Hawai‘i P-20 announces Hugh Dunn as director of early learning programs

HONOLULU — Hawaiʻi P-20 Partnerships for Education has named Hugh Dunn as its director of early learning programs focusing on its Hawaiʻi P-3 Initiative.

As its director of early learning programs, Dunn will provide leadership for P-3 efforts which are funded by an 8-year, $10 million grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in 2007. He is responsible for P-3 strategic planning and coordination of programs and policies supporting children‘s early literacy outcomes in partnership with the Early Learning Council, Hawaiʻi State Department of Education, University of Hawaiʻi System as well as community-based organizations. The goal of the initiative is for every child in Hawaiʻi to read at grade level by third grade.

Dunn was recently the project director at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Program Research and Evaluation Office where he managed projects such has Nā Lama Heluhelu: The Pihana Nā Mamo Early Reading Initiative, Kākoʻo Piha: The Pihana Nā Mamo Project to Support At-risk Native Hawaiian Youth, and Pihana Nā Mamo: The Native Hawaiian Special Education Project. Dunn also served as the principal at Kalihi-waena Elementary School and the vice principal at Washington Middle School.

Dunn is a PhD candidate in educational administration at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He received both his master‘s in educational administration and bachelor‘s of education from UH Mānoa. He has received first-place awards from the American Educational Research Association; was selected to the Pacific Century Fellows Program in 2000, a leadership recognition and development program founded by Mayor Mufi Hanneman; and was selected to participate in the University of Hawaiʻi‘s President‘s Emerging Leaders Program 2009-10 cohort.