When people talk about Native Hawaiian health, the conversation almost always lands in the same place: diabetes, heart disease, the chronic illnesses that show up in middle age.

Those numbers are real. Native Hawaiian adults carry diabetes at higher rates than the state — prevalence climbed from about 9 percent in 2011 to nearly 14 percent by 2019 before the pandemic disrupted the data. But focusing only there misses something the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' Native Hawaiian Data Book makes hard to ignore.

For a long time, the story about Native Hawaiian students went like this: they fall behind, they leave school, they don't finish.

That story is out of date.

I'm a man, and reading your account made me sit with a hard truth; men built the world you're describing. Social media didn't invent misogyny; it just gave it a megaphone and an algorithm.

Researchers have long known that income-based poverty measures miss critical dimensions of hardship. People need more than a minimum income; they need affordable housing, access to nutritious food, health care, education, and reliable transportation. When families lack these basics simultaneously, the impact compounds in ways that a simple income threshold can't capture.

Most people reasonably assume that once the Legislature funds a program, the work simply begins. But Hawaiʻi’s budget data tells a more conplicated story.

The start of a new year often brings renewed energy and optimism. For families with high school students, however, it also brings anxiety. As the school year moves quickly toward its end, many parents and students face an urgent and complex decision: what comes after graduation?

For the 2026-27 school year, the DOE published a presentation to ensure that all applications could fill out the form.

Our future leaders deserve more than literacy. They deserve the ability to navigate financial systems confidently, manage stress effectively, and make informed choices that strengthen their families and communities.