High Schooler Kapua Coon reads to younger students. PHOTO BY J. ANTHONY MARTINEZ.

LAHAINA — In the Fall of 2020, living in the shadow of COVID-19, Sacred Hearts School felt the community’s need for an alternative High School Educational Experience. With perfect timing, The Diocese of Honolulu had just sent out information about an online program called Catholic Virtual.

Principal Tonata Lolesio shared, “It was only a matter of time.” Sacred Hearts is in its 160th year of providing excellence in education to the West Maui community. “We are known for our strong Early Learning through eighth grade academic program. It just seemed like the right time to expand and offer another high school option in Lahaina,” she added.

The easiest way to visualize this program is to think of it as a home school alternative but with a full-time, dedicated learning space located on the Sacred Hearts School Campus in Lahaina.

This classroom is fully supplied with comfortable desks, assigned laptops and a full-time High School Administrator who works diligently to keep the kids on track with their workload schedules.

Catholic Virtual works through a learning platform called Hudson Global. Through HG, students are assigned virtual classroom credentials, where they log in on to see their assignments, attend live classes or just communicate with counselors or teachers for support. The High School Administrator has access to view students’ progress and help if someone is falling behind, and creates personalized schedules to keep students current with assignments.

Next year, high school students will be part of a block schedule, where they will transition into classrooms. This will also allow them to receive individualized assistance in core subjects.

Students enjoy regular social time on campus grounds as well as lunch walks to delicious food trucks across the street and quarterly learning journeys. Last year’s trips included a visit to the chocolate farm, butterfly garden, planting taro with Lahaina Restoration Foundation and sailing and learning about ocean sustainability with Trilogy Excursions.

In the first quarter, the girls completed a business pitch for American Savings Bank for the annual Keiki Co Contest with High School Activities Facilitator Crysta Kosianowski.

Crysta commented, “Watching the girls work together coming up with a product, a business plan and a video was so much fun to facilitate.”

In the works is a possible trip to Oahu to visit Saint Michael School. Dallas Carter is the Theology teacher to Sacred Hearts’ current high school students and runs the CV program there.”

Current student Summer Ocegueda said, “It would be fun to travel to Oahu and meet other kids our age who are also participating in this program.”

The program offers virtual college preparatory classes, including Psychology, AP Math and AP English, and a wide array of electives, including languages, business preparatory classes, health and more.

Most recently, Catholic Virtual has also partnered with Marquette University, a top 100 school located in Wisconsin. This partnership gives the option to earn dual credits toward college.

Once CV High Schoolers, including SHS’ current students, reach the age of 16 and have a grade point average of 3.0 or higher, they have the option to take Marquette online classes. The classes are taught by professors at the university.

By the time students graduate from high school, they will have essentially completed one year of college.

Marquette University also offers scholarships to participating CV High School students to attend their school in Wisconsin when the time comes.

“What really makes this high school program unique for West Maui is that it upholds the same Excellence in Education standards Sacred Hearts School is known for,” Principal Lolesio concluded.

To learn more about this unique and progressive learning platform, visit www.shsmaui.org/highschool or e-mail Admissions Director Yvette Richard at yrichard@shsmaui.org.

Applications are now being accepted for all grades for the 2022-23 school year. Visit the website, go to Admissions, then Apply Today. Financial aid is available.

Sacred Hearts School is excited to welcome new students!