The campus serves a working-class community where many adults have two to three jobs. Principal Kaipo Miller said parents often don't have the skills or time to help their children succeed in school.

These circumstances are not an excuse for the school's less-than-stellar performances in standardized testing, Miller said, but it does present challenges that school officials are trying to address on several fronts.

Following a program pioneered in Hawai'i at Kamali'i Elementary in Kihei, Maui, Princess Nahienaena Elementary has established a transition class for kindergartners who may not be ready to advance to first grade.

"It gives them the gift of an extra year" in kindergarten, Miller said. If during the school year they make enough progress, transition students may be transferred into a regular first-grade class.

A "looping" program borrowed from Waihe'e Elementary, another Maui school, allows teachers in certain cases to stay with the same class of pupils over the course of two years.

Looping helps children get a running start on the school year by not having to learn new classroom procedures; teachers needn't spend time figuring out the instructional needs of individual pupils because they already are familiar with them.

To help parents, Princess Nahienaena Elementary conducted an evening reading program last year over six to eight weeks "to teach them how to teach their children," Miller said.

The school also is working with the literacy agency Hui Malama to develop a reading program for immigrant parents.

• What are you most proud of? "Our students' enthusiasm, parent and community support and hard-working staff," Miller said.

• Best-kept secret: The school's reading resource program, run by teacher Faith Hudock with federal money. The program pulls low-achieving pupils in Grades K-2 out of regular classes to give them extra help. "The kids are catching on and within a year their reading level has really increased," Miller said.

• Everybody at our school knows: Vice Principal Dennis Nakamura, "the disciplinarian" who patrols the cafeteria, the playgrounds and "all over where the kids are," Miller said. Lunchroom supervisor Harold "Papa" Kaniho, another campus fixture, "is like a real grandfather" to the children.

• Our biggest challenge: "We are expected to do a whole lot more for our kids, yet we don't have the funding that is needed for this," Miller said.

• What we need: Training for teachers in more effective math instruction. Also, additional teachers for the school's Hawaiian Immersion Program. With enrollment of about 50, the program is allocated only three teachers who each handle a combined class of two grade levels.

• Special events: Back-To-School Night, Spring Poetry Festival, Valentine's Day Sweethearts Luncheon for parents and students, May Day, and Princess Nahienaena Day.