Attrition is expected at the upper levels at Hawaiian immersion schools, but kindergarten is when there's the most enthusiasm for the program, said Kalae Akioka, kindergarten Hawaiian immersion teacher for Pu'ohala.

"To have only eight in a class means every year the kids move up to the next grade level, they will always be short," Akioka said. "If it's eight every single year, slowly by slowly we'll lose all our teachers and there's no way we'll survive."

And Pu'ohala isn't alone. Four other schools have low kindergarten enrollment despite stable enrollment overall for the past two years at the 18 Hawaiian immersion programs that are part of the state Department of Education system. The low kindergarten enrollments are at Waimea Elementary and Ke Kula 'O 'Enunuikaimalino on the Big Island, Princess Nahi'ena'ena Elementary on Maui and Hau'ula Elementary on O'ahu.

Experts suggest that the decline may be related to competition from immersion charter schools, a lack of programs that students can go on to after they have completed earlier grades, and even a lack of understanding on parents' part about immersion programs.

With the federal No Child Left Behind Act, there's more pressure to focus on English literacy, and some parents are selecting English-based programs for that reason, said Puanani Wilhelm, DOE administrator for the Hawaiian Studies & Language Program.

Parents also wonder how learning Hawaiian helps their children prepare for college, Wilhelm said. It's because "they don't really understand that learning Hawaiian doesn't actually hurt them," Wilhelm said. "It's not a negative thing. In fact, literacy in Hawaiian supports good literacy in English."

Some parents worry about their child falling behind in English, but test results show that immersion students do as well on standardized tests as other students, Akioka said. Parents sometimes compare their third-grader with an English-taught third-grader and there really is no comparison, she said.

"But if you compare our children in the seventh grade when they've been properly transitioned, they do fine," Akioka said.

Kawena Elkington, 11, was a Pu'ohala immersion student who has gone on to Kamehameha Schools this year. Kawena said learning Hawaiian was interesting and she had no problem switching to English. She said she treasures her education at Pu'ohala.

"I liked learning the language of the elders because it was almost a dead language," Kawena said.

Parents of immersion students endorse the program because it offers a lower student-teacher ratio and is intellectually stimulating, said Susan Kanehailua, president of Papa Makua 'O Pu'ohala, the parent group for the school's immersion program.

Kanehailua said she believes that her children are doing better in school because they are learning two languages.

"We're finding that it helps our kids to excel," Kanehailua said.

The Department of Education Hawaiian immersion programs, for the most part, operate like a school within a school, functioning under the same rules and policies of other public schools — as opposed to charter immersion schools, which have more flexibility in curriculum, finances and hiring.

Immersion programs began 21 years ago, in 1983, with the Hilo Punana Leo preschool. Four years later, the state initiated immersion programs for elementary students at two public schools. Now DOE students are able to graduate from full-immersion K-12 campuses, 'Anuenue on O'ahu and Nawahi'okalani'opu'u on the Big Island.

Pu'ohala's Akioka and others hope that enrollment will rise before next week when the final count is made and teacher allocation is decided. Under DOE guidelines, classes in kindergarten to third grade receive one teacher for every 20 students. DOE immersion classes have a little more flexibility with 15 as a cutoff, said Greg Knudsen, DOE spokesman.

Two weeks ago, Hau'ula Elementary School had only six immersion kindergartners signed up — it's now eight — and those numbers should concern the community if it wants to maintain a program there, he said.

"It's a problem the community needs to address," Knudsen said. "It should probably be working to recruit to sustain the enrollment level in order to help the program continue."