“We cultivate a place of belonging, where all are respected and valued for our authentic selves, and where joyful connections and collegial bonds deepen,” Mid-Pacific’s new school statement reads.
The 2025-2026 school year began with many changes and additions to echo this statement, not only putting words to these values but also action. Community is being pushed to the forefront of the Mid-Pacific experience as the environment for schoolwide positivity, pride and inclusivity is being cultivated.
“Myself, homeroom teachers, class advisors, Mr. Wheeler and others met up this past summer and talked about how we could improve the advisory homeroom [time] to be what [we] thought the intention and design was: to build community,” Senior Dean Carly Ibara said. “That’s the whole reason why you stay with the same homeroom.”
In addition to the usual routine, senior and junior homerooms have been paired with sophomore and freshmen homerooms. This change is meant to promote inter-grade relationships where younger students are able to form bonds, find role models, seek advice, and practice the virtuous principles taught together.
“For chapel and advisory, we have four themes: lokahi, kuleana, honor, and aloha. Lokahi is harmony, agreement and balance, kuleana is responsibility, honor is like ‘the honor of my school is mine,’ and then aloha is a guiding principle with everything that we do. It’s conduct built upon mutual respect and it encompasses the harmony with yourself and others and encourages kindness,” Assistant Principal of Student Life Rebecca Hodge said.
Along with the new senior-sophomore and junior-freshmen pairings, these themes and values are continued into chapel.
“I think that when we feel there is something that resonates with us as humans, or that we can identify with, that is when we start to feel a sense of belonging and community. My hope is to, in chapel, create a space where students can feel that there is something for them,” Chaplain Will Whitmore said.
While chapel itself is based in Christianity, Whitmore focuses on taking core concepts and elements of religion and applying it on a broader scale, ensuring that topics are relevant to people of all beliefs and ideologies.
More than ever, a sense of belonging between students and staff is being encouraged.
“We’re doing Pueo Pride Fridays. [It’s] where we encourage everyone to wear some sort of green and you get some type of acknowledgement of showing your pride,” Hodge said.
This weekly dress prompt is meant to be a simple and easy act to strengthen school spirit.
“As humans, we like to look for patterns. It just builds that community [and shows] that we’re more alike than we are different and that we have pride. We should feel pride for our school, being at our school and being a student or faculty member of our school,” Ibara said.
While school-wide initiatives are focused on building connections among our whole community, the newly added affinity groups offer the opportunity to connect and bond with like people.
“Affinity groups are a safe space for people to be around others in their groups and it’s something that’s not new. Lots of corporations and nonprofits have done this for years. Their goal is not necessarily to educate others, it’s more to create a safe space for them to grow together and create their community,” Librarian and DEI club leader Cherie Yanek said.
The addition of affinity groups was driven by Mid-Pacific’s DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) club.
“If there’s something that [the DEI club] sees as something that can be improved on campus, [they] work to try and change it. A lot of these decisions aren’t something that they could make [alone], so [they] work with administration, different faculty and staff,” Yanek said.
The DEI club creates a space for students to voice their concerns and help to create the positive changes they want to see.
“It is getting together and being passionate. We just decide what we think is important and then we pursue it,” Senior and DEI club member Jackson Brewer said. “It’s about making a plan. [The] current administration has been very open to new ideas, and so we can meet with them, make a proposal and say why it’s important and try to create the easiest path to change for them.”
In order to better our Mid-Pacific community, each person has a responsibility to display lokahi, kuleana, honor, and aloha, for a population is composed of individuals.
“For me, this idea that we’re going to create a perfect community is an illusion in the sense that the end goal is not like a board game– ‘If you do these eight things and you avoid these spots on the board, you’re going to arrive at the finish line.’ Life in a community isn’t that simple. But the question becomes, how do we seek to continuously see people for who they are, to honor that, and foster that space? I believe when we do this we will be in the inclusive and belonging community we strive to be,” Whitmore said.
