Goodbye Mr. Yap: Maui High principal retiring after more than 40 years in education

After 43 years of serving at just about every level in the Hawaii Department of Education on Maui, from elementary physical education teacher to high school principal to interim complex area superintendent, Jamie Yap is just about done.

“Well, I’m excited to graduate from Maui High and move on,” Yap said from his Maui High School principal’s office on Tuesday.

At age 68, Yap is retiring at the end of the calendar year, with his last day with students on Dec. 20. He will leave the school with an impressive legacy. 

During his tenure that began in 2017 at Maui High School, two buildings were completed: the $5 million weight training room and wrestling room that opened in 2022 behind the Izumi “Shine” Matsui Athletic Center and the $15 million Harrison and Helen Miyahira STEM Center adjacent to the main office that opened in August.

Yap said he thought he would retire several times before now, including when he wrapped up 27 years as principal at Maui Waena Intermediate School in 2016. But he was asked by the state Department of Education to be the interim principal at Maui High in January 2017 and he quickly fell in love with the job. When COVID-19 struck, he felt a responsibility to see the school through the pandemic. 

In December 2021, he was named interim complex area superintendent for the Baldwin-King Kekaulike-Maui High area, but returned as the Maui High principal six months later. He served as president of the Maui Interscholastic League from 2020-22 and was instrumental in leading the league back to the playing fields after the pandemic.

Under Yap’s watch, Maui High acquired a $10 million donation from an anonymous alumni donor in April that was put into an endowment to ensure the future of the Maui High School Foundation that funds, among several other things, $1,000 scholarships annually for 20 graduates.

This year, the school also started an academic plan that includes five academies: freshmen academy, for all 9th-graders as they choose their path for the next three years; IET Academy (Industrial, Engineering, Technology); Arts, Media & Business Academy; Service & Sustainability Academy; and HELPS Academy (Health, Education, Law & Public Safety).

Yap won’t completely leave. He accepted a position for six months on a trial basis to be a part-time fundraiser for the Maui High School Foundation in order to support the kids and their programs.

“Love doing that,” he said. “So I’m going to do that for six months to see if it works, if we actually can make that happen. If it does, I think great. Other than that, it’ll just be helping the wife and doing stuff around the house.”

The night of Aug. 8, 2023, perhaps best sums up the respect Yap commands from his staff and community. Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen and Desire Sides, a 1986 Maui High graduate and the area superintendent of the Baldwin-King Kekaulike-Kulanihako’i complex, notified him that the Maui High gym was needed as a shelter for the fire survivors.

Yap sprang into action, calling on his faculty, staff and other employees of the Department of Education to help with the Lahainaluna High School boarders who were on their way to the shelter in school busses after escaping the fire. 

Many responded and stayed all night, as it became the most-crowded shelter in Maui County with an estimated 2,000 evacuees arriving on the first night.

“When we were needed to be a shelter, he called me and I said, ‘Yep, sure, I can help,’ “ Maui High math teacher and swim coach Reid Yamamoto said. “Twenty minutes later, he says: ‘I need you now.’ And I brushed my teeth and I was there.”

Yap was the main coordinator at the shelter, assigning his staff tasks they didn’t usually do, including driving pickup trucks filled with bottled water, cots and blankets; directing traffic in the school parking lot; serving donated food; and showing evacuees where they could find cots and blankets.

“That just shows how much the faculty respects him,” Yamamoto said. “If they could, then they came out to help. We knew he wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important. You’ve got to help out your boss in whatever way you can.”

Another person who answered the call late that night was Ty Ogasawara, who will take over Yap’s spot at Maui High in January. Ogasawara, a 44-year-old graduate of Baldwin High School and the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, was a vice principal at Maui High from 2014-2019 before becoming principal at Pukalani Elementary.

“Big shoes to fill, I think is definitely apt in this situation,” Ogasawara said.

While he added he was nervous and excited, he said he has a confidence knowing that Yap has “really teed it up for us” and is feeling a responsibility to continue the progress.

“It’s on us,” Ogasawara said. “… He really set that legacy of things, that Saber legacy, what we leave behind and how we leave a place. I hope, I really hope that I am worthy to really take Maui High to the next step and really to make this the best place to go to school.”

Yap will be missed by seemingly all of the Maui High ʻohana. Saber junior Aika Swanson won the 200-yard freestyle state title in February at the Kīhei Aquatic Center. Yap was there to congratulate her.

“He was a very good principal, great at his job and I remember he would come to our swim meets … and he was like the only staff (member) that came besides our coaches, which was something we appreciated a lot,” Swanson said at swim practice on Tuesday. “He always offered as much support as he could and paid attention to swimming at Maui High and it was great. He brought a very optimistic presence to the room.”

Hawaiʻi State Department of Education Superintendent Keith Hayashi said he will miss an old friend with whom he attend school-level administrator training in the 1990s.

“He was among the neighbor island ‘jocks’ – the athletic coaches,” Hayashi said in a text message on Thursday. “Jamie’s all about students and supporting kids. And he excels at finding the right people on his team to make things happen – again, in support of students. 

“With Jamie retiring, what I’ll miss is having someone I can call and ask what he thinks about something, knowing that he’ll give me a totally frank, unbiased opinion. He doesn’t hold back, but it comes from a good place. I wish Jamie and his family all the best.”

Tia Joaquin has worked at Maui High for 31 years and has seen several principals come and go. She started as an English teacher, then became the curriculum coordinator and is now the academy coordinator.

“Mr. Yap has been a great mentor; I’ve learned a lot of leadership skills working with him and understanding the budget part of the DOE,” Joaquin said. “He meets with players, attends as many sporting events that he can, meets with coaches. His mantra has always been family first so if anyone has things happening, it’s always been family first, then work.”

Kerry Wasano, Maui High’s band director for 27 years, has worked for five principals. It was Yap who helped acquire the funds to expand the band room to more than double its size, he said.

“He was invested from the start,” Wasano said. “…We were kind of just floating around for a while, and then when Mr. Yap came, he kind of shook the bag. … He knows how to get people behind him. I think that was the biggest thing.”

Yap, who was athletic director at his alma mater St. Anthony High School from 1979-81, also has an affinity for sports, especially track and field, and cross country.

Maui High athletic director Mike Ban, who leans on Yap’s experience to help coordinate three Maui Interscholastic League sports — softball, track and field, and cross country — said he will miss breakfast brainstorming sessions with Yap that began before COVID and were resurrected after things got back to normal.

“He loves Saber sports,” Ban said. “It’s always great to have your boss or your principal be at our athletic events, whether it be a cheerleading championship, air rifle, swimming, football.

“And it’s always nice to have someone there to share ideas, brainstorm, talk about things, talk about possible solutions. … Like everybody else, I’m really going to miss him.”