Kealakehe Intermediate School

Kealakehe Intermediate School is a grades 6–8 middle school with 677 students in Kailua Kona, on the Big Island's Kona coast, and is part of the statewide Hawaii Department of Education district — one of the larger middle schools serving that area.

After sitting in the bottom fifth of ranked Hawaii middle schools from 2015–16 through 2020–21 (the 12th to 19th percentile), Kealakehe climbed into the middle of the pack, reaching the 47th–48th percentile in 2023–24 and 2024–25 before slipping back to the 40th percentile in 2025–26 (51st of 85 schools, 2 stars). Its standout strength is English language arts: proficiency rose from 34% in 2022–23 to 47% in 2025–26, inching past Konawaena Middle School (46%) — even though Konawaena outranks Kealakehe by 21 percentile points overall.

Mathematics is the clearest gap: math proficiency has held at 25% for two years, 7 points behind Konawaena, and science stood at 32% versus Konawaena's 51%. Note that middle-school science is generally tested in a single grade, so that figure reflects one group of students rather than the whole school. Chronic absenteeism is the most actionable concern, rising to 34.0% in 2024–25 from 30.4% — roughly one in three students, and 5 points worse than Konawaena's 29.0%. Kealakehe serves a higher-poverty population (64.55% free/reduced lunch vs. 58.14%), and its low-income students (44th percentile) and students with disabilities (46th) rank above its overall 40th percentile, while its Pacific Islander subgroup dropped to the 8th percentile. The takeaway: genuine, sustained improvement that stalled in the latest year, with attendance the trend most worth watching.