jean Silva
Kula Elementary School
Lisa Jean Silva will use her grant to implement “Building Blocks of Literacy,” a one-year project
delivering multisensory reading intervention to 2nd grade special education students. As students
transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Grounded in science of reading principles, this
initiative will use tactile phonics games, high-interest decodable books, and structured workbooks to
offer visual, auditory, and kinesthetic pathways to learning and will feature hands-on game warm-ups, workbook practice, and decodable reading.

Natasha Skaltsas
Ewa Makai Middle School
Natasha Skaltsas, a special education teacher at Ewa Makai Middle School, will implement a “Hands-On Science & Kitchen Lab Exploration,” to bridge functional life skills with rigorous core academic standards for her middle school students. Utilizing her classroom’s full kitchen setting, this initiative integrates hands-on science experiments, such as chemical reactions behind volcanic eruptions, with foundational English language arts, math, and social studies. Her classroom is a diverse group of multicultural learners with unique learning needs, and the project will help to make abstract scientific concepts tangible, accessible, and engaging. The project will also nurture critical thinking, functional independence, and a lifelong curiosity for STEM learning tailored to a Hawai‘i context.

Van Tran-Trimner
Kalani High School
Van Tran-Trimner will create, Mind in Focus, a student-led photo exhibit that uses art to break the silence around mental health and let teens know they are not alone. The exhibit will give students an opportunity to take an honest look into the real pressure, mental health struggles, and everyday resilience of young people. The art will be linked to youth crisis resources,  school counselors, and mental health tools so that students know where to find support.

Beth Young
Waialua Elementary School
Beth Young, a preschool special education teacher at Waialua Elementary School will use her grant for a sensory tuff table
and water table for her preschool students to learn through touch, texture, and movement. A sensory tuff table and water table provide a safe environment to explore new fine motor, gross motor, and sensory activities to enhance pre-academic skills. Sensory and water tables also support emotional regulation, social-emotional skills, and selfhelp skills through play and  sensory exploration.