Posted on: Monday, October 7, 2002

Kamehameha casts wider net

By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor

Kamehameha Schools, whose campus includes one in Pukalani, has "pulled out all the stops" in seeking applicants. The application deadline is Oct. 15. Christie Wilson • The Honolulu AdvertiserNT>

PUKALANI, Maui — Kamehameha Schools' Maui campus recently hosted nearly 400 teenagers at a dance that mixed fun with a recruiting message aimed at encouraging more Native Hawaiian children to apply for admission.

The school's 180 eighth- and ninth-graders were each asked to invite four friends to the dance, which was preceded by a stew-and-rice dinner and a video extolling the Kamehameha experience. Most of the guests returned home with enrollment applications.

Earlier in the day, more than 1,000 people attended the Pukalani school's first "community open house," an event held simultaneously at the nonprofit trust's Kea'au campus on the Big Island.

With the Oct. 15 application deadline approaching for the 2003-04 school year, Kamehameha Schools also has been running newspaper and radio ads and holding community meetings on both islands, and has an information booth at the Maui County Fair, which opened last week in Wailuku. And this week, Maui students will "bring a buddy" to school to introduce more children to the state-of-the-art campus.

"We have pulled out all the stops," said Kamehameha Schools' Director of Admissions Wayne Chang, referring to a commitment to boost recruiting efforts following severe criticism when a non-Hawaiian student was admitted to the Maui campus for the current term.

Kamehameha Schools, a multibillion-dollar charitable trust formerly known as Bishop Estate, was founded in 1887 by the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the great-granddaughter and last direct royal descendant of Kamehameha the Great.

School policy gives preference to Native Hawaiian children, to the extent allowed by law. Kamehameha officials said the non-Hawaiian ninth-grader was enrolled at the Maui campus only after the list of qualified Native Hawaiian students was exhausted. Critics said more should have been done to make sure there were enough Native Hawaiian applicants.

As a result of the controversy, Kamehameha Schools adopted interim changes to admissions procedures at its Maui and Big Island campuses. The $25 application fee was waived, and a requirement to meet minimum test scores was suspended. In addition, no applicants will be screened out after the preliminary evaluation.

The 180-acre Maui campus has almost 600 students in kindergarten through the ninth grade. The 312-acre Hawai'i campus has 640 students in kindergarten through the ninth grade. Once the 10th through 12th grades are phased in, enrollment at both schools will be about 1,100, with the first graduating class in 2006.

Finding qualified applicants has never been a problem for the main Kapalama campus in Honolulu, which has 3,128 students in kindergarten through grade 12. Each year there are hundreds of applicants for limited openings in kindergarten and the sixth and ninth grades, which are considered the "entry points" for enrollment.

At the Maui campus, there are openings in kindergarten and the sixth, seventh, ninth and 10th grades, and at Kea'au, in kindergarten and the sixth, ninth and 10th grades. To avoid having to fill a pre-determined number of slots in each grade level, Chang said the school instead will base enrollment on demand.

"There's been a lot of interest and we've been sending out a lot of applications. But we have not been receiving them back at a huge rate," Chang said. "Traditionally, people wait until the last two weeks, and even on the last day they come flying in. We're pretty optimistic that we'll get a lot more applications than last year."

The applications that already have come in have not been evaluated yet, so Chang said there is no way of knowing whether more non-Hawaiians are applying to Kamehameha.

Money is the main reason many families don't bother to apply, he said. Their children may already be attending free public schools, and parents may not be aware that Kamehameha has a substantial endowment to provide financial assistance. He said 60 percent of Kamehameha students statewide receive tuition aid.

"If that is an issue for parents, I'd like to reassure them that it's not going to be an issue," Chang said.

Annual tuition at Kamehameha Schools is $1,093 for grades kindergarten to six and $1,518 for grades seven through 12 — well below the fees at other elite private schools.

Maui campus Headmaster Rod Chamberlain said all the recent recruitment events have been successful in bringing more people to see the Pukalani campus for the first time and to make enrollment seem more within reach.

"Our goal is to demystify this process and make sure people know what they need to know" about applying for Kamehameha Schools, he said.

Along with community outreach, another new change in admission rules that allows West Hawai'i students to attend the Kea'au campus in East Hawai'i is bringing in more applications, said Headmaster Stan Fortuna Jr. Previously, Kona students could apply only to the Kapalama campus, which has a boarding program.

Canice Abilay of Maui said the recent admissions controversy was not a factor in her decision to see about getting her daughter into the seventh grade at Kamehameha. Abilay, who attended a community meeting this week in Paukukalo, said she didn't apply earlier because she was happy with her child's public elementary school, but is not so pleased with her middle school experience.

"My daughter is more interested in going to a better school. I think there's more communication with their teachers (at Kamehameha) because there are less students per class," she said.

Another community meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 9 at the Maui campus.

For more information and applications, call the Maui admissions office at 572-3133, the Hawai'i office at 982-0100, or the main campus at Kapalama at 842-8800; or check the Kamehameha Schools Web site at www.ksbe.edu.

Reach Christie Wilson at 808-244-4880, or e-mail at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.