By Beverly Creamer

Tanley Naur leaned over the hospital bed and laid a hand gently on the chest of the "patient" - a Sim-Man mannequin that offers real-life experience for nursing students at Kapi'olani Community College, a spacious and breezy campus in the shadow of Diamond Head.

"How you doing brah," said the 11-year-old Kalakaua Middle School sixth-grader, staring into the mannequin's face.

Around him, a crowd of sixth-graders, dressed alike in bright red T-shirts, grinned.

"This is weird," added Kahalu'u Elementary student Keahi Lyons-Hussey, 10, one of Tanley's program-mates. "It feels like a dead body. ..." She paused and then went on. "He has abs."

Smiles spread around the room again as the young students shared a unique opportunity to learn in a college classroom- part of a summer enrichment program currently offered to 200 Hawai'i public school students through a partnership between Punahou and the Hawai'i State Department of Education.

The Clarence T.C. Ching PUEO Program at Punahou School - PUEO stands for Partnerships in Unlimited Educational Opportunities - was designed as an intensive and continuing hands-on experience to inspire and support more young people to pursue a college education. Launched in 2005, PUEO provides opportunities to public middle and high school students with college aspirations who have financial need. It's aimed specifically at scholars in the academic middle, in the C to B+ range.

"Before I was in this program, I was afraid to go to college," admits 14-year-old Ariana Acosta, a sophomore from Hilo High School on the Big Island who has also been inspired to begin writing a novel. "I thought it was going to be hard. But since this program began, I feel more confident in myself. Now it's my top priority to finish college and get a good job."

PUEO originally was modeled on other successful summer bridge programs across the country, and today is an active member of a consortium of Private Schools with a Public Purpose. The Punahou program is one of the nation's largest programs of its kind, with one public school principal, Donna Lum, calling it "a powerful model" for other schools to follow.

"Our students come back excited, invigorated and more committed to taking charge of their own learning," says Lum, principal at Jarrett Intermediate School in Palolo Valley.

Lum has watched the program become an important tool, not just for those chosen but for her whole school community. The young scholars bring back a new set of study habits, along with a sense of leadership and self-assurance.

"After returning from the summer sessions they envision broader possibilities for themselves, yet discover they are no different than other kids who have the same dreams, interests and aspirations," says Lum.

For Lillian Li, a 15-year-old Roosevelt 10th-grader, it's been a powerful catalyst to discover herself.

"Being able to be part of the PUEO program has been a life-changing experience," reflects Li, after helping clear a native Hawaiian fishpond this summer. "It really feels great to give back to the 'aina and just do something good. ... This program has truly changed me as a person."

Students range from 10 to 15 years old, from grades 6 through 10. At full capacity in 2011, the program will include 280 students in grades 6 to 12, drawn from at least 50 public schools. As the eldest move up each year, another 40 sixth-graders are added and continue all the way through their senior year in high school. Classes cover five weeks each summer, but several additional events bring students back together during the regular school year.

This fall the first group of scholars - known as P5s - head into their sophomore high school year and already they're buzzing about college.

Vaihi Kaonohi, a 14-year-old from Kahuku High and Intermediate School, is one of them. While he hopes for a college career that embodies his dreams of being an NFL football player, he knows that's a long shot. So he's also cultivating computer electronics, an interest that blossomed at Punahou as he built and shot off a rocket in his first year, created movie trailers using computer applications and even put together a music video.

"I'm learning about how to succeed in my life," says Kaonohi, who plays football for his school team. "But I can't rely on being in the NFL so that's why I like computers."

Over the next two summers, part of the program for the oldest students will include prepping for the SAT as well as writing and polishing college essays -with help from Punahou teaching staff, and about 30 Punahou graduates who return each summer to serve as kumu for the program, offering both mentoring and guidance.

"One of my favorite parts of the program is watching these kids grow and seeing them realize how much they can get out of life," says kumu Erin Nagoshi '05, a recent Colorado State University graduate and returning kumu. "The oldest ones are starting to talk about their dreams."

That kind of peer mentoring was critically important for 14-year-old Ponolani Yang, a Kaiser High School student who remembers coming into the program a rebellious, unwilling participant. Nagoshi was there for her, she says.

"She just told me, 'You could do a lot more if you just did the work and put care into it," saysYang. "She helped get me on track. ... I'm kind of recognizing my value now.

"I used to think I had no options. Now I reflect on things, and about how I could do so much more. If it wasn't for PUEO I wouldn't have these new values. There are so many opportunities and I want to take advantage of them. ... They've given us the chance to find ourselves."

Each summer, it's a toss-up whether on-campus classes are more popular than the dozens of field trips that give young scholars adventures all over the island. From fishponds to wastewater treatment plants, from farmers markets to an exotic garden of rare plants, the program offers experiences and academic work that broaden regular school classes.

During one popular trip, 40 sixth-graders tasted real college life at KCC - from the excitement of what it would be like creating undersea robots, to seeing how nurses are trained on a life-like $45,000 mannequin that breathes and cries.

"It looks like you're all headed to college," declared instructor Bob Moneg as the students toured the Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Center and listened in awe to KCC student Alex Williams describe designing a miniature rocket for a national competition.

"How long does it take to build one of those?" asked Nike Tolentino, 11, from Kahalu'u Elementary.

"Three months, not too bad. ... This thing is full of electronics," said Williams. On another field trip, three dozen 14- and 15-year-olds slogged through muddy water to help pull invasive mangrove out of a Windward O'ahu fishpond, chanting in Hawaiian to ask permission to enter the area, then chanting a "thank you" as they left.

"The children really focused on how important it is to take stewardship of our natural resources," said Lisa Bader '77 Kamalani, a DOE teacher from Waiakea High on the Big Island and a kumu for that trip. "The group learned about the importance of keeping the living museum alive by touching and handling it."

While the program at Punahou has been funded since inception by a series of private grants, this year the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation pledged $3 million to carry it through 2015. In announcing the extraordinary gift, Punahou President Jim Scott '70 reflected on the critical role private schools can play in advancing educational opportunities for students in the larger community.

"The initial idea of PUEO is still clear and compelling - to identify students in neighboring public schools with high academic potential, but with low economic opportunity, and to raise their aspirations and their preparation to enter and complete college," Scott said.

"When we were planning our new Middle School 10 years ago," he continued, "we knew that we wanted a facility that would also help us to support Hawai'i public school students, and to help Punahou become a private school that also serves a public purpose."

In beginning to shape PUEO, Scott first brought together community leaders and Punahou alumni, including Nainoa Thompson '72, now a Kamehameha Schools trustee; and John Reppun '70, executive director of the Key Project on O'ahu's Windward coast. "This program is a bridge between the public and private sectors," says Reppun. "And that's as essential for the private sector as the public. Kids now have citizenship in both worlds. PUEO allows both sides to step into each other's shoes and move back and forth across the bridge and realize it's not an obstacle but an opportunity."

Punahou's program couldn't exist without a strong partnership with the DOE. Principals and teachers in the public school complexes where the program operates choose students they feel would most clearly benefit from the enrichment. Punahou does the rest - offering eye-popping classes, providing a daily lunch during the summer schedule, and then bringing the scholars together again during the year to continue cementing bonds to one another and the new goals they've begun to set for their lives.

As they progress, students grow increasingly excited about the future.

"I used to think it didn't really matter, just go to high school and that's it," says Nerose Iosia, 14, a Roosevelt High freshman, speaking of how her views of college have evolved. "But we have kumu who go over there to college and tell us how it helps us to do what we want to do. I want to go to college now."

Often, as the students gather, PUEO Director Carl Ackerman, a Punahou history teacher instrumental in creating PUEO along with Assistant Director Kylee Omo, leads a chant now familiar to the scholars:

"What group are you in?" Ackerman hollers.

"PUEO," they shout back.

"Where are you going?" he continues.

"COLLEGE!" they holler in reply.

Even the youngest are developing forward-thinking attitudes.

"Any time is good to think about your future," says 10-year-old Landon Li, a rising sixth-grader from Kawananakoa, who joined the program just this year. "They have a lot of activities you can do and learn from. ...At some schools you just read a book about all these things, but at Punahou you get the hands-on experience."

The PUEO high school curriculum has been developed based on the DOE standards. The middle school classes provide unique, interactive learning opportunities not generally available to students during the school year.

"These are some of the most exciting classes at Punahou Summer School," says program director Ackerman. "They're getting engineering skills, learning the basics of flight, making airplanes, shooting off rockets, going into flight simulators that pilots are trained on. And their robots come alive through their computers. All these classes are hands-on and the kids get very excited."

Fourteen-year-old Francis Evagelia, a freshman at Farrington, couldn't be happier with that line-up. "The first year, I took aviation," he beams. "We built model planes and flew in an airplane simulator. We got to race each other! And we were doing movie making and scavenger hunts. ... Here, I've learned more."

That was the goal, says assistant director Omo. "We live and breathe in a culture of being a college program," she says. "This program keeps that light on for the students. And the parents trust us that the courses and experiences we offer are lined up to that final college experience."

Mahalo
In addition to the generous support of the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation, the PUEO program's success would not have been possible without the support of its founding donors: the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Unbound Philanthropy and the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation. Other early supporters included the Hawaii Pizza Hut Literacy Fund, Sidney Stern Charitable Trust, Rich and Julianne Erickson, and Carl and Lynn Ackerman.