Understanding West Maui School District Boundaries

To understand the areas and number of students impacted by the Lahaina fires, it is helpful to have an understanding of the enrollment boundary locations of the closed schools on Maui's westside.

There has been a lot of speculation about “missing children” and changing numbers of unaccounted for students on Maui. As of today, 500 students or their families have been out of contact with the DOE.

There is a combined enrollment of ~3,000 students between King Kamehameha III and Princess Nahi’ena’ena elementaries, Lahaina Intermediate, and Lahainaluna high school. These four schools are located in Lahaina, but draw their enrollment from a large portion of west Maui.

This map shows the district boundaries combined for all four:

This map shows the locations of the four affected schools:

This map shows the burn zone of Lahaina:

This map shows the population density of west Maui:

As you can see from the above maps, along with Lahaina, there are the communities of Ka’anapali, Kahana, and Olowalu, whose keiki all attended school in Lahaina.

King Kamehameha elementary was damaged beyond repair, and the other schools have been closed for safety assessments.

All of those students were in limbo starting from August 9, the day of the fires, even those who did not lose homes and live in other west Maui communities. Some have enrolled in distance learning, some have transferred to other schools, some have moved with their families to other islands or even the mainland. Others are waiting for the affected schools to reopen after the fall break, with the exception of King Kamehameha III.

Could the DOE have done a better job communicating with parents? Absolutely. Should there be more distance learning opportunities? Yes, of course. Especially since Hawai’i schools were some of the last to open during the pandemic.

Have some children perished in the fire? We know of two for certain, and we are bracing ourselves for more, and praying for the families dealing with unimaginable grief and loss.

To assume and push the story that 2,000 children have gone “missing”, and that there is a huge government or other nefarious coverup is irresponsible.

Please continue to do what you can to help the people of Maui.