I am blessed to be part of this school district! The school has a lot of rules, but they really do have your keiki's best interest at heart! Rating wise - this school is top notch, 10/10 on GreatSchools.org; 5/5 star rating on School Digger for 2012 academic year; A c+ per Honolulu Magazine for this academic year (based on surveys given to students/parents and teachers). (I can understand why teachers are not as satisfied, they are getting a lot dumped on them from all this Common Core crud - a different subject all together!)
All staff are very friendly! This year is definitely a challenge with the Common Core - so it is a particularly stressful time to get the needs met for the Core standards. It does take away a lot of fun and awesome class projects with all the testing, so I give a lot more patience and understanding in what is happening in the academia world.
The playground is AWESOME! The school does it's best to keep it clean but not enough students or parents seem to care about keeping it that way. At least 3 or 4 times this year the playground has had graffiti issues, sand being dumped on slides; trash all around seems to be a daily issue (not just the kids but the parents too), etc... The school staff has had to clean up the messes, or parent volunteers. Weekends seems to be even worse as glass beer bottles litter the school grounds. Lets keep the grounds clean!
The PTSA does a lot for the students. They have gotten quite an amazing list of after school activities gathered for the students to participate in for the Wednesdays. They contribute a lot of goodies towards the STAR parties, and also encourage a lot of different events.
The school has the unofficial 'Tuesday Mom Club' - moms/community members who jump in and volunteer doing whatever is needed by the teachers; filing, sorting, copying, laminating, cutting/pasting, etc.... Just remember to sign in & out at the front office if you decide to help out! (Highly encouraged to sign in & out, just so the school knows how many visitors are present in case of any crisis.)
You can also come in and have lunch with your kid! I do believe you have to give a courtesy heads up that you will be coming so the staff can ensure you are accommodated.
For military folks - they do have community outreach - a Mil 1 Source rep at the school to help out with any of your needs.
If both parents work, the school has an A+ program. Parents enrolling their keikis are able to drop off students early in the morning, and keep them later in the day to help mitigate having kids by themselves at home.
So there is a general synopsis of this school. Check out their web page, the PTSA's FB page! See what's going on! :) read more