Iao Intermediate School

Iao Intermediate School is a public middle school serving grades 6–8 with 893 students in Wailuku, the county seat and central population hub of Maui, Hawaii, and is part of the Hawaii Department of Education, the state's single statewide district. For 2025–2026 it ranked 43rd of 85 Hawaii middle schools — about the 49th percentile, or 3 stars — placing it in the middle of the state pack and the upper half of its Maui peer group. Proficiency was 48% in English language arts, 31% in math, and 35% in science. About 52% of students are economically disadvantaged, 37% are chronically absent, the student-teacher ratio is 14.8 to 1, and per-pupil spending is $15,155.

The most informative comparison is the school 1.23 miles away. Maui Waena Intermediate School leads Iao in every subject — science 49% vs. 35%, math 34% vs. 31%, ELA 52% vs. 48% — while serving slightly more economically disadvantaged students and with nearly identical staffing (14.7 vs. 14.8 students per teacher). Iao does outperform Samuel Enoka Kalama Intermediate School and Lokelani Intermediate School by 4 points in ELA and 2 in math, and beats Lahaina Intermediate School by 14 points in ELA. Iao also gets the least funding per student of the five yet posts the second-best results. Its chronic absenteeism of 37% is the worst in the group — 15 points above Maui Waena — and has crept up from 36.2% the prior year.

The long-term trajectory is the good news: after sitting in roughly the bottom third of Hawaii middle schools in the mid-2010s, Iao has held in the middle of the pack for three straight years, with math and science improving annually. English language arts has plateaued near 48–50% for four years. The school serves its special education students better than roughly two-thirds of Hawaii schools, and that has improved each year. Two concerns stand out: English learners rank at the 15th percentile — below about 85% of Hawaii schools and declining — and test scores are rising while attendance worsens. Since the nearest peer school achieves more with similar students and similar resources, the highest-leverage steps appear to be attendance intervention and targeted support for English learners.