Changes abound at Hawai'i's private schools

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

The announcements have come close together, giving private-school education the ring of big business: mergers, expansions, new openings and marketing plans.

A few larger schools plan to add grades or entire campuses to their rosters, new schools are opening and some schools are pushing to enroll students at pre-kindergarten and keep them until they head to college.

But with no real growth projected anytime soon in private-school enrollment, independent school officials across Hawai'i are monitoring events that could change the long-stable business of private and religious school education.

"The private schools have a great effect on each other," said Carmen Himenes, superintendent of Catholic schools. "We're such a small community. What one hand does affects the other hand. When a new school opens, it's going to affect all of us."

Hongwanji Mission School will open the state's first Buddhist high school next fall. At the same time, Saint Louis, an all-boys Catholic middle and high school, will reopen an elementary school it closed in 1949. Next year the campus will expand down to fifth grade, then to fourth grade the next year until it reaches kindergarten.

Mid Pacific Institute, a sixth- through 12th-grade campus with nearly 1,100 students in Manoa, and Epiphany School, a 200-student campus in Kaimuki, are working on a merger agreement. Epiphany students would be able to enroll directly in Mid Pacific without going through the normal application process.

Edna Hussey, headmaster of Epiphany School, said the partnership would make the transition from elementary to middle school seamless.

"It will be good for both schools, especially for parents and faculty," Hussey said. "Once you've invested time and energy in a successful program you don't want to see it end."

Also, Hussey said the merger will eliminate the upheaval of having to apply to a new school at the seventh grade. "Some families are looking earlier to being in a bigger school," Hussey said. "Each school's mission and philosophy is different. It's not just a matter of moving your child into a classroom. It's a difficult decision for families."

The trend toward K-12 schools has been developing for about 10 years, said Robert Witt, executive director of the Hawai'i Association of Independent Schools.

Some families want the K-12 environment because it means their children have to go through the application process once, Witt said.

"Once their child is admitted to the school, then there they are," he said. "That child can matriculate for 12 or 13 years. This isn't based on any research that K-12 education is better for the child. I think it speaks to busy lives or the difficulty of getting a child into a competitive school, and to not have to do that more than once."

Other private schools are watching the movement carefully, Witt said.

"It's not a trend away from K-6," he said. "That will continue to be a part of our learning environment. The move is toward the middle school. The middle school concept is also growing on the public side."

A number of Hawai'i's public elementary schools have decided to end at fifth grade instead of sixth to balance school crowding or for curriculum reasons. And private schools have been increasing the size of their middle schools, a common entry point for new students.

Cathy Lee Chong, director of communications at Iolani School, said the middle-school concept is changing the way private schools do admissions. Iolani School next year will nearly triple the number of incoming sixth-graders by accepting 50 new students instead of the usual 18.

But the school is not increasing its student population — it will simply adjust the number of seventh-graders accepted the following year to strike a balance, she said.

Punahou School is also expected to expand its sixth-grade admissions and shrink its seventh-grade admissions once its new middle school is complete.

Bob Peters, headmaster at Hanahauoli School, a K-6 campus, said he is not worried that the need for small elementary schools is going away, though.

"We can focus on age level in a different way than a K-12 is going to be able to do," he said. "The environment is a very manageable one with few distractions."

Witt said schools that are expanding their missions are trying to position themselves in the market in as strong a way as possible.

Catholic schools in particular have run more television and advertising spots recently to coincide with the application and admissions season. Although Himenes said that enrollment has been steady at about 11,300 students in Catholic schools statewide, even schools that typically must turn students away are finding it important to advertise their mission.

"Many of the schools have been better about Web sites and marketing," Himenes said. "They've learned they have to put money aside for marketing or they will be left in the dust."

Meanwhile, new schools are opening: Island Pacific Academy in Kapolei will be that area's first private school, while the long-planned high school at Le Jardin Windward Academy opened this year, filling a gap of private high-school education in Windward O'ahu.

The expansion of the Kamehameha Schools campuses on Maui and the Big Island will be the only projected growth area for private schools in Hawai'i.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.