In the past 70 years, an amazingly diverse group of students from over 70 countries, largely surrounding Asia and the Pacific islands, have attended Brigham Young University–Hawaii. Sheena Fitzgerald Alaiasā — a part-Māori woman from the small, rural community of Turangi near the center of North Island, New Zealand — is one of those who personifies how numerous BYUH alumni have shone like “genuine gold” in helping to “establish peace internationally.”
That’s how President David O. McKay, ninth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, described the influence students who would come to Laie to attend the Church College of Hawaii he founded in Laie, Hawaii in 1955 (and renamed BYU–Hawaii in July 1974) in 1955 — 70 years ago.
Benefits of a small-town background
While still in New Zealand, Sheena recalled, “Growing up in a small town, my parents told me from an early age that I was meant to do something significant in this life,” although she admitted at the time she was “unsure of what that something was.”
“As the second oldest in our family, my journey led me to the former Church College of New Zealand in Temple View, New Zealand. There, I was introduced to the Polynesian club where singing and performing became my go-to form of expression.”
After graduating from CCNZ in 1982, Sheena put her musical talents on hold to work on the Sydney, Australia, stock exchange floor. Six years later, following an economic “crash” and a violent riot that erupted into the exchange, Sheena returned to Turangi to help care for her mom. While there, she next felt inspired to apply to BYU–Hawaii. [BTW, her whanau with Turangi ties include Varen Berryman and his sister, Vyonna, Alfred Grace, and, of course, her brothers Sean and Seamus Fitzgerald.]
At BYUH, like thousands of alumni in the past and since, she also got a part-time job and later on worked full-time at the Polynesian Cultural Center, in her case, as a musician, where she shared her musical talents with millions of people worldwide.
A bachelor’s degree in elementary education
She graduated from BYU–Hawaii with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1995. She accepted her first full-time teaching assignment at Kahalu’u Elementary School (located relatively close to Laie), where she taught for the next four years. She continued to work as a part-time PCC musician on the night show.
“While I loved my job as a PCC musician, my passion for shaping young minds compelled me to pursue a career in education at BYU–Hawaii,” Sheena said. “I felt strongly that was where I was meant to be.”
Moving into educational administration
While at Kahalu‘u, Hawaii State Department of Education leaders for the Windward school district were so impressed with her dedication that they asked her to serve as vice principal at Kailua Elementary for a year. Next, she spent a year as vice principal and principal at Heeia Elementary School (in Kaneohe). She then served the Kaneohe community for six years as principal at Samuel Wilder King Intermediate School, which had 600-plus students and 52 faculty members.
Singular state and national recognition
In 2013 while Sheena was at King Intermediate, the Hawaii Association of Secondary School Administrators named her State Middle School Principal of the Year, based on her excellence in professional growth, collaborative leadership, advancements in curriculum, instruction and assessment, and personalization of learning.
The award also made Sheena the first person from Hawaii nominated as a finalist for the national middle school Principal of the Year title.
In a surprise assembly at King, Sheena was named the 2014 National Middle-Level Principal of the Year by MetLife and the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
In the course of receiving both awards, Sheena said she is often asked, “Why are you so different?” To which she replied, “I tell them it’s the core values that were taught to me, especially knowing that I was a strong and proud Māori Latter-day Saint woman who was also taught the strength of gospel principles at an early age.”
“It also has a lot to do with learning and growing at the Polynesian Cultural Center. I try to promote it and what we stand for whenever I can.”
Three years at Kamehameha Schools
In 2015, with her two prestigious awards in hand, Kamehameha Schools leaders in Honolulu drafted Sheena as their po’o kumu or Kapālama High School principal. When she left the Hawaii State DOE, Castle-Kahuku Complex area superintendent Lea Albert described Sheena as a “force for excellence.”
“While we were at Kamehameha in 2018, however, my husband got really sick,” she said. “We were at a stage of our lives where his health was my priority.” Consequently, the family moved to Utah, where they felt he could get better care.”
“He’s in such a good place now,” she continued. “We have more options and more specialists, and he’s more independent. We don’t have long wait times, and we don’t have to travel as far,” although she added her family also bought a home in Vineyard (on the west side of Interstate-15, opposite Orem), so she commutes every school day to Salt Lake City.
The late Nephi Prime (1958–2019) — a 1990 BYUH/PCC alumnus — “kept calling me and saying they needed a new director at the Pacific Heritage Academy, a charter school in the Rose Park area of Salt Lake City where he was the Māori cultural director. “At that time, I had decided to put my career on hold and take care of my husband,” she said.
Prime had spent much of his life devoted to Māori culture: He was a key performer at the Polynesian Cultural Center, where he met Julia Austin while they both worked in the Māori Village. They eventually got married 17 years later and settled in Salt Lake.
“It wasn’t until I heard the love and passion he had for the school that I decided to apply for the position at PHA.”
She recognized she did not have any experience working with charter schools. Still, the PHA board offered her the position, and Sheena accepted, adding that although her résumé is stellar, the board members were all returned missionaries from New Zealand, “so we had a strong connection with Pacific islanders.”
By then, PHA — a public K–8 charter school that opened in 2012 and specializing in project-based curriculum and celebrating cultural heritage — had been going for about six years, and Prime had been associated with the group that started it. (After 8th grade, most PHA students transfer to West High in Salt Lake City.)
“Nephi established a lot of systems in place for us to be culturally correct that also interconnect with other cultures,” Sheena explained. “He did some really great work, and he also wrote a haka for the school, which the kids still do today.
For example, she continued, PHA “is rather small but very diverse. Latinos are our largest cultural group among the approximately 325 enrolled students, but we also have 14 other cultures in our school.
"Kumu Alaiasā”
Now in her sixth year at PHA, Kumu Alaiasā — as all the kids and faculty call her — is pleased with their progress, “but we’re looking at growing the school and hope to open another campus in Utah County (near the Provo/Orem area) within the next two years.”
“PHA has shown very good growth in proficiency rates such as grade-level reading. These are huge accomplishments, especially because we have a lot of newcomers from other countries, such as Colombia, Mexico, and Afghanistan. (Utah is primarily a sanctuary state.)
“We help kids become confident learners by teaching them about who they are. They learn the foundations of why they’ve come to America because a lot of them — including myself and a lot of the teachers — are not natives of Utah. We teach them that their history is also important and that they stand on the shoulders of others.”
“They learn their generational histories, so they understand who they are and why they’re here.”
She also pointed out that PHA students often greet each other in their respective languages, “which tells me they’re accepting of all. It’s the pride of knowing and respecting others. That’s one of the areas where I’ve seen the growth in this school,” and other nonprofit organizations have recognized PHA a number of times for their work.
Others from Hawaii and the Pacific have helped
Sheena said the PHA campus was established in its earliest days by three women affiliated with BYU–Hawaii: Lia Whitman, ‘Ofa Moea’i, and the late Malia Thurma
“To help us stay grounded in our mission,” she continued, “PHA has also elicited the support from BYU professor Dr. Tavanā Gagaifo and world-renowned kumu hula Cy Bridges. They have also come over to help share the cultural principles of Polynesians and how they have been interwoven with other cultures throughout the world.”
“We also took the teachers to Iosepa [the Hawaiian community established in 1887 in Skull Valley, Utah], where they gained a better appreciation that our kids also have migration stories, and Cy helped us understand our kids have their own stories and need to understand their family journies.”
“I’m grateful for all the talent that comes out of BYU–Hawaii and the PCC and that some of them come here to help teach our kids to be just as talented.”
Of the 54 faculty and staff members, Sheena said about 85% of them have ties to BYU–Hawaii or Hawaii. These include assistant director Kaniela Kalama, Ni’i Toelupe Kinikini, Kekai Peters, Lala Ahmu, Kiani Ruiz, Tehani Fiatoa, Ipo Uluave, Lavinia Sapoi, Cherry Goo, and Sheena’s daughter, Reisha Taliāuli and Sheris Alaiasā (to name a few).
“We have the same understandings as our students,” Sheena said, pointing out that similar to the population of Hawaii, Caucasian PHA students only make up about 20 percent of the student body.
Carrying over BYUH, PCC, and Church experiences at PHA
“I’ve carried a lot of the experiences I had at BYU–Hawaii and the PCC everywhere I’ve gone,” Sheena said. “All my communications skills, performance skills, cultural understanding, and customer service practices I learned from PCC.”
For example, “We were recently invited to an appreciation luncheon for nonprofit organizations at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City to share a little about PHA. To me, that’s a great honor: We were the only school invited.”
“This is everything I’ve believed in. Every school I’ve been to has also been exposed to the ‘influence’ of the Church’s youth program and the Relief Society, because that’s all I know,” Kumu Alaiasā continued. “They’re age-old programs, and we can’t go wrong with them. All these, plus the recent devotional I presented at BYU–Hawaii tell me that we’re on the right track.”
Sheena also mentioned she’s working with the BYUH Alumni Association to possibly help raise funds for scholarships, other supplies, and a gym. Currently, PHA holds all their larger school functions in the cafeteria, “but parents have to watch online because our cafeteria doesn’t have enough room for both the students and the parents to attend.”
And maybe rugby, too
“I appreciate this exposure for our school. I think we are the best-kept secret, and it shouldn’t be,” she concluded. “And, oh yes, if or when PHA starts a Utah Valley campus, we hope to start a rugby program and a feeder school into colleges.”
For more information on the Pacific Heritage Academy, go to:
phlearning.org