Situated across from Kamehameha Shopping Center on School Street, Kapalama Elementary School sits on 9.5 acres. Its front lawn is graced by a large statue of a woman dressed in a colorful muumuu and sitting on the ground, the product of an artist in the school program several years ago.

Even older is the cow barn turned multipurpose building. It is a remnant from the days when the land was part of a cattle ranch. It is the only building on campus large enough to accommodate all 700-plus pupils and teachers at one time.

It's that sense of purpose and history that pupils respond to when they walk through the halls and when they use the playground, said Patricia Dang, school principal. There's no pushing or shoving on the playground. There's no running along the outdoor hallways.

"Our children are very respectful," said Dang. "They wait in line to get on the playground equipment."

• What are you most proud of? "I am most proud of our staff and students. We have many differences and disagree on some things, but the single goal of all of us is to do what's best for the students," Dang said.

• Best-kept secret: "We have no secrets," Dang said. "We are what we are."

• Everybody at our school knows: Mary Pascual. "She's our PSAP teacher (Primary School Adjustment Project) educational assistant," Dang said. "She lives in the community, her children came here and people know her."

• Our biggest challenge: Time. "We need so much time to do what we want to do for the children that we need more than 24 hours in a day," Dang said.

• What we need: "More personnel in the upper grades to lower class size," Dang said. "More and more, we're finding students that need that extra support for various reasons, and having more personnel to give more individualized time would be great."

• Special events: The annual canned-food drive, parent workshops called Principal's Coffee Hour, and the Family Fun Fair held every February and run by the school's Parent Teacher Association.