4 classrooms under construction to ease overcrowding at Kealakehe Elementary School

Kealakehe Elementary, located in the heart of Kailua-Kona, is “busting at the seams” with its anticipated enrollment of 850 keiki for the upcoming school year.

To address this growth, construction is underway on a 13,000-square-foot building that will add four classrooms to the campus.

“We are running out of space, so this is perfect timing for us to have this building,” Principal Wendy Daniel said Tuesday.

On Tuesday, officials with Hawai‘i Department of Education and Hawai‘i Island lawmakers gathered at the school that was originally built in 1969 to hear an update about the $16 million project from the General contractor, Honolulu-based Nan Inc. The two-story building is slated to be completed in September 2027.

After the construction timeline was presented in the school library, Nan Inc. representatives walked groups over to the construction site where a worker was operating an excavator among the building’s newly erected walls.

Malachi Acdal, with Nan Inc., said from Nov. 3, 2025, to Jan. 29, 2026, crews began the project by laying out and excavating the leach field and installing the septic tank and the distribution box by the lower parking lot.

Ground broke in February on the building, which also will include special education spaces, an outdoor classroom, a covered learning lānai, a faculty workroom, offices and storage.

Crews currently are working on formwork for the basement footings, pedestals, columns and retaining walls, Acdal said.

Daniel’s favorite element is the two pedestrian bridges, which will link the structure to the cafeteria and G Building that houses fifth graders, allowing students and staff to seamlessly move across the sloped campus.

While they haven’t decided which classes will occupy the new building, Daniel thinks the preschool would be a good fit since there are 40 special education preschoolers who have to trek across campus from where they are dropped off to get to their classroom, which also doesn’t have a bathroom.

With the cafeteria located by the parking lot and drop-off area, the 3- and 4-years old have to walk back across campus, accompanied by a teacher, for lunch.

“It’s a lot,” Daniel said, although adding the children have gotten used to it and are pretty good at it.

But the kids in the new building will be able to use the pedestrian bridges to go straight to the cafeteria.

“We try to start them in preschool learning how to use the cafeteria to get their tray before they hit kindergarten,” Daniel said. “It’d be nice to have them have that pathway.”

Attending the presentation were State Rep. Nicole Lowen and Sen. Dru Kanuha, who both were instrumental in securing capital improvement funding for the project during the 2024 Hawai‘i State Legislature.

“Our community is growing, and there haven’t been any new schools,” Kanuha said. “That’s something that we also have to think about as we build more housing; there are a lot more kids that come into these neighborhoods.”

Lowen said Kealakehe is one of the biggest elementary schools in the state.

Daniel said a rise over the years in attendance at the school has come partly from growth in affordable housing in the area.

“O‘ahu has a lot more smaller schools, but this is the one big elementary school for the area,” Lowen said of Kealakehe.

Five other public elementary schools serve the North Kona and South Kona communities as well as a Hawaiian language immersion school, Ke Kula O ‘Ehunuikaimalino. But their enrollment is much smaller, ranging from 100 to 476 students.