Namahana School looks forward to welcoming the 7th and 8th grades for the Fall 2025-2026 school year. Please visit our Enrollment page to learn more.

Namahana will serve students in grades 7-12. The school plans to open with grades 7 and 8 and sequentially add grades until we reach full middle/high school capacity.

Dr. Kapua L. Chandler has been selected as our School Leader. Born and raised on Kauaʻi, Dr. Chandler is a lineal descendent of Koʻolau and Haleleʻa. She recently received a doctorate in Higher Education and Organizational Change from UCLA, adding to a dynamic academic background that includes a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Portland, an M.Ed. in Educational Administration from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and a second M.A. from UCLA. Dr. Chandler is well-versed in the areas of education, ʻāina-based learning, and curriculum development. She is also deeply involved and invested in the North Shore community and works with several local nonprofits. Passionate about post-secondary education, Dr. Chandler brings a wealth of expertise in research, data collection, and analysis to inform the community-driven process that is being utilized to develop Namahana School.

The Hawaiʻi State Public Charter School Commission defines a charter school as a tuition-free public school operating under a contract with the State Public Charter School Commission. While charter schools must follow federal laws and state standards for public schools, they have flexibility with curriculum, scheduling, and direct management of resources, which allows for innovation. Hawaiʻi public charter school teachers are covered by the Hawaiʻi statewide collective bargaining agreement.

Each charter school has its own individual governing body called a Governing Board. The Governing Board is responsible for the financial, organizational, and academic mission of the charter school. The Governing Board hires and evaluates the School Leader, or Principal, who manages school staff and runs the school.

No, charter schools are public schools. Hawaiʻi state laws explicitly prohibit them from charging tuition.

Namahana School will be opening Fall 2025 with the 7th & 8th grades.  Each grade will have 60 students, and class sizes will be smaller with about 15 kids.    

Most of the kids going to Namahana School will probably be from Hanalei Elementary and Kīlauea Elementary, our two public schools on the North Shore of Kaua'i. According to census data, about 10% of the kids at Kapaʻa Elementary are also from the North Shore.

We calculated that every year, around 68 to 80 kids combined graduate from Hanalei and Kīlauea schools. Since there’s no public middle or high school nearby, we think about 75% of these kids (that's about 60) will join Namahana School. The other kids may choose to go to different schools, move away, or homeschooling.

Yes, all coursework is designed to prepare students to successfully enter both college and/or other post-secondary learning. Namahana School’s high school graduation requirements align with Hawaiʻi DOE requirements. Namahana School’s ʻāina-based, student-led and personalized learning model is grounded in research from multiple sources. Most notably, Big Picture Learning, which has shown that educational approaches such as personalized learning plans, internships and exhibitions of learning, cultivate high school graduates with the academic and personal skills to thrive in college and beyond.

The Hawaiʻi State Public Charter School Commission encourages charter schools to seek independent accreditation. Once the school is established and eligible to apply for accreditation, the school leader will be able to initiate the process with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).

Namahana School will open in August 2025 with grades 7 and 8. We will continue to add a grade each year until we are a 7-12 school. We are operating at our temporary site (“Kula”) at 4551 Kapuna Road for the 2025-26 school year, as we progress on our permanent site in Kīlauea town across the post office.

The school day will be 8:30 am - 3:00 pm on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. On Friday students will be dismissed at 1:30 pm. Most Wednesdays, students will be off-campus at our Ulu ‘Aina Field Studies sites. Students will be dismissed at 2:00 pm on Wednesdays either from on-campus or their off-campus site depending on if they are traveling that week. Namahana School is not providing transportation for the 2025-26 school year. This means students must be able to get to our “Kula” site most days, and to their Ulu ‘Aina sites approximately six Wednesdays each quarter.

Namahana School will help connect families to support carpooling and is working with the County to get a temporary bus stop for students for both a morning and afternoon run of the 400 and 500 Kauai bus routes.

Big Picture Learning (BPL) is an internationally recognized educational nonprofit that supports student-led schools through personalized and real-world learning tied to students’ interests and passions. BPL is currently working with our school leader, Dr. Kapua Chandler, to develop a school structure and culture that utilizes deeper learning competencies – place-based learning, internship opportunities, collaborative group work, and longer-term cumulative assessments.

Namahana School’s curriculum is grounded in our Ola Framework and organized around six learning goals: 1) quantitative reasoning (thinking like a mathematician), 2) empirical reasoning (thinking like a scientist), 3) social reasoning (understanding different perspectives and social systems), 4) communication (expressing ideas effectively through various media), 5) personal qualities (developing character traits for success), and 6) knowing how to learn (building capacity for curiosity and independent learning). Rather than focusing on content delivery, our approach emphasizes developing ways of thinking that enable deep learning about any subject, beginning with relationships to ʻāina, community members, culture, and each other.

Our curriculum integrates knowledge rather than isolating it into traditional subjects. Instead of separate classes for ELA, math, social studies, and science, we utilize skills development in communications, quantitative reasoning, social reasoning, and empirical reasoning—reflecting how knowledge is actually used in the real world. We emphasize higher-order thinking and authentic application, with students regularly applying their learning to real community challenges such as designing environmental solutions, preserving cultural knowledge, and creating media that tells important local stories. 

Each student at Namahana co-constructs a Personalized Learning Plan with their Kumu Advisor, containing personalized goals based on their interests and concrete steps toward achieving them. Our curriculum values the diverse cultural systems that comprise our community, with particular emphasis on ʻāina. Students learn to navigate between different knowledge systems, recognizing the unique strengths while developing academic skills, personal qualities, cultural understanding, and sense of purpose needed to thrive in college, careers, and community life.

ʻĀina-Based Learning (ʻĀBL) is an educational approach deeply rooted in Hawaiian cultural understanding of the reciprocal relationship between people and land. The word ʻāina literally means “that which feeds” - not just physically though sustenance, but spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. In ʻĀBL, students engage in an extended process of inquiry in response to observations, complex questions, or challenges that are directly connected to the land, waters, and communities of Hawaiʻi. Students develop deep, lasting relationships with specific places through regular, consistent interaction while learning from community members who have generational connections to these places. ʻĀBL is characterized by:

• Deep relationships with specific places developed through consistent, dedicated time spent in those places

• Learning from community members and ʻohana who have cared for these places across generations

• Reciprocity with the land—not just learning from a place, but contributing to its wellbeing

• Integration of multiple ways of knowing, including Hawaiian cultural knowledge, values and practices

• Rigorous academic learning that encompasses empirical, quantitative, social and communication skills

• Authentic application of learning through projects that benefit the community and ʻāina

• Through ʻĀBL, students develop a strong sense of kuleana (responsibility) to care for their island home and community while mastering academic content and skills in meaningful contexts. A powerful component is that ʻĀBL is applicable and replicable globally. The experiences students will have through ʻāina-based learning here on Kauaʻi will help them to identify ways to connect, learn, and contribute to whichever communities they live and work throughout their life.

Namahana School’s curriculum is built on an integrated weekly rhythm that puts ʻāina at the center of learning. Rather than dividing knowledge into separate subjects, our curriculum weaves together six interconnected learning goals through experiences that are directly connected to place and community.

Daily Advisory Framework: Every day begins and ends in advisory, providing a consistent community where students build relationships, set goals, reflect on their learning, and receive personalized support. This structure ensures that each student is known well and that their individual learning journey is guided consistently.

Mondays and Fridays (Advisory-based Integrated Learning): Students spend these days with their advisory working on collaborative projects, individual learning goals, and reflections that extend from their field experiences. This integrated time allows students to: build advisory culture, prepare for upcoming field studies, process and reflect on their experiences, develop projects that address real needs they've observed, work on personalized learning goals, and share their learning with peers.

Tuesdays and Thursdays (Skills Labs & Creative ʻĀina Activation): For skills labs, students participate in focused sessions designed to build specific skills they need for their field studies and projects. These might include scientific data collection techniques, research methods, cultural protocols, writing labs, nursery and plant propagation, technology, or technical skills. Creative ʻĀina Activation is an opportunity to explore connections to place through various art forms and creative expressions including visual arts, music, singing, and drama. These sessions help students develop additional ways to process and express their relationship with ʻāina. 

Wednesdays: The heart of our middle school curriculum is our Wednesday Ulu ʻĀina Field Studies, when students are immersed in specific sites throughout our island. Each advisory visits the same site for six consecutive Wednesdays per quarter, allowing students to develop deep relationships with these places and their caretakers. Other learning during the week connects back to these field experiences. 

Piko and Pick Me Ups occur on Monday mornings. They are a time when students gather together to learn about career and college information, community service, class projects and to engage in community building and student recognition. Students take an active role in planning the weekly Piko and Pick Me Up with their advisors.  

We recognize the critical tool and resource of technology and our responsibility to teach students how to use it. Technology will be integrated into learning wherever and whenever useful. Namahana will have enough laptops to enable all students to use them at the same time, and whenever they are integrated into learning. 

We are partnering with a local chef and food truck owner to provide the option of lunch each day, except Wednesdays. To whatever extent possible our lunch partner will use locally sourced foods, partnering with local farmers. Each quarter students will participate in a tasting event to give feedback and make suggestions for lunch for the following quarter. 

Students whose families have SNAP cards will receive lunch free of charge. Students whose families make less than 300% the federal poverty guideline can opt in for about $35 each quarter ($1 per lunch), and other students and staff can opt in at about $200 per quarter ($6 per meal) or about $400 per quarter to pay for your child plus another child’s lunch. Currently, a breakfast program is not available, but as the school grows in size, we hope to be able to provide that service to students.  

Student voice and choice are defining characteristics of Namahana Schoolʻs approach to education, as we grow students as drivers of their own learning. We believe that meaningful learning happens when students have agency in their educational journey. Rather than offering unlimited choice all at once, we thoughtfully scaffold student decision-making, gradually increasing autonomy as students develop the skills and self-awareness to make informed choices.

In grades 7-9, students begin developing their voice through structured opportunities to express interests and preferences. They contribute to advisory, provide input on projects connected to their Ulu ʻĀina sites, select focus areas for their skills labs, and choose creative expressions that resonate with them. Their Personalized Learning Plans, developed with advisor guidance, incorporate their goals and interests while ensuring they build essential foundational skills. Throughout these years, students practice making thoughtful choices, reflecting on the outcomes of their decisions, and articulating their learning needs.

As students progress to grades 10-12, their opportunities for choice expand significantly. By 10th grade, students begin spending one day per week in internships aligned with their interests. These internships, which increase to two days per week in 11th and 12th grades, are 100% student-driven—allowing each student to deeply explore fields they are passionate about while contributing to real community needs. Students have greater flexibility in designing independent projects, selecting specialized skills labs or college course work, and customizing their learning plans to align with their post-secondary goals, whether those involve college, career preparation, or community-based work.

At Namahana School, assessment is designed to be meaningful, authentic, and supportive of student growth. Rather than relying primarily on traditional tests, we use multiple forms of assessment that give students opportunities to demonstrate their understanding and skills in diverse ways. One key assessment at Namahana School are student exhibitions. Students regularly present their learning to authentic audiences including their peers, community members, field study site partners, and families. These exhibitions might include demonstrations of skills learned, presentations of research findings, performances, or displays of solutions to community challenges. By explaining their work to others and responding to questions, students deepen their own understanding while developing valuable communication skills. 

With our small student to kumu ratio at Namahana, all students are offered a personalized education. Since Kumu Advisors work with the same students for three years, they know the student well and build strong relationships with their family and other support systems in the child’s life. Namahana, as per each student’s IEP or 504, will have targeted special education services provided by Namahana staff as well as through the HIDOE area complex. Our Student Support Coordinator will help coordinate for any student, not only students with IEPs or 504s, resources and supports.

Namahana School’s vision is to nurture ʻāina-conscious graduates who have deep connections to place and community and are prepared to pursue their individual futures. Our educational model intentionally evolves as students grow, building on the foundations while expanding opportunities.

Grades 7-9: Building Connections with ʻĀina
In grades 7-9, our focus is on helping students develop foundational skills and strong connections to ʻāina and community through:

• Advisory Cohorts: Students stay together in an advisory ʻohana group that travels as a unit to Ulu ʻĀina Field Studies sites, building a sense of belonging and shared experience.

• Consistent ʻĀina-based Experiences: Each advisory visits the same ʻāina sites regularly throughout a quarter, allowing students to observe and explore learning with specific places and their caretakers.

• Foundational Skills: Students develop core academic and personal skills through integrated projects that relate directly to their ʻāina experiences.

• Cultural Understanding: Students learning Hawaiian cultural practices, values, and knowledge connected to the places they visit, developing a sense of kuleana (responsibility) for these places.

• Collaborative Learning: Students work together on projects and challenges, learning to cooperate, communicate, and contribute to group efforts.

During these foundational years, students learn to love, respect, and care for ʻāina while building the academic, social, and personal skills theyʻll need for more independent work.

Grades 10-12: Individualizing with an ʻĀina Foundation
In grades 10-12, our model becomes more individualized while building on the ʻāina foundation established in the earlier grades:

• Internships: Students participate in internships with community organizations, businesses, or individuals aligned with their interests, spending 1-2 days per week at their internship site in grades 10-12.

• ʻĀina-Informed Inquiry: Students use their understanding of ʻāina and community to ask deeper questions and pursue more complex projects related to their personal interests.

• Independent Projects: Students design and implement increasingly independent projects that address real community needs or opportunities.

• College and Career Preparation: Students prepare for their next steps through college courses, specialized skill development, and career exploration, all informed by their understanding of what their community and ʻāina need.

• Leadership and Mentorship: Students take on leadership roles, mentoring younger students and contributing to community initiatives.
  

This developmental progression is intentional—by first grounding students in ʻāina and community, we ensure that their later individual pursuits remain connected to place and purpose. As students develop and explore their unique interests and talents, they do so with an awareness of how their individual paths can contribute to the wellbeing of their community and island home. This may include opportunities to connect work done with our island community to larger state, national, and global communities.

Our partnership with Big Picture Learning provides a proven model for the individualized learning that characterizes our upper grades program, while our ʻāina-based approach ensures that this individualization remains rooted in and responsive to our specific island context. Through this connected journey from grades 7 through 12, Namahana graduates emerge not only with strong academic skills and individual passions but also with a deep sense of kuleana to their community and ʻāina that will guide them throughout their lives wherever that may lead them.

Internships are a crucial part of the Namahana High School (grades 10-12) experience. Based on each student’s interest, the student works with an expert mentor, doing authentic work that benefits the student, the mentor, the internship site and ‘āina. Students are at their internship site one to two days a week in grades 10-12.

Here are some sample projects from our partner organization, Big Picture Learning School: assisting with surgeries at veterinary hospitals, preparing 3-D renderings to present to clients at an architectural firm, teaching classes in middle and elementary schools, developing websites for a design company, rebuilding carburetors at a motorcycle shop, assisting researchers in biology and astronomy at a local university, and helping to secure dental care for low-income children.

During our first year, our creative ‘āina activation classes will focus around the arts (ex: visual, music, singing and drama). Each quarter, students will participate in one of these classes twice a week for 85 minutes each day. In future years, students will have more options individually, as well as more communal say over the opportunities available to students.  

Starting at our Signing Event (4/12/25), students will have the opportunity to shape our extracurricular opportunities for the coming year. Sports, clubs and other after school activities will be developed based on student interests and participation.

If a charter school student would like to participate in a sport that is not offered at the school, the student may participate in a comparable sport at the Hawaiʻi Department of Education school located in the service area where they reside. During pre-opening planning, we will be assessing our capacity to offer sports. We will provide families with information about existing sports opportunities both at the local DOE schools and through other sports clubs and leagues available on the North Shore. 

Please visit our Join Us page and complete the Namahana School Teacher Application.

Kumu at Namahana School work closely with a small group of students over multiple years. They get to know each student well, help students design learning plans that combine their coursework and interests, and work alongside students and families to help each student succeed. Due to the fact that kumu do more than teach a specific course, “advisor” best describes their work at the school. 

Words hold tremendous power, particularly words we use frequently and have a lot of experience with. When striving to change, and improve, people’s visions and expectations, the use of new words, or familiar words in new ways, can force important shifts and conversations to happen. It can shake us out of habituated ways of thinking. It can energize and motivate us. It does not mean that many of the important words you want to see in schools are not present at Namahana, rather that we want you to rethink your understanding of some of these words.

For example, we do not use the word “academic” as much as one might expect from the college preparatory school that we are. We do not support the false dichotomy between academic and social-emotional learning. There is a lot of higher order thinking in learning to resolve conflict, and social skills in presenting and productive group work. Instead of talking about ELA, math, social studies and science, we talk about communications, quantitative reasoning, social reasoning and empirical reasoning. We want the focus to be on ways of thinking and doing rather than content. For example: how do you think like a scientist and be a scientist instead of studying what a scientist knows?

This approach is also designed to initiate conversation and communication. We encourage you to reach out if you have questions about specific words we are using or not using.

Being a founding family at Namahana School means joining us in building not just a school, but a learning community deeply connected to our community and island home. Our founding families help shape school culture, establish traditions, and collaboratively create the foundation for generations to come. Founding families share a commitment to our mission of graduating ʻāina-conscious students and are willing to partner with us through the exciting journey of growth and development that characterizes a new school.

Namahana sees families as full partners in the journey of supporting their children and the broader Namahana School. Parents help to co-create and support each students’ Personalized Learning Plan. Family members will be invited to quarterly Hō'ike that will take place on campus and at Field Studies sites. Family members can support the school by bringing their own passions and strengths to building a strong school community and helping to facilitate opportunities for students that grow out of student interests. Namahana takes an asset-based approach that recognizes and values’ parents’ expertise in contributing to the whole school. Some examples include: volunteering, building tables or bookshelves, leading an extracurricular activity, starting a club with students, sharing career expertise, fundraising, school programs, lifeguarding at field study sites, supporting the Namahana plant nursery, or mentoring other students.

At Namahana, we see families as full partners in education, not just supporters from the sidelines. We value the knowledge, skills, and perspectives that each family brings to our community. Parents and caregivers are expected to meet quarterly with their child and their child’s advisor to endorse their child’s personalized learning plan. We expect families to be in regular communication with student Advisors and Namahana School. Regular communication helps families extend learning conversations at home, creating meaningful connections between school experiences and family life. This relationship creates a powerful dynamic where learning flows in multiple directions. Students bring home what they have learned about ʻāina, culture, and themselves, often becoming teachers to their families. Meanwhile, the diverse knowledge and experiences that families share enrich our curriculum and strengthen our community bonds.

We continue looking for community members and local organizations and businesses who want to work with our students and school. If you or someone you know is interested in volunteering with us or becoming a mentor, please contact us at aloha@namahanafoundation.org.

While Hawaiʻi State charter schools receive a per-pupil allocation once in operation. The state does not provide any funds for the construction of facilities.

Namahana School will receive a per pupil allocation from the State of Hawai‘i that funds the school’s operating costs. Namahana Education Foundation will help raise additional funds necessary to supplement the annual operating budget.

Namahana has made huge strides thanks to all the hearts and hands who have stepped forward to help. In the immediate future, we are actively seeking:

Donors who can make a tax-deductible gift to help us cover capacity-building and infrastructure costs prior to opening

Volunteers who can offer their expertise and time, from professional services to helping with events and other engagement activities in the community.

Businesses, organizations and professionals can serve as internship sites and mentors for our students.

Passionate middle and high school teachers who would like to be a part of a transformational school.