The Hard Numbers

Aloha Island School ʻOhana

Before I dive into the topic of “the hard numbers,” I wanted to make sure we paused to take in the image of the Voyaging canoe pictured here. On Monday we honored Wa’a Day at Island School. It is always important to pause and remember the importance of the wa’a (canoe) here in Kaua’i, across the Polynesia, and across all archipelago societies. We are grateful for the educators who give their time and had only 4 more school visits before they said they would have seen 9,000 students on Kaua’i, amazing! Given we are Voyagers, understanding and knowing the Hawaiian proverb, “He waʻa he moku, he moku he waʻa,” (The canoe is an island, and the island is a canoe”) and all that it says about the importance of sustaining our island home and its people, our crew, and our interconnectedness across the oceans is vitally important. And speaking of care for our island home, I’ve been spending a lot of my thinking about the sustainability of our school and the hard numbers.

I’ve been spending the last few months diving into the financial life of the school. If you have been at Island School the last three years in particular, we have been talking about the puzzle, the riddle that we need to solve each year as we build a budget where tuition at Island School is lower than many similarly-sized schools, but we must pay our team in a way that allows them to remain in our community and committed to this important work we do each day. For the sake of conversation, here’s some updated information on Kaua‘i Cost of Living - Līhu‘e as a way to see the situation from another source, and here’s the most recent public information about tuition rates across our state for independent schools.

At Island School, we completed last year our accreditation, self-study process that we undergo every 7 years, and this year embarked on our Strategic Process led by the Board of Directors who has charged our Strategic Task Force, made up of Board members, faculty, parents, alumni, and administrators, to make recommendations for strategic school priorities for the next 3-5 years. During this process, we are asking ourselves critical questions: What are our values? How do we center students and who they are as learners? How do we care for (and fairly compensate) our employees? How can we ensure we will last another 50 years and beyond?  

I feel so grateful to work with a dedicated administrative team and Board of Directors that is creative and committed to solving this puzzle as best we can. This is the season where we annually do the hard work to ensure we will meet our budget next year, through enrollment and fundraising goals, determine our financial aid allotments, and put all the pieces in place to ensure we can meet our commitments for compensation and benefits for our employees…which is over 70% of our operating budget! And yes, this means tuition only covers the cost of employees…thus, all families benefit from our program and all other school resources because of the generous individual gifts of all sizes to the Annual Fund, the funds raised through the Gala, our modest but growing endowment, and foundation grants we apply for and receive.

And as some of you may know, the DOE here in Hawai‘i responded to this challenge in 2022 with a reset that moved educator salaries up 30% in the case of the most experienced and valued staff, as they faced record turnover and trouble finding teachers at all. And of course, we too have worked so very hard over the last three years so that we can do all that we can to have great teachers at Island School for your children. And yes, we have made improvements, but we still have more work to do, and every season we have multiple people turn down our offer for employment because the cost of living in Kaua’i is just too great or they live here already, but our compensation is not sufficient for them to make ends meet or doesn’t compete with other employers. And so, I remain grateful that we have a dedicated Board that understands this priority as we look at the long-term health and growth of our school.

As I work hard with both the program and operations team along with the Board of Directors to have strong plans in place for the 26-27 school year, please know that we continue to prioritize an excellent education for all of our students, your children. We also know each of you work hard to build a meaningful life for your family here, and we are so grateful for your choice of Island School and the sacrifices many of our families make to be here. 

And so with all this in mind, mahalo, mahalo, mahalo to all those who have chosen to continue on this Voyage with us into the 26-27 school year. It will be our 50th year in operation and such an exciting year!! With the re-enrollment season closing, we continue to welcome new inquiries where we have space in our classes. We welcome you to continue to encourage new families to inquire about our program. The closing of the school year over the coming weeks is a very special time of year, and I have no doubt you will be reminded that Island School truly has a remarkable crew.

As always, we are so grateful to you for entrusting Island School with the education of your children. 

With gratitude,

Nancy Nagramada P’29

Head of School