For the third year, members of the state Department of Education, the Kauai Filipino Chamber of Commerce, the Kauai Philippine Cultural Center and the Kauai Filipino Community Council this week welcomed about 20 new teachers from the Philippines.

The teachers arrived on Kauai to work in different public schools around the island through the J-1 visa, also known as the Exchange Visitor Visa. The J-1 visa allows foreign nationals to come to the United States temporarily to participate
in work- and study-based
exchange visitor programs.

“These are the most
courageous people in this room,” Ray Carvalho, the principal of Waimea Canyon Middle School, said Tuesday. “They’re coming to a foreign country to work.”

The purpose of the gathering was to bring the new cohort of teachers together and get them oriented to life on Kauai, where they will spend the next school year. Besides being introduced to each other, the gathering offered vendor and exhibit
tables to help the new teachers establish themselves before the first day of school in early August.

“We’ve done this for three years,” said Randall Francisco, a community leader who assisted the gathering. “You would think we learned something. This year, we set up something new — vendor booths where the teachers can get information about teacher resources like the Hawaii State Teachers Association, getting their money from the credit unions, and even leaving with food to get started.”

“They’re really good,”
Salynn Gonsalves, the principal for the Kapaa Elementary School, said of this year’s cohort. “They just got in, and already, they spent the entire day in class, setting up for school.”

The teachers will be working at Waimea Canyon Middle School, Waimea High, Eleele Elementary, Kalaheo Elementary, Chiefess Kama­kahelei Middle, Kauai High and Kapaa Elementary. And, for the first time, Elsie Wilcox Elementary School will welcome teachers from the Philippines.

In addition to starting
on the right foot with life
on Kauai, each of the teachers left with more than three packages of food essentials, including rice, to get started.

“We have 20 bags (each containing three packages) for 20 people,” said Sonja Topenio of the Kauai Philippine Cultural Center, and a board member of the Hawaii Foodbank Kauai. “I just told Wes Perreira, the Hawaii Foodbank Kauai manager, to put together something to get these teachers started. They’re not from here and need help. On top of that, several of them room together so they can extend the food coverage.”

Elizabeth Kawamura, a former Miss Kauai Filipina and chair for the 2025 pageant that was won by Khiani Garcia who also came to help at the orientation meeting, said one of the teachers came with a background in theatre and volunteered to help coordinate and choreograph this year’s pageant that was presented by the Kauai Filipino Community Council.

Everything was done under the canopy of potluck with the amount of contributed food far exceeding the group.