AMLE Distinguished Service Award

2024 Recipient: Lisa Nagamine

Throughout her career, and even in returning from retirement, Nagamine has spent nearly thirty years passionately advocating for middle level education in the state of Hawaiʻi. As principal of Moanalua Middle School for thirteen years, she positively impacted thousands of students and families and served as a mentor for other middle grades leaders across the district. She subsequently took on leadership roles within the Hawaiʻi Department of Education, including as Principal in Residence, where she continued to drive the implementation of the middle school model throughout Hawaiʻi. Her impact was so significant that the State Superintendent asked her to return from retirement to support making middle level education a priority post the COVID-19 pandemic. In this role, she helped reignite the passion and joy needed to fuel middle level education, building momentum through shared buy-in and accountability among middle grades leaders across the state. Her work has been critical in promoting the state’s goal to incorporate middle school concepts in the middle-level grades to support students’ academic growth and social-emotional learning, ensuring they transition successfully through adolescence and into high school. Lisa has been instrumental in providing critical professional development and shared-learning opportunities to all public school educators in Hawaiʻi, including by establishing regular statewide meetings for middle school leaders and by organizing summits across the state’s islands that have impacted more than 3,000 educators. She’s also been an active leader in the Hawaiʻi Association for Middle Level Education state affiliate since 1998. Always a champion for students, she helped to organize the first middle level student leadership conference in March 2024.