New Teachers 2024-2025

Konawaena High School has started the new school year off with many new teachers. There are new teachers in the English, math, CTE , and other departments. One new face in the English department is Diana Carhart.

This is Mrs. Carhart’s very first year teaching. She enjoys reading and theater. Some of her favorite books are the awakening and the great gatsby.  Her goals for this school year is to have her students exceed academically, to have her students enjoy class while enjoying learning, and finally to have her students expand how they go about English and the real world.  Mrs.Carhart said she likes Konawaena because: “I really like my colleagues, my fellow teachers, the administrators, and my students are pretty awesome.”

Mrs. Carhart said she enjoys teaching English because: “I think it’s a great way to creatively express yourself.”

A new face in the math department is Summer Whitmore. She became a teacher because she wanted to work with kids that come from more challenging backgrounds and be the teacher she wished she had when she was in high school. Although she teaches math she has taught other subjects before which includes, creative writing, art, Ap english 11 and 12, and Ap US history. Some fun facts about Ms.Whitmore is that she runs a non profit dog sanctuary called ‘Dogs Days Of Summer Sanctuary' .She's traveled around the world living on a boat for half a year, she's backpacked 100 miles along the great wall of china. She's been to all states except for five, Ms.Whitemore also added: “ohh and I’m a bartender ayeee.” 

Ms. Whitmore has taught at several different schools so when asked if she enjoys teaching here at Konawaena she said: “I do, I love it so far – it's been a really good change – from some previous places i've worked at and I love the students and the wide background that kids had come from here, it is really interesting and kinda fascinating to learn about everyone's different stories – the school itself is very beautiful and I think the math department here is super easy to work with and everyone is really friendly so it has been a really easy and a really good transition.

Konawaena High School also has a new culinary teacher, Julie Tate-Libby. Growing up she enjoyed cooking and baking, she was inspired to become a teacher after working in hospitality and teaching the hospitality class last year. Ms.Libby has learned more about big island and food sustainability, so she got really interested in it. When asked what she likes about Konawaena Ms.Libby said “I like the students, they’re funny and challenging, but yeah it’s really cool and it’s nice to get to know this many kids.” 

Ms.Libby was not a Chef, but when she was 22 she owned her own restaurant, and that’s how she learned to do most of her cooking. She also worked in the food service 13 to 27. Some fun facts about Ms.Libby is that she likes trail running, mountain biking, and she’s an author. She actually wrote a book a few years ago. She also loves gardening and cats and she used to travel a lot. 

When asked what are your goal for this year Ms.Libby said, “— actually my goals are to— I really want to teach kids to love to cook and to understand how creative it is. And I’d like to teach my kids the fundamentals of cooking, so they know how to put things together— without following a recipe necessarily, and how important it is to eat sustainably and local produce.”