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Public or private school? Today, we focus on the latter. As the Hawaii Association of Independent School marks its 50th anniversary, we talk past present future of private schools across the islands. We have seen several closures of schools struggling to stay afloat in the face of rising tuition and falling enrollments in the past decade. New licensing rules kick in this summer, so what’s the snapshot on the horizon as we begin 2020?

Our guests today are:

• Dr. Philip Bossert, Executive Director of the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools in Honolulu, Hawaii. He joined HAIS as a project manager in 2008 to manage the five-year HAIS Schools of the Future Initiative and from 2011 to 2017 served as Director of Programs. 

• Dan White, Founding Head of School at Island Pacific Academy after serving as head of school at three other institutions in California and Hawaii. He served as an HAIS Board member for 12 years and was board President from 2008 to 2010, and was the co-founder of an M.Ed. at UH in Private School Leadership. Prior to coming to Hawaii, he served for six years on the accrediting commission for schools of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, representing the California Association of Independent Schools.

• And Robert Witt, the founding Executive Director of the HAIS, where he served from 1989 to 2014. He has 45 years of service in the field of education as a teacher and school administrator. During his 25 years as the head of HAIS, he focused primarily upon designing and directing professional development programs for senior level business executives and community leaders.