PICED - Pacific Islands Center for Educational Development

Concerned parents, faculty, and staff met on Thursday, January 15 in the Multi-Purpose Auditorium to discuss the recent downward trend in Pacific Island Student academic achievement. The average GPA of Pacific Island students this year is 2.19. The meeting was organized by several organizations and concerned faculty members, including UCLA’s PIER led by Kare’l Lokeni, PASS (Sai Momoli), PICED, a new organization that recently began working with students at Carson High.

The parent meeting was relatively well-attended and a lot of weighty issues were discussed, namely, how to improve Pacific Island student academic performance, which at the moment is shockingly low.

Here are some snapshots of student performance at Carson High right now. Of 121 of 173 PI students reporting grades through Dec 2008, the average GPA is 2.19. 4 students have above a 3.5; 19 are between 3 - 3.49; 52 are between 2.0 - 2.99; 46 are between 0 - 1.9 (of these, 6 have between 0-1.0.

Over the course of the discussion, 3 key things were cited most often as determining factors in Pacific Island students’ success (or lack thereof) in the classroom:

1) Fa’aSamoa or culture

2) The role of the church

3) Focused, consistent parental involvement in the child’s academic, personal, and home life

Some Things Change, Some Stay the Same
Several former and current, long-time Carson residents spoke and shared their own personal stories of growing up in the City of Carson and of how drastically things have changed and yet how, in some ways, things haven’t changed: In other words, the problem of low Pacific Islander academic performance is not necessarily a new one.

One woman spoke of seeing her cousins and other relatives over the years either struggle to graduate, drop out, or consistently under-perform academically, time and again, over and over—a cycle that has gone on, in her humble opinion, for as long as she can remember. Many recalled the diversity and strong fabric of community that the City of Carson represented in past years and the integral role that Pacific Islanders played in shaping those memories. All agreed that the current statistics look grim and that something must be done.

Athletics: A Gateway or Not?
The topic of sports and PI athletes were discussed, especially in a year when many key players on the Carson football team either quit, dropped out of school, or were declared academically ineligible for the playoffs. Given the recent surge in levels of Pacific Islanders playing professional football, athletics are viewed quite often in the Pacific Islander community as a desirable and realistic gateway to college and beyond. However, as Kare’l Lokeni from UCLA emphasized in her talk, most Pacific Island football players at UCLA struggle academically and in recent years, the majority of them have not graduated.

Solutions

Some of the specific solutions that were suggested to help address the problem of low-academic achievement included:

• Forming a Men’s Group where fathers and other volunteers make regular visits to the campus to publicly raise student awareness that “we are paying attention” and that they are being held “accountable”; this Men’s Club would be run through the Dean’s office and headed up by Dominique Street. Interested in becoming a member of the Men’s Club? Call the school at Dean Street directly at (310) 847-6000 and ask to be connected to the Dean’s Office.

• Forming a consistent group of volunteer Mentors who would offer their time, support, and guidance to all PI students. Potential mentors can contact me at for more information.

Here is a list of some organizations on-campus and in the community who currently offer assistance for Pacific Island students at Carson High:

PIER, PISA
Kare’l is a product of the Carson education system and a graduate of UCLA. She is the Director of an organization at UCLA—PIER (Pacific Islander Education and Retention)—that focuses on raising Pacific Islander graduation, college entrance, and graduation rates. She oversees a tutoring initiative via UCLA’s Pacific Island Student Association (PISA), a long-time partner at Carson High. PISA is made up of current UCLA student volunteers. For the last 15 or so years, they have dutifully made the long trek from Westwood down to Carson and for several hours, 3 days a week, they have tutored and mentored students at Carson High, as well as at Long Beach Poly. There are PISA clubs at other colleges like Cal State San Diego, Cal State Irvine, as well as at universities in Northern California and in Utah. The original founding PISA was formed in the early 80s at UCLA.

PASS
Sai Momoli was born and raised in Carson, and for the last 5 or so years has run PASS, a non-profit, community-based organization whose mission is increase Pacific Islander student performance via the vehicles of cultural awareness and community outreach. Sai’s organization serves as a bridge between the community-at-large and Pacific Islander Youth and funds various cultural performance opportunities throughout the City of Carson.

PICED
Founded in 2001 in American Samoa by Sandra Salevasaosamoa King, the Pacific Islands Center for Education opened its first mainland U.S. office this year in the City of Carson. Staffed by myself and our newest hire, Rata Hannemann, PICED is an organization committed to working in collaboration with staff, faculty, and other organizations to raise academic achievement levels for Pacific Island students across the board. Rata and I work in conjunction with efforts by UCLA’s PIER to help tutor and mentor students at Carson High on a daily basis, closely monitoring their academic progress. We hope to include Narbonne HIgh School in our efforts within the next month or so, as well as to begin offering SAT Prep for interested juniors and seniors.