Lowdown on Oahu private schools? (Honolulu: best school, college, living in)

[expat123]

What can you tell me about private schools in Oahu? We are moving in with grade schoolers and middle schooler children. The only info I can get from the web is school size, price, affiliation, and location. Are most private schools a good bet, or is there a range from poor to excellent? Are there any schools which are not worth their money? Are the most expensive ones significantly better than the cheaper ones? Since the application season is in full force and we are not yet in HI, we are looking for insider info....

[melaniej65]

Where will you be living? If you do not mind ferrying your children to and from school (traffic) then you can pick and choose based on merit alone.

Are you looking for a Religious affiliation? the BEST school in Hawaii is Punahou, Kamehameha (must be of Native Hawaiian blood), St. Louis (all male- jr High. h.s), Sacred Hearts (female), St. Andrews (female) Priory, Iolani, Mid- Pacific, La Pietra (girls), Le Jardin are all EXCELLENT schools with terrific reputations. There are many other schools that are decent but of which I have no personal knowledge so I will not make any comment regarding them.

If you can afford a private school I would certainly send my child(ren) to one. I am a graduate of a Hawaii private school (and my friends and family members) have all attended the schools that I have mentioned by name. Be certain to contact each school and peruse the program and the location of the school (if you live on the opposite side of the Island it can be a PITA on a daily basis since there are not school buses as known on the Mainland, so unless you are comfortable with your children riding the City buses YOU will responsible for transportation).

Good luck!

[surfscuba]

when your kids reach high school age, ship them off to the mainland and the exeters and deerfields and choates and my alma mater, andover.
punahou can't hold a candle to those.

[AFDDS]

Good Morning,
Have you tried this web site GreatSchools - Public and Private School Ratings, Reviews and Parent Community

We are an active duty military family that moves every two to three years. I always use this website! It has both private and public school information.

I find the school that I want my children to attend and then the house.

Hope this helps

[expat123]

AFDDs- thanks for replying. Yes, we move a lot and I use Greatschools often. It is especially helpful when looking for public schools since public are required to publish test scores. However, with private schools, the only real info on quality is the parent responses, and those can be biased. Some parents might love the school when it isn't so great for others, or some parents may have an axe to grind and make the school not look so good. It is hard to know from a distance (we aren't in HI yet but need to apply for schools now!)

Melanie- thanks for the list. I have been looking at all those schools, but some of them seem hard to enter in a middle grades because of early application deadlines and/or full classes. If it is a religious school, I prefer Catholic. How do the less expensive Catholic schools rate compared to the more expensive private schools (it seems there are the schools in the $5-7000 range and then the $14-20,000 range)? Are the less expensive schools significantly better than public school, or do you need to go to an upper-tier expensive school to get a decent education?

One of my sons has been in gifted education for a number of years. Is Assets considered a special-needs-only school or does it have a good reputation for gifted education (since that is one of the special criteria considered for entry?)

Since my (American) children speak Japanese well and a little bit of Chinese, are there schools which seem to have a Japanese/Chinese population? The demographic information on Greatschools lumps Asian/Pacific Islander. Mid-Pacific has info in Japanese and Chinese on their web site, but I don't know if that means they recruit Japanese and Chinese kids. I want my kids to go to school with a good mix of kids- Hawaiin, Asian, white, etc.

I appreciate your help! This is obviously an important decision, and it is hard to make without really knowing the details.

[melaniej65]

Most of the Catholic schools have a good blend of education and cultural styles. I would definitely like to know the area that you will be living in. The upper tier schools are better but even the lower priced schools offer a significantly better education than the public schools here.

Mid- Pac is a wonderful school and I think that you will find a rather significant number of Asian students in most of the private schools on the Island.

There are usually exceptions made for students who enter mid-year (in my experience there were at least 1-2 new students who entered after the start of a new year); I would certainly check with the admissions office to see if they might be persuaded to accept your children (is comparable testing available in the area that you now reside?).

I wish you the best of luck with your search.

[expat123]

Thanks, Melanie. We are hoping to live in Honolulu-west side (I guess you call it). We have so far applied to 2 Catholic schools and 2 "expensive" schools- but the expensive schools would be dipping pretty far into our college funds, so it is scary to think about spending that much money. If necessary, we could somehow manage. Good to know that the Catholic schools are a decent bet.

[AFDDS]

expat123-bumping this up....I would love to read more information about the private schools. I'm not sure if I missed this or not....but what month are you moving? Our daughter will enter a high school in Hawaii her senior year. She is having a hard time with this and all it will imply. Military orders for June. I'm trying to decide if one more year of school is worth the the cost of dipping into her college money. She will need that money soon. So many things to think about!

[expat123]

We are PCSing for the third summer in a row, so I know how difficult that can be on the kids. My husband is due to HI in Sept, but the kids and I will move before then to catch the schools starting.

One thing I have learned- I have hand-picked what I thought was the best sort of school for my kids in our locations, but each year at least one of our kids has a not-so-hot teacher at these good schools. So you can work really hard to get into a good school (and pay a lot of money, too) and still not have it work out for the very best for everyone. I guess that is just the reality of it, but I try really hard to give us the best possible chances at having a good educational experience.

[binkybarnes]

We are moving to Honolulu this summer. I will be working at the Kuhio Federal Building. I need to find a private school for my elementary age daughter. Does anyone have any info about which good private schools are close to the federal building? Thank you!!