A Hawaiian cultural mentorship program intended to give new Windward teachers a better understanding of local students — and improve teacher retention — kicked off last weekend at Kahana Valley with the sharing of rituals, ancient crafts and food.

Dozens of teachers were greeted with ti lei by the 33 families that live in the valley, which is a cultural park. They participated in several rituals, including one to learn more about one another. They drank the "sweet water" of Kahana from homemade bamboo cups and learned about the taro lo'i and fishpond there, getting their feet wet and muddy.

"Listening to the kupuna really gave you a sense of how important Hawaiian culture is to them and how they truly love it," said Stefanie Doyle, a first-year fourth-grade teacher at Mokapu Elementary School. "Some of them were moved to tears when they were talking."

Doyle, from Virginia Beach, Va., said she has no Hawaiian students in her class, on Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe. But she said she was inspired to learn more and would use what she learned in her classroom.

It was a celebration of culture seldom experienced by newcomers to the Islands. But Kamehameha Schools and the Windward district of the state Department of Education recognized the value of linking new teachers to the host culture to foster a better understanding of the children they teach and even incorporate cultural context into lessons.

The goal of the program, known as Kahua, is to retain new teachers through peer and community support that will make them want to stay in Hawai'i and make it their home, said Elly Tepper, DOE volunteer coordinator.

"We have to get them to fall in love ... with the children and the place ... the real place, the hearts of the people," Tepper said. "That's what Kahua is about."

The National Commission of Teaching and America's Future has presented evidence suggesting that the nation's teacher shortage is a symptom resulting from a teacher retention crisis, she said.

In 2004, the National Center for Education Statistics said 33 percent of new teachers in the United States leave the field in the first three years, Tepper said.

Each year, the DOE must hire 1,300 to 1,500 teachers to replace those who have left due to retirement, resignation or other reasons. Many who leave do so before even serving a full year.

In the Windward district for the 2002-2003 school year, some 26 percent of new teachers left in the first year, and by the following year 37 percent were gone.

The hope of the Kahua program is to increase the rate of retention, Tepper said.

Other DOE districts offer orientation programs for new teachers, but this one differs with the addition of the cultural connection to the people in the district where they teach. The cultural aspect will supplement a mentoring program that Windward schools have had in place for seven years.

Kamehameha Schools developed Kahua, which will also help teachers create curricula using local sites such as fishponds and heiau. Besides a DOE mentor, the teachers will also have a cultural mentor, someone from the community who can be a friend.

By the end of the program, teachers will have spent seven days together in seminars, workshops and visiting several other sites in Waimanalo, Waimea and Kane'ohe.

The Kahua, or foundation, program ran a pilot project on the Big Island last year. The program targets rural areas where there is a large population of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian children and where it can be more difficult to retain teachers.

Hundreds of Mainland teachers are hired every year and often end up in rural Hawai'i schools where they don't understand the children, the parents or the community, said Walter Kahumoku, director of teacher education and professional development at Kamehameha Schools.

As a result, it's not unusual for teachers to leave midsession, Kahumoku said.

"Kahua will help these DOE teachers understand and implement educational practices that are culturally sound and appropriate, that are place-based," he said. "They start with things the kids are familiar with and are grounded in. And it doesn't necessarily have to be just Hawaiian. It could be any group that's associated with that place."

Some 140 teachers attended Saturday's event, but only about 48 were new teachers. Many veteran teachers signed up, said Tepper, the DOE coordinator.

Lea Albert, superintendent for the DOE's Castle-Kahuku Complex, said that over the yearlong program teachers will learn more about the culture, teaching strategies, assessment tools and historic sites in Windward O'ahu. The program also helps teachers meet the requirement of being highly qualified, Albert said.

"They will have kupuna who will mentor them and teach them strategies that are effective with Hawaiian children," she said. "We also have veteran teachers signed up because they want to keep refreshing their knowledge."

Mike Griesel, a freshman math teacher at Kailua High School from Colorado, said he can see the value in learning more about the culture and the people, although he's not sure how he might incorporate that into a math class.

"But just getting to know the kids and building a rapport with them, you learn to ask the right questions and just understand where they're coming from," Griesel said.