Interesting Facts

History of Washington Middle School

(Taken from the 1976 WMS Golden Jubilee)

It was 1926, a year in which several landmark buildings were constructed in Honolulu. Aloha Tower was completed on the waterfront in downtown Honolulu, while in Waikiki, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel received its finishing touches in preparation for the opening in February, 1927 to its first elite tourists. In the Paawa district, plans for the first junior high school on Oahu were transformed into reality with the start of construction at 1633 South King Street.

This site had an intriguing past. On it was the large two-story, ten bedroom home built by Thomas Cummins, an early resident of the Islands. He came to Hawaii in the 1800's, fell in love with and married the High Chiefess Kamakaokane. Their son, John Adams Cummins, was born in 1834. This child, reared as an alii, was destined to become a notable salesman during the monarchy. He became minister of foreign affairs under King Kalakaua and a statesman in Queen Liliuokalani's reign.

In addition to the large home with its encircling veranda, at one time, there was a gazebo, where musical entertainment was provided for the distinguished guests at the lavish parties given by John Adams Cummins. This had appearance much like the band stand on the Iolani Palace grounds. Mr. Cummins had substantial land holdings including a home in Waimanalo that stretched from the Pali to the sea. He and his father, Thomas, were enthusiastic horseman. John raised champion race horses on the grassy, nine acre Pawaa property. After a time, he decided to move his horses to his ranch in Waimanalo. At this time, he transferred the ownership of his property to his children. Thomas, his only son, received the largest portion and the Cummins home. The three daughters received smaller parcels facing King Street. Their parcels were condemned, and the daughters' parcels became the physical education field.

All seven of Thomas' children were born in the Cummins house. Only one of these children is alive today - Moseley Kaniphahu Cummins, husband to Helene, a teacher and librarian at Washington Intermediate School for many years. The house condemned in 1926 was one that had been built to replace the original house which had succumbed to termites.

In 1926, the Cummins home was leveled, and the construction of the school was nearly completed toward the end of the year. With no building as yet, the students entering the end of the year. With no building as yet, the students entering in September, 1926 had to be dispersed to three temporary locations. One of these was the Japanese language school on Young Street. In January, 1927, when the building was completed, the 782 students and staff of 35 returned to the campus to occupy their new school.

The city and county officials, in deciding on a name for this school, gave some consideration to naming it after its distinguished former owner, John Adams Cummins. However, preceding schools had been named after United states presidents and following this policy, the name Washington Junior High School was selected- an appropriate one for this first Oahu junior high school. Other schools, such as Central junior high school, had added ninth grades to their elementary schools, but Washington was the first with a separate facility that included only the seventh, eighth and ninth grades.

John Adams Cummins' name was given to this first building, and it became J. A. Cummins Hall. Immediately surrounding it were the lawns, once a part of the Cummins property, and these were for the girls' physical education field.

In 1932, Washington's name was changed to Washington Intermediate School.

The first students ranged in age from eleven to nineteen years. They were drawn from Kaahumanu, Pohukaina and Waikiki Elementary Schools. The students' ages gradually reached a more normal level, so that five years later, the ages of the entering seventh graders were eleven to fifteen years.

Central Intermediate School later took Pohukaina graduates; Manoa, Kuhio, Ala Wai and Lunalilo sent their graduates to Washington. In later years, as other schools were built, only Lunalilo, Kuhio, Jefferson, Kaahumanu and Hokulani assigned seventh graders to the school.

There were twenty seven classrooms in the school. It housed the workroom, office, library, auditorium, cafeteria, kitchen, nurse's office, bookstore, restrooms, newswriting room and a few classrooms on the first floor. The second floor had only classrooms.

The physical education classes occupied the basement of the building under the cafeteria. The fourteen houses remaining on the property when the land was condemned were used as "cottage classrooms." These were used for the custodians and for shop, art, music, band and home economics classes. These termite ridden cottages were torn down over the years as new buildings were erected. The last was bulldozed in 1975 to make way for the Boys Club of Honolulu building.

The classroom floors were water mopped every day by the students. The custodians oiled all the floors of cummins Hall during the vacations to keep down the dust. When the fire of 1949 broke out, it raced through the building, fed by oiled floors.

In early years, there were cesspools instead of sewers on the site. These often overflowed and had to be pumped frequently. Sometimes the pumping crew forgot to replace the covers. Mr. Spencer, the school's first principal, recalls an incident in connection with this problem, when on one occasion, he decided a misbehaving student needed a disciplinary paddling. When Mr. Spencer tried to hold the boy, the student escaped his grasp and took his heels across the campus. Unfortunately, the boy slipped on the cesspool overflow and fell into an open cesspool. He was recused, sputtering and angry and perhaps more disciplined than he would have been from a paddling.

In 1938, a spectacular fire destroyed the one-story, wooden shop building. Neighbors reported towering smoke and flames which threatened to set fire to the nearby Philip Street homes and an adjacent, cottage classroom. The fire, apparently, started from the spontaneous combustion of oily rags and paint stored in the shop.

The Fred Wright Building was a two-story, concrete structure built to house some of the classes occupying the cottage classrooms. The music, science, social studies and homemaking classes were transferred into this building when it was completed.

On December 9, 1949, a fire of undetermined origins destroyed Cummins Hall, though five fire companies and sixty firemen battled the flames for several hours. It was the second fire to break out that day in the twenty three year old building. A few hours earlier, a small fire in a tool shed under the school auditorium was extinguished by two fire companies. Japanese language classes using several classrooms after regular school hours filed out of the burning building in a good order and escaped injury.

Principal Frederick A. Clowes estimated that 15,000 to 20,000 school records were destroyed as well as all library books and textbooks. The blaze and destruction added materially to the critical classroom shortage that then existed in the city schools.

There was a problem in raising money to replace the burned building. Cummins Hall was not covered by insurance; the city coffers were practically empty and there was controversy whether the money should be raised by taxes. The school was forced to go on a double shift until 1952 when money was finally raised for the replacement. The rebuilt school consisted of two buildings erected in a double row fronting King Street.

The girls physical education playing area was moved from the lawn near the first building to the Diamond Head side of the school. Another change was the erection of a stage in the central court in 1944-45. This work was done by the shop classes and improved by other shop classes in 1948.

Shortly after Buildings "A" and "B" were built to replace the Cummins Hall, another concrete, two-story building was added to the complex on the school grounds. This was the Administration Building, which held the offices of the principal, vice principal, secretary, clerk, attendance and health supervisors, teachers' workroom and lounges. On the upper floor were the library, typing room and lavatories. It was opened in 1953.

In 1976-77 there are no longer health supervisors, but there are more counselors than there were when this building was erected. The former conference room on the first floor has been partitioned to make two rooms, one for the counselor and the other for the registrar.

Four portable classrooms were added in the sixties and seventies. A new shop building was added in 1967 which holds the art, shop, and laboratory science classes.

The Community

Some of the character of the Paawa, McCully, Moiliili areas can be learned by studying maps of the period around 1926 and from talking to long-time residents and former students attending the school.

Mauka of King and Beretania Streets, the names of such kamaaina families as Dillingham, Frear, Whitney, Campbell and Dowsett appear on a 1920 map. Makai of the Cummins property near Philip Street was an area called "Sunny South". This estate was named by its owner, Mr. Curtis Ward, a nostalgic ex-southerner, who married Victoria Robinson. Today, this section is filled with small houses and, fronting on Kalakaua Avenue, by small stores and multilevel apartments and condominiums.

On the Ewa side of Kalakaua and makai of King Street, there were rice fields and beyond this swamps where the Ala Moana Shopping Center now stands.

Most of McCully and Waikiki was covered with swamps, duck ponds and strips of dry land growing bananas, taro and date palms on the raised soil between the long strips of water. When the Ala Wai Canal was constructed, the dredged coral and soil was used to fill up the duck ponds and swamps.

Charles H. Nishimura's father and mother lived next door to Washington Junior High School on the Kaimuki side. Charles, one of several children in the Nishimura family, lived next door to Ruth Migita, his classmate at Washington. He married "the girl next door," and Ruth and Charles have sent all their children to their old school.

Mrs. Nishimura remembers the area well as it was in 1926, with its clay-like soil, the many ponds, swamps and numerous Chinese vegetable gardens. The Nishimuras owned a block of houses next to Washington. Those fronting on King Street have been converted into small stores. All these are gone now, and the Nishimuras lease their property to Zippy's, Incorporated.

Small homes and stores fronted on King Street on the fire insurance maps of 1923 and 1927. Many of these remain in 1976. On these maps were Buddhist Temples and a park or two as one traveled in the direction of Waialae.

A large area between Manoa and Palolo Streams and the school was once planted with rice and taro. Tsuneo Omiya, a student at Washington in 1931, tells of walking with his classmates from school across the taro fields to Waikiki. He recalls when there were no roads through this area- only fields, ponds and swamps.

Several students who wrote for Na Huna Manao, Washington's first student literary magazine, tell of rice fields near their homes.

The Chun-Hoon family owned a large acreage where the present-day Ala Wai Golf Corse is now located. It was known as Lung Du Wai. There was abundant water here fed by a large spring. This spring water used to flood the taro fields. Close to Manoa Stream, a rice mill was located.

Electric trolley lines were strung overhead along King Street to Waialae and down McCully Street to Waikiki. Rapid Transit trolleys ran at frequent intervals toward Kaimuki and Waikiki and back. The Paawa Junction of the line was located on the mauka side of South King Street about a block from the school. The route to Waikiki turned right at McCully Street, crossed a private right-of-way bridge across the Ala Wai Canal and continued on to Kalakaua Avenue. Here, it turned tward Kapiolani Park continuing to the end of the line at Poni Moi Road. The trolley poles were then adjusted for the return trip to Kalihi.

One Washington student described a class excursion in Na Huna Manao on which the students boarded the trolley on King Street, rode downtown to the railroad station and transferred onto the train for the trip to Aiea and the cane fields.

The people in this community were hardworking and thrifty. Many had come from the plantations and settled in this area with their families. Education was important to them. They expected their sons and daughters enrolled at Washington Intermediate School to reflect credit on their families. Many also enrolled their children in Chinese or Japanese language schools in order that they might learn the language and culture of their ancestors. This meant a long day of study for thee children.

McKinley High School returned the records of early Washington graduates to Washington Intermediate School after the fire destroyed all other records. These records show a scattering of Hawaiian, Filipino, Caucasian and Chinese names as well as Japanese. A large majority of students were of Japanese ancestry.

A 1935 Advertiser news item reports that, because of the large number of students of Japanese parentage, it was expedient to send out the invites to a Washington "open house" in the Japanese language as well as English.

Military families, on first arriving to Hawaii, often lived in Waikiki until housing became available to them on the military bases. Their teenage children attended Washington Intermediate and McKinley High School until their assignment to military housing. This pattern continues in the present. There is a sizable number of transient students at Washington as a result of this military transfer and other reasons.

In the last ten years Koreans, Samoans, Tongans, Chinese, Filipinos and other immigrants from the Pacific area have come in increasing numbers to the Islands because of changes in the immigration laws. Many have settled in the McCully, Moiliili and Waikiki districts. Children of these families are attending Washington.

The end of the Vietnam conflict brought a relaxation of immigration rulings, and a number of Vietnamese children attending the school.

The curriculum and methods of teaching had to be flexible to meet the needs of children who speak English as a second language or do not speak English at all. School policy has been to place these immigrant children in regular classes as soon as possible.

Future changes in the composition of the community and its environment may depend on such factors as the erection of numerous high-rise condominiums and apartments and the possible construction of a fixed rail or other modern rapid transit line, which is planned to go through McCully, Moiliili area in its route from Pearl Harbor to Hawaii Kai. This would have a great impact on the community.

The Depression And Washington Intermediate School (W.I.S. )

The school was founded in a year of prosperity for Oahu and the Hawaiian Islands. Three years later the Great Depression began. The 1931-1932 Department of Public Instruction annual report stated, "It was a period of great economic and social stress...This Territory has been faced with grave problems and social unrest. To meet a reduction in tax revenues, it has been necessary to practice rigid economy."

Where other schools faced a reduction in the numbers of teachers, this school fared comparatively well in the number of teachers assigned to its 1,665 students in 1930-1931 - a staff of sixty-two. This figure included service positions, administrators and a cadet teacher or two. In 1931-1932, the staff increased to sixty-eight for a student population of 1,740, the worst year of the depression for pupil-teacher ratio was in 1934-1935, when a staff of fifty-three had meet the needs of 1,850 students. The next year the staff members were added as the student population had increased to 2,041.

Helene Cummins says of these years,"Rather than drop teachers and jobs, the legislature decided to cut salaries. As a newer teacher, my salary was $120.00 a month when I started (1930) and $525.00 when I retired (1960). This was a far cry from the salaries of today. My actual take-home pay, after retirement deduction, taxes, etc. was in the neighborhood of $98.00. The top salary was $180.00 or thereabouts in 1930."

World War II

World War II caused a great social and educational upheaval in all the schools on Oahu.

On December 7, 1941 the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred. Daniel Inouye, in his account of that day in his life in JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON, said that most of the damage in the Moiliili and McCully districts was result of our own shelling. fragments from the unexploded shells of our guns fell on this district causing server damage and casualties. a vivid description of this damage and casualties is given by senator Inouye in his autobiography. At that time, the Senator, a graduate of Washington Intermediate, was attending Mckinley High School. Evidently, he was a fellow member of the first aid unit headquartered at Lunalilo School to which Helene Cummis belonged. Daniel was a boy of sixteen at the time.

Helene Cummins relates the following. "Bomb fragments fell on Washington Intermediate School and its grounds, but there were no injuries and little property damage. Nearly Lunalilo School had been designated as a first aid station top floor was damaged, the teachers in the first aid unit reported instead to Washington Intermediate School, where we took care of service wives and children who were bombed out of their Pearl Harbor homes. They were housed in the Home Economics Building, since it was concrete and safer than the old wooden building (Cummins Hall). there were also stoves and refrigerators to keep and cook food. We helped set up cots, provided blankets and prepared meals for these frightened people. it was eerie at night as we could not have any lights on because of the black-out. The service families stayed three or four days until it was safe for them to return to their homes...

Parents were asked to keep their children home on December 8th and not to send them to school until further notice. Teachers were drafted to conduct the Identification Project, and this took all of January and a part of February. School was resumed after this.

Teachers were assigned different jobs in different locations in the Island-wide Identification Project. Some teachers want from door to door to gather information on the occupants in their assigned area... One oriental teacher had the door slammed in her face because sh was Japanese... Good student typists were used to do the typing of the gathered information. The information cards were filled by the clerk and kept until the person could come within a specified time to be fingerprinted. I served as a file clerk at Waikiki School. We had to remain at headquarters until we cleared the lines of people who came to be fingerprinted. However, we had to close before dark, as we could not use any lights in the black-out and had to be off the streets after dark.

When it was safe and we had completed the Identificaion Project, school was again in session. We all had to carry gas masks and the children kept leaving them around the buildings. We also had to carry identification cards and have typhoid shots. We had alert drills often. We would file out of the buildings and down into a bomb shelter, where we sat until the all clear sounded.

We were required to have vaccinations as well as typhoid shots. We had a typhoid carrier who worked in the cafeteria ever day preparing sandwiches. I was the only teacher who came down with typhoid and spent three months in Queen's Hospital as a result. Sixty-eight students who ate the infected sandwiches were hospitalized. Unfortunately, eight of these students died as a result of the disease.

We had a teacher shortage because of enlistments in the armed forces, transfers, teachers returning to the mainland and people leaving for high-paying jobs. To relieve the teacher shortage, retired teachers and non-accredited teachers were hired. Even former teachers from the mainland who had been drafted into the Navy came to teach in their sailor suits. They had a great deal of difficulty understanding the pidgin English used by our pupils and the pupils did not understand them.

I was librarian during the war and found it difficult to get new books and supplies as the shipping space was used instead for food and other necessary supplies.

The pineapple compaines lost many of their workers to the draft and wartime jobs. They appealed to the Department of Public Instruction and the schools to provide student help under teacher supervision to harvest the pineapples. They provided the trucks to take the students and teachers to and from the fields, gave them safety goggles, and issued gloves for the workers. Most of the students did not like the hard work in the pineapple fields but continued out of a sense of doing their part.

A wartime HI-LIGHTS reported that Mr. Clarence Yoshioka's seventh gradfe boys helped foold production by growing 7,000 pounds of vegetables in the school gardens. This produce was sold mostly to the cafeteria with the rest sold or given to the students.

The ADVERTISER printed a news item teling of Washington's dairy, which consisted of one nannie goat. She gave a gallon of milk daily, and it was the task of Harold Kawasaki, who lived across the street from the school, to see chicks, selling 100 a week for thirty cents each. Mr. Chapson, the teacher in charge, said the class was not able to keep up with the demand.

Recent History

Collective bargaining as a State supported policy has had a large impact on schools. It has affected clas sizes and grievance procedures, done away with teacher supervision of classroom cleanup after school, and boosted the salaries of all school personnel.

Washington's principal must study in careful detail the various union contracts to see that the rigts of all are safeguarded.

Washington has an Association Policy Committee to which teachers may bring their concerns. These are ironed out between the principal and the Committee. It is proving an effective tool in solving problems before they create tensions.

Other changes have been brought about by Supreme Court decisions affecting students' rights. At Washington, as elsewhere in the school system, procedures and policies devised to protect students' rights are meticulously, followed. These might involve such things as suspensions and the parents and students' inspection of school records, formerly open only to school staff.

Over the years Washington has had a fascinating history. It has successfullyu taken the sons oand daughters of immigrants, mainkanders and Islanders and prepared varied young people for their adult lives. The people of the surrounding community are proud of their ethnic heritages and yet have successfully achieved a fusion of ways of life, largely through the school.

1931. Washington, Honolulu's first junior high schools. STAR BULLETIN. 10/09/31.

1934. Washington Hi-Lights wins national contest honors. STAR BULLETIN. 05/02/34.

1936. Annual conference held. Closer contacts urged between intermediate schools. STAR BULLETIN. 04/22/36.

1940. Washington School features health work. STAR BULLETIN. 06/17/42.

1942. School has own dairy. Yield is gallon daily. STAR BULLETIN. 04/23/42.

1947.Janitress, Elvira Hapai, wins friends at Washington. STAR BULLTEIN. 02/26/47.

1949. Raging $500,000 fire razes Washington Intermediate School. ADVERTISER. 12/06/49.

1950. Territory of Hawaii providing $500,000 to rebuild burned school. ADVERTISER. 01/25/50.

1951. W. I. S.' new school building ready for use soon. SURVEYOR. 09/51.

1952. Cafeteria Building to be opened in May. SURVEYOR. 03/52.

1952. Chamberlain new Superintendent of Hawaii schools. SURVEYOR. 09/52.