Summary:
ZIP code 96768 is home to four public schools serving grades PK through 12 — two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school — all part of the Hawaii Department of Education, with a combined enrollment of 3,079 students. King Kekaulike High School is the largest school in the area (1,217 students, grades 9–12), followed by Samuel Enoka Kalama Intermediate School (944 students, grades 6–8). The two elementaries, Makawao Elementary School and Pukalani Elementary School, are nearly the same size, at 463 and 455 students respectively.
Pukalani Elementary School is the current standout: it posts the area's top proficiency scores (52 in ELA, 54 in math, 62 in science), the lowest student-teacher ratio at 13.0, and is the only school with 3 stars in all three years of rank history. Makawao Elementary School is the mirror image of instability — its science score fell from 67 to 42, the steepest single-year drop in the data set, and its rank percentile slid from 61 to 45. Samuel Enoka Kalama Intermediate School has the lowest chronic absenteeism at 28% but the area's weakest middle-level results (44 ELA, 29 math, 27 science).
The clearest cross-cutting concern for parents is secondary math: proficiency sits at 46–54 in the elementary grades, then falls to 29 in middle school and 25 at the high school. Notably, attendance and spending do not neatly predict outcomes here — Pukalani has the highest chronic absenteeism at 38% yet the strongest scores, while Kalama has the lowest absenteeism and the lowest math and science results. Spending figures are from 2018–2019, so they are historical context rather than a reflection of current performance.
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