School education leaders are bracing for controversy and hard conversations as the Hawaiʻi Board of Education starts the lengthy process of closing under-enrolled schools for the first time since 2011.
Over the past 20 years, enrollment in Hawaiʻi public schools has dropped from nearly 176,000 to 152,000 students, a 13% decrease. The department predicts it will lose an additional 14,600 students by the end of the decade.
But declining enrollment hasn’t impacted all schools equally. Some schools, like Keolu Elementary in Kailua or Kalihi Elementary in urban Honolulu, saw their student population drop by more than a third between 2014 and 2024.
Now, state education leaders are looking at closing schools with low enrollment that may struggle to provide quality education to their kids or need significant upgrades to their facilities. The Department of Education will present its plans for studying the consolidation of schools to the board on Thursday…