Our Roots

1895 – A teacher training department is formed at Honolulu High School, located in Princess Ruth’s former mansion (now Central Intermediate School).
1896 – The teacher training department moves to Victoria and Young Streets and is renamed Honolulu Normal and Training School.
1905 – After annexation, Hawai‘i becomes a US territory. Honolulu Normal and Training School is renamed Territorial Normal and Training School and is moved to Lunalilo and Quarry streets.
1921 – Benjamin Wist (later dean of Teachers College) becomes the principal of the school.
1930 – The school moves to a new 15-acre site (once a pig farm) adjoining the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. The university’s Department of Secondary Education becomes the School of Education.
1931 – The legislature transfers the Territorial Normal and Training School to the School of Education. The School of Education is renamed Teachers College.
1939–1941 – University Elementary School is built on Metcalf Street as part of Teachers College. Construction begins on Castle Memorial Hall, a training center for kindergarten and nursery school teachers.
1941–1945 – Punahou School, displaced by the military occupying its campus, move into Castle Memorial Hall and other buildings, but Teachers College continues to operate.
1943 – University High School Building 1, on the Metcalf Street side of Teachers College, is completed as an intermediate school.
1946 – Hubert Everly (later dean of the College of Education) writes his doctoral dissertation, in which he recommends educational experimentation as a core function for the Laboratory School.
1948 – University High School Building 2 is constructed adjacent to Building 1. The schools now offer a complete K–12 curriculum. Everly becomes the principal.
1959 – Teachers College becomes the College of Education, and Hawai‘i becomes the fiftieth state.
1965 – The Hawai‘i State Legislature commissions a comprehensive review of education programs to prepare teachers, including the function and role of the Laboratory Schools. The results of the review would be published the following year with the title Preparation of Teachers and other Educational Personnel in Hawai‘i and would become known as the “Stiles Report.”
1966 – CRDG is born. Following the recommendation of the Stiles Report, the role and function of the Laboratory Schools is changed from one of demonstration and teacher training to one of research and innovation. The schools become part of a new entity, the Hawai‘i Curriculum Center, which will be renamed CRDG three years later.
1966 – Arthur R. King and John A. Brownell publish The Curriculum and the Disciplines of Knowledge: A Theory of Curriculum Practice, laying out the theory that will become the foundation of CRDG’s curriculum research work.
1969 – The Hawai‘i Curriculum Center is renamed the Curriculum Research & Development Group (CRDG), with King as its director.
1996 – CRDG, along with other research units, reorganizes under the UH Office of the Senior Vice President for Research.
2000 – CRDG merges with the College of Education.
2001 – CRDG’s application for charter school status for ULS is successful. The new charter school is administered by CRDG with the ULS local school board.
2003 – Donald B. Young succeeds King as director of CRDG.
2009 – CRDG and ULS enter a new era in their R&D partnership in compliance with Hawai‘i charter school law.
2013 – Kathleen F. Berg becomes CRDG’s third director when Young becomes dean of the College of Education.