A new Hawaiian-immersion preschool is set to rise next to the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, with plans to welcome up to 80 prekindergarten students when it opens in 2028. The campus will feature four classrooms of 20 students each, along with outdoor play spaces modeled on native Hawaiian plant life, and it's designed to do double duty as both an early learning center and a training ground for the next generation of Hawaiian-language teachers.
The project is a partnership between the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, the Hawaii State Charter School Commission, and ʻAha Pūnana Leo, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. ʻAha Pūnana Leo, which was founded in 1983, established its first preschool in Kekaha, Kauaʻi, in August 1984, according to ʻAha Pūnana Leo. The Hilo site will give student teachers from UH Hilo's Kahuawaiola Hawaiian and Indigenous Teacher Education Program a real classroom laboratory, offering professional development alongside direct instruction for keiki.
Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language executive director Kaʻiu Kimura said the preschool is intended to sustain and perpetuate the Hawaiian language, per the Star-Advertiser's report. Existing Hawaiian-immersion preschools in Hawaii County are already at full capacity, leaving families with few options.
A Language Making a Comeback, One Classroom at a Time
Hawaiian is the fastest-growing non-English language spoken in homes across the state, according to U.S. Census data cited in the Star-Advertiser's report. Statewide, the number of Hawaiian speakers rose from 18,400 in 2016 to 27,338 in 2024, and in Hawaii County alone, speakers more than doubled, from about 5,000 to 11,279. Kimura attributed that growth to language revitalization efforts that began in the 1980s, the same era that produced ʻAha Pūnana Leo's first immersion classrooms.
That resurgence follows a long and painful legal history. After the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Hawaiian was banned from classrooms in 1898, a prohibition that was repealed in 1986, according to the Hawaii State Legislature. Hawaiian and English are the state's two official languages.
Training the Teachers Hawaii Doesn't Have Enough Of
The ‘Imiloa campus arrives as statewide enrollment in Hawaiian-language immersion programs has grown 67 percent over the past decade, creating severe shortages of certified Hawaiian-fluent teachers, according to University of Hawaiʻi System News. The Kahuawaiola program at UH Hilo, which the new preschool will serve as a laboratory site for, has prepared 164 certified teachers since its inception and saw outer-island enrollment jump 56% after shifting to online-hybrid instruction. Kahuawaiola is accredited through the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium.
Construction on the ‘Imiloa preschool is scheduled to begin in March 2027, with Nan Inc. holding the construction contract. The Hawaii School Facilities Authority oversaw the campus design, which was built around the site's existing landscape and natural features, with play zones modeled on the astronomy center's native Hawaiian ethnobotany gardens.
Part of a Bigger Statewide Push
Ready Keiki is the state's effort to expand access to early learning programs, with capital funding for public early learning facilities statewide. Ready Keiki traces back to Act 257, passed by the Hawaii State Legislature in 2022, which allocated $200 million in capital funding to build, renovate, and expand public early learning facilities statewide, according to the Office of the Lt. Governor. That funding supports a broader statutory goal under Act 46, enacted in 2020, to provide universal preschool access for all 3- and 4-year-olds in Hawaii by 2032.
The scale of the challenge is significant: an August 2024 analysis by the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization found that only 55% of the state's 33,224 three- and four-year-olds were enrolled in preschool, leaving roughly 8,092 children unserved due to supply shortages and high costs. Hoodline covered a similar expansion in Kailua last month, where a new YMCA preschool opened amid the same statewide childcare crunch.
For now, families hoping to enroll their keiki at ‘Imiloa will have to wait for enrollment details to be finalized, and construction crews to break ground next spring. But the project's dual purpose, serving both as a classroom for 80 young learners and a training pipeline for the teachers the islands still desperately need, reflects how the push to revive ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi has become inseparable from the broader fight to make early education accessible statewide.
