Tate Sakamoto is the band director at Waiākea Intermediate School in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, on the Big Island. He's relatively new to teaching, but has learned and is learning a lot in a community that is supportive and closely knit. We have a lot of similar experiences having to figure a lot of things out without having much to work with. He's in a unique club of directors who started teaching just as the pandemic hit, so he's got experiences and skills that I definitely don't have.