Namahana School Kicks Off Inaugural Year Founding Families and Community Celebrate a New Era for Kaua‘i’s North Shore
Kīlauea, Hawai‘i — On August 4, Kaua‘i North Shore residents witnessed a cherished community dream come true: the opening of the public, tuition-free, post-primary school for the districts of Ko‘olau and Halele‘a. This achievement by Namahana School capped six years of meticulous planning, including a thorough community engagement process, the charter school application and a continuing intensive fundraising campaign to build a dedicated campus. On Monday morning, Namahana’s team and supporters proudly stood alongside hundreds of overjoyed family members and neighbors to cheer on the inaugural 7th and 8th grade classes as they arrived for their first day of school at a temporary campus for the 2025-2026 year.
Namahana School Leader Dr. Kapua Chandler said, "Today we celebrate a dream that has lived in our hearts for over 30 years — so many families along our coastline, including my own, have waited for this moment. These 125 students represent a turning point in our history; they're paving the way for a new story of education that reconnects our community to its roots and demonstrates our values in action."
Chandler, who is a lineal descendant of Halele‘a and Ko‘olau, led the 2019 community engagement process that produced Namahana’s mission, vision and values. The school received formal approval from the Hawai‘i Public Charter Commission in 2022 and purchased its own 11.3-acre property in Kīlauea Town with overwhelming donor support from the local community in 2023. While fundraising continues on an ambitious multi-million dollar campaign to construct future campus facilities, classes during the 2025-2026 academic year will be held at the former Kula School site in nearby Waipakē.
“We are extremely grateful to Jeff Lindner and his family for granting Namahana temporary use of the Kula School campus,” said Namahana Education Foundation Executive Director Melanie Parker. “Their incredible generosity has made it possible for us to open on schedule, and our students will launch their Namahana journey just minutes away from our permanent site.”
Namahana serves families from Hā‘ena to Anahola, reducing the long commutes to Kapa‘a or beyond that generations have undertaken to attend middle and high school. But Namahana is more than just a tuition-free option closer to home: Chandler and Namahana’s academic committee have designed an educational model that is cutting-edge even by national standards. Developed in close partnership with the international education nonprofit Big Picture Learning, Namahana School’s ‘āina-based learning design maps Hawaiian and community-based values to rigorous academic and real-world skillsets while prioritizing development of “the whole child.”
Incoming eighth-grader Kohana Simpson from Wainiha noted that, “I’m really excited because this is a more student-led school where everyone can express themselves as they really are.”
Her sentiment was echoed by Dr. Chanel Wong, one of Namahana’s nine inaugural faculty, or kumu: “In addition to academics, which are 100 percent important to me, my goal as an educator is to produce good human beings. Namahana will create mindful, compassionate, strong individuals who are grounded in place, who understand community and relationships. A lot of our kids leave Hawai‘i because they don't see their purpose or how to be successful here. But if we can offer an education that makes sense to them, then we have a real shot at creating a better Kaua'i, a better Hawai‘i.”
After the welcome cheer for arriving students, family and community members drove to Namahana’s permanent campus site nearby for a historic opening day photo. They were joined by members of Namahana’s Governing Board and Namahana Education Foundation, as well as local and national educational leaders. Hawai‘i State Charter School Commission Executive Director Ed Noh, who is flying in to help culminate the first week, commented that, “The clarity of need, high caliber of institution-building, and deeply rooted, multi-year community engagement process led Namahana to become the first charter school in over seven years to be unanimously approved by the Commission in its first round of review. In partnership with Big Picture Learning, Namahana is poised to provide a student-driven, globally aligned education that remains firmly rooted in local culture and values. Namahana is not simply implementing this model, but advancing it and creating something truly groundbreaking.”
Big Picture Learning cofounders Elliot Washor and Dennis Littky also flew in to honor the occasion. “Namahana is pioneering new terrain in education,” said Washor. “Its teaching makes a serious commitment to culture and place with the goal of graduating students who have a strong sense of identity, belonging and responsibility to Hawai‘i and the world. Simultaneously, Kapua and her team have incorporated internationally recognized, evidence-based measures of student learning and success into their curriculum. Namahana is translating these scientific measures to a geographically unique context that integrates old and new wisdoms, culture and science, and this degree of synthesis is a significant innovation that has not been achieved before in the United States. We are frankly thrilled to be part of their journey.” Washor featured Namahana in his 2023 book, “Leaving to Learn: How Real-World Learning Transforms Education.”
“Every hour of volunteer time, every testimony before public officials, every dollar contributed has made it possible for us to turn this historic page in the story of our coastline and I want to express my deepest, most heartfelt gratitude to each and every person who brought us this far,” reflected Kapua. “Namahana School has been, from its inception, a school by the community and for the community. As we celebrate this accomplishment, I also urge us to embrace the challenge of our future milestones – most significantly, the completion of our ambitious 11.3-acre campus design – and to remember how much can be achieved when we work together in pursuit of a shared dream. Let’s not forget that this extraordinary day is just the beginning.”
About Namahana School
Namahana School is a tuition-free Hawai‘i public charter middle and high school for the North Shore communities of Kaua‘i, and the first public post-primary school for the remote rural communities of Koʻolau and Haleleʻa. In August 2025, it welcomed its first cohort of 125 students in grades 7 and 8 to a temporary campus just outside Kīlauea. Namahana’s educational model, guided by the international Big Picture Learning network and ‘āina-based learning, emphasizes cultivating deep connections with students’ communities and natural environment to build critical skills that can be applied to solving real-world problems.
About Namahana Education Foundation
Namahana Education Foundation (NEF) is an independent nonprofit organization established to advance Namahana School’s mission. NEF manages the fundraising and construction process for the school campus, and generates ongoing community support to cover operational costs not met by the state’s per-student allocation. NEF has raised $8.3 million of an initial $10 million goal to construct the first phase of its environmentally sustainable campus design.
For more information, visit namahana.org.
