Nearly every public school in Hawaiʻi now has a computer science class on the schedule. The students actually in one are a different story once high school starts: ninth graders had an 8% participation rate last year, the lowest of any grade.
That offering-versus-taking gap is what Honolulu Civil Beat put on the record. About 98% of schools offered at least one computer science course last year, up from roughly 54% three years earlier. The Legislature had already, in 2021, required computer science instruction on every campus. The course list caught up. High school participation did not.
Elementary Is Where the Seats Fill
Participation peaked in elementary school. At least 89% of students in kindergarten through fifth grade took a computer science class last year, and an introductory class for third graders alone served more than 11,300 students statewide.
The drop comes after that. Participation tended to fall through middle and high school and bottomed out with those ninth graders. There was real growth on the way there. The Maui Economic Development Board said middle school participation more than doubled between the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 school years. A 2024 Civil Beat account said the number of elementary schools offering the subject had more than tripled since 2021. A fuller menu, and a middle-school surge, still left the first year of high school thin.
The Department of Education's annual report uses a different yardstick, and the figures should not be read as the same statistic. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes section 302A-323 requires the department to report each year on the computer science courses and content offered the previous school year. For 2024–2025, that report counted 84,617 students enrolled in computer science courses, 57.8% of all students, and 3,815 computer science instructors among 11,240 instructors, or 33.9%.
The Class Does Not Match the Student Body
Girls made up 47% of computer science enrollment last year. That is a sharp change from 2022–23, when a September 2024 Civil Beat article found only a quarter of computer science students were female. The same 2022–23 snapshot reported Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students were three times less likely to take the classes than Asian and white students. The newer account does not update that comparison.
Income still does not track the schools as a whole. Low-income students made up roughly 42% of computer science enrollment last year and 58% of the public-school population.
Complex areas do not line up either. On Oʻahu, the Leilehua-Mililani-Waialua complex area had the highest reported participation rate, with 69% of students taking a computer science class. Castle-Kahuku reported the lowest enrollment rate, 39%, followed by Kailua-Kalaheo at 45%. An older access gap sat under the offering numbers: in 2022–23, just over half of rural Hawaiʻi high schools offered computer science, compared with 72% of suburban campuses.
By 2024, the Maui Economic Development Board said 72% of Hawaiʻi public high schools offered computer science courses, above a 60% national average. Ahead of the country on the course list is not the same as students taking the class.
A Graduation Rule the State Has Not Adopted
Local advocates have urged Hawaiʻi to require computer science for high school graduation. Their argument is that a mandate would ensure students learn technology skills and prepare for high-paying careers. About a dozen states already require the subject to graduate. This evidence does not show that Hawaiʻi has adopted one.
Some educators and administrators have questioned whether schools have the staff and resources for a new requirement. The paycheck advocates can point to is specific. A 2024 University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization report, cited by Civil Beat, listed computer science among the state's most lucrative college majors, with a projected mid-career income of $95,755. A lucrative major is not, by itself, a staffed classroom.
Standards Reach the Board, Not a Vote
The department is revising its computer science standards for the first time in nearly a decade. The proposed updates cover artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and data science. Middle school students would learn more about data privacy and common types of cyberattacks. High school students would evaluate the accuracy of AI-generated code and create data visualizations.
State leaders are set to present those proposed standards to the Board of Education on Thursday, Nov. 12. A presentation is not an adoption, and nothing in the record shows the board has signed off. The practical question sitting underneath the new guidelines is the old one: a course can be on the books, and still be a class most ninth graders never take.
