Here’s Where Hawaiʻi School Enrollment Is Dropping Fastest
The state is looking at redistricting schools and closing campuses amid an ongoing decline in enrollment.
As Hawaiʻi looks for solutions to the dwindling number of public school students in the islands, one thing is certain: not every campus is experiencing the same level of decline.
Enrollment at Honouliuli Middle School has grown by a whopping 345% in the five years since it opened. Less than 4 miles away, DreamHouse Charter School in ʻEwa more than doubled its student population during the same time period.
Kalanianaʻole Elementary and Intermediate on the Big Island, meanwhile, saw a roughly 40% drop in enrollment. McKinley High School in Honolulu lost nearly a third of its students, going from a population of 1,617 students to 1,133 since the 2020-21 school year, according to data from the education department.
The school with the largest decline was King Kamehameha III Elementary School in Lahaina, which was destroyed during the 2023 Maui fires and has been operating out of a temporary campus near the Kapalua Airport.
Enrollment dropped by more than 20% at 38 campuses across the state in the last five years — far higher than the 6% decline reported statewide.
The Department of Education has been seeing a steady decline in enrollment for more than a decade, but the issue has taken on new urgency this year as the department looks at redrawing school boundaries to avoid closing small campuses that may be struggling to provide services with limited budgets.
It’s been more than a decade since Hawaiʻi shut down a department-run public school. The decision to close Queen Liliʻuokalani Elementary in Kaimukī in 2011 garnered strong pushback, and its impacts are still felt in the surrounding community. The 99-year-old school hosted annual events and served as a meeting place for the Kaimukī Neighborhood Board.
The department is focusing its efforts on redistricting schools to better distribute students, something it could do as early as next fall, according to a presentation to the Board of Education. The department still plans to study consolidating schools, but won’t make any decisions until spring 2028, according to a memo submitted to the board earlier this month.
Civil Beat reporter Caitlin Thompson contributed to this article
Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy. “Data Dive” is supported in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation.
