Catholic grade school enrollment in Hawaii continued its downward drift last year, while high school numbers increased slightly, thanks mostly to student body growth at Damien Memorial and Saint Francis, which have recently gone co-ed.
But overall enrollment — preschool through grade 12 — dropped 458, from 9,794 for the start of school 2011 to 9,336 for the start of school 2012.
According to tallies compiled by the Hawaii Catholic Schools office, all but five of Hawaii’s 27 grade schools lost students. One school remained the same and four had modest increases of fewer than 10.
Grade school enrollment totals dropped 513, from 6,158 to 5,645, a decrease of nearly 9 percent. The largest portion of this decline came with the closing of grades one through six at Christ the King School in Kahului and its reconfiguration as a preschool.
The change at Christ the King subtracted 113 from the grade school total and added 65 to what is now called Christ the King Child Development Center. That conversion helped boost the overall number of the students in Hawaii’s 12 Catholic preschools by 44, from 853 to 897.
Three of Hawaii’s seven Catholic high schools saw an increase in students for an overall gain of 11, reversing a five-year slide that totaled more than 700.
In 2012, the formerly all-boys Damien Memorial School added a sixth grade, and girls in grades six through nine, and saw its enrollment jump 28 percent from 370 to 473.
Saint Francis School in Manoa last year completed its conversion to a completely co-ed school, kindergarten though grade 12. Last year it reported a gain of five in the grade school and 37 in the high school.
In Wailuku, Maui, both St. Anthony Grade School and Junior-Senior High School bucked the downward trend. The grade school went up from 151 to 160, and the high school increased from 137 to 155.
In the past decade, Hawaii Catholic school enrollment declined overall by more than 2,000, from 11,403 in 2003 to 9,336 in 2012.
