By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Hawaii Catholic school enrollment has inched up slightly over the past three years, although there are 200 fewer students overall in the islands’ 40 Catholic preschools, grade schools and high schools than there were a decade ago.

The 10 years from 1996 to 2006 saw enrollment fall and rise twice. It has been on an upward trend since 1994.

The Hawaii Catholic Schools office tracks enrollment figures twice a year — in September, when the school year starts and in June, when it ends. Some of the biggest changes in numbers occur during the school year rather than over the summer.

Hawaii’s Catholic schools began the 1996-97 school year with 11,658 students. The last school year opened with 11,443, a total 10-year loss of 215 students. The average number of students in a single Hawaii Catholic grade school is 278.

The low point of the past decade was June of 1999, when enrollment fell to 11, 260. It rose after that to hit 11,580 in September 2001, dropped 311 students over the next three years to 11,269 in June 2004, and has been on a rise since then.

One school closed during that period, Our Lady of Sorrows in Wahiawa in 2003. Its enrollment at the time was 87 for grade K-8.

The grade school with the biggest jump in enrollment from September 1996 to September 2006 was St. John the Baptist in Kalihi, which gained 66, going from 193 to 255.

The largest grade school enrollment belongs to Maryknoll, which opened this past September with 827. The number includes a preschool and seventh and eighth grades, which not all elementary schools have.

The high school with the largest enrollment gain is Sacred Hearts Academy, which went from 501 to 774, for a total of 273 more students. This year it surpassed by two students St. Louis as Hawaii’s largest Catholic high school. The Academy counts the junior high grades of seven and eight in its total and St. Louis School now goes down to grade four.