Hilo High School School Improvement Status

In Spring 2023, Hilo High School (HHS) completed a four day WASC full-cycle visit and will focus on the following activities in the upcoming school year:

1. HHS’s administration and/or teachers/counselors on special assignments need to collect, disaggregate, and report to all staff members quarterly data on grades, on-target for graduation data, behavior, and attendance by department, grade level, and academy to more effectively and consistently monitor student achievement.
2. The HHS administrative team needs to reduce the number of school wide initiatives. With the Complex Area directive to shift to wall to wall academies next year, this is the first priority. Data teams that actually look at disaggregated student data and implement best practices based on that data needs to be the next priority.
3. In order to improve reading, writing, and math skills, Data Teams need to discuss classroom based data (i.e. common assessments, common writing assignments, unit exams, student performances, student writing samples) to identify teachers whose students perform best and identify instructional practices that result in increased student achievement in order to implement these across the department or academy.

In regards to college and career readiness, three-year data trends continue to show that HHS boosts student readiness through early college, i.e., dual-credit participants (students who enrolled in college level  courses during high school). The number of Career Technical Education (CTE) participants continues to grow along with the number of students receiving CTE honors. HHS has been reorganized into academies to expand career exploratory opportunities for students.

This year’s graduating class saw twenty-eight (28) seniors with GPA’s of 4.0+. These valedictorians will be attending colleges such as University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley, University of Texas Austin, Arizona State University and the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

In summary, the class of 2023 saw fifty-five (55) students recognized as Summa Cum Laude (GPA: 3.8+), forty-two (42) students recognized as Magna Cum Laude (GPA: 3.5+) and forty-eight (48) students recognized as Cum Laude (GPA: 3.0+).

Some Bright Spots for 2022 - 2023:

• HHS continues to benefit from grants provided by the Hilo High School Foundation.
• HHS implemented its first academy, Freshmen Academy, and laid the groundwork for three upper-level academies to be implemented in school year’23-’24.