Summary:
ZIP code 96770 covers Maunaloa on the island of Molokai and contains just one public school: Maunaloa Elementary School, which serves grades PK–6 and enrolls 49 students. It belongs to the Hawaii Department of Education, a single statewide district, so there are no other schools in this ZIP code to compare against — and no middle or high school locally, meaning students leave the community after grade 6.
With roughly 49 students spread across about nine grade levels, class sizes are very small, and the student-teacher ratio of 8.1:1 reflects that. Three-quarters of students (75.51%) qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, yet chronic absenteeism is only 2.0% — about one student — which is remarkably low for a high-poverty school and the most impressive figure in the record. Academic results are more modest: 33% of students met standards in English language arts and 28% in math in 2025-2026, up from 29% and 25% the year before. Science proficiency was 45%, the strongest subject, on a single year of data. Math has trailed ELA by 4 points in both years of available data. Per-student spending was recorded at $34,064, though that figure dates to 2018-2019.
The school has held a 1-star rating for three consecutive years and ranked in the bottom quartile of Hawaii schools, at the 25th percentile most recently. The 2025-2026 gains are encouraging, but with only 49 students, one child is worth about 2 percentage points, so swings of this size can occur without any real change in school quality. The steady 1-star pattern is more reliable than any single year's movement, and Math remains the clearest instructional priority.
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