DOE: Public School Attendence Rates Steady

On Friday, the Hawai’i State Department of Education announced that Hawai’i public schools enrolled 180,409 students this year within its 256 schools and 34 charter schools for the 2015-16 school year.

The enrollment has remained steady with only a slight variation, compared to last year’s enrollment of 180,895 students. The 2013-14 school year had an enrollment of almost 5,000 more students than the most recent two years.

Enrollment changes were seen in kindergarten and first grade, where an increase of 3,025 kindergartens were seen, along with a decrease of 4,076 students in the first grade. The changes have been attributed to last year’s legislative change to the kindergarten entry age.

The numbers have been broken down between HIDOE school and charter schools, with 169,987 students and 10,422 students, respectively, enrolling in HIDOE and public charter schools. Charter schools represent 5.8 percent of public school enrollment.

In the 2015-16 school year, Hawai’i Academy of Arts & Sciences made the list of top public charter schools with an enrollment of 592 students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

DOE officials say the department expects a stable enrollment to continue over the next several years due to birth rates.