Waimea Elementary School

Waimea Elementary School operates as a mid-sized K-5 school in Kamuela, Hawaii, overseen by Hawaii Department of Education. Current enrollment sits at 474 students spanning grades pre-K through 5.

Hawaii Department of Education runs 296 schools in total, collectively educating 167,071 students. Waimea Elementary School is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Waimea Elementary School logs that the most-represented group is Pacific Islander (39%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups; the rest comes out to 25% multiracial, 20% Hispanic, 9% Asian, 7% White.

Looking at school resources, The school lists 33 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 14.4:1. That tracks the state average closely. Around 54% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Hawaii County indicate the typical household earns roughly $78,639 per year, about 31% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 10%. In all, Hawaii County runs 55 public schools (combined enrollment of about 27,129 students), of which Waimea Elementary School is one.

Waimea Middle - PCCS is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius.

The school occupies an outlying site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 11%: 530 students in 2018 compared to 474 in 2025. Class-load math has tightened: from 15.8:1 in 2018 to 14.4:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, members of the Waimea Elementary School community share and discuss open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.