The top reported proficiency rate is 55% in English language arts. The lowest is 34% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Waiakea Intermediate School
Waiakea Intermediate School sits in Hilo, on the eastern side of Hawaiʻi Island, serving grades six through eight as a regular public school within the Hawaii Department of Education. The campus sits along Puainako Street in the Waiākea area, inland from downtown Hilo, in a community that has grown steadily inland from Hilo Bay toward the volcanic slopes since the 1960s. Hilo functions as the county seat and a college town, home to the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College, with an economy that diversified after the sugar plantations closed in the 1990s into education, astronomy, tourism, and macadamia nut production. The downtown core along the bay has a farmers market, galleries, and cultural venues, while the surrounding residential stretches give the area a spread-out, lived-in character.
The school's enrollment is sizable for a middle school, with students distributed fairly evenly across the three grade levels. The student body reflects Hilo's demographic mix. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students form the largest single group, with Hispanic students and students of two or more races also making up substantial portions. Asian students represent a smaller but visible share, and a very small number of white students attend. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which situates Waiakea as a school serving a mix of working and middle-income families. Data on English learner and special education populations was not available, so those dimensions of the school's student support picture are missing here.
On state assessments, Waiakea's English language arts results are the school's clearest strength. Proficiency holds steady across all three grade levels, with roughly half of students meeting or exceeding standards in each grade. That consistency from sixth through eighth grade suggests the school is sustaining literacy skills reasonably well through the middle years. Math results are more uneven. Sixth-grade math starts at a moderate level, but proficiency drops in seventh grade and only partially recovers in eighth. Science, tested only in eighth grade, sits lower still, with about a third of students reaching proficiency. A parent may want to look into how the school supports math instruction across the transition between grades and what supports exist for science, particularly given that the eighth-grade science result is the weakest number in the school's profile. Participation rates on all assessments are high, which means the results reflect nearly the entire student body rather than a selected subset.
Only one year of assessment data was available, so there is no trend to read. Whether these results represent a stable pattern or a moment in time is something the data does not yet show.
Hilo's housing market shapes the context families face when considering this school. Home values in the school's zip code are well below the statewide benchmark but substantially above the national figure, and the price-to-income ratio is high, meaning ownership is a stretch for many local families. Renting is comparatively more affordable than carrying a mortgage, though rent still consumes a large share of typical household income. For families relocating to Hilo, this means the housing market is less pressured than Honolulu's but still demanding by mainland standards.
The school does not have a graduation rate, because it serves only middle grades. No data on program offerings, course access, staffing, discipline, attendance, or civil-rights indicators was available, so those parts of the picture are absent here rather than thin. We looked for recent district-level changes that might affect families and found little of lasting impact, so that information was left out rather than guessed.
What the available data describes is a mid-sized, demographically representative Hilo middle school with steady reading outcomes and a softer profile in math and science. Families whose children are strong readers may find continuity here. Families concerned about math and science preparation may want to ask the school directly about instructional support and how students are tracked or grouped as they move from sixth into seventh and eighth grade.
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