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Waipahu High School is home to hundreds of multilingual students. Our students and their families speak over 25 languages. The five most-common are Ilokano, Tagalog, Marshallese, Chuukese, and Samoan. On our campus, you'll also hear several languages of the Philippines, including Visayan, Pampango, and Pangasinan, and languages from across the Pacific such as Kosreaen, Pohnpeian, Yapese, and Tongan. Other languages used in the Waipahu community include ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, Japanese, Lao, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese. We are extremely proud of our multilingual students and the assets they bring to our school community.
Waipahu High School leads the state in the number of students earning the Seal of Biliteracy. To earn the Seal of Biliteracy, students must demonstrate their English proficiency through test scores or grades and pass a world language test.
The Seal of Biliteracy program has steadily grown over the past several years. The vast majority of students earning the Seal of Biliteracy are current or former English Learner (EL) students.
Waipahu graduates have earned Seals in twenty-one languages other than English-, Cebuano, Chuukese, Hawai'i Creole, Ilokano, Ilonggo, Indonesian, Itawis, Japanese, Kapampangan, Korean, Kosraean, Marshallese, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, Pangasinan, Romanian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog, Tongan, Vietnamese, and Visayan.
Waipahu High School has led efforts to expand the languages recognized for the Seal of Biliteracy. In 2021, a Waipahu Seal of Biliteracy program was launched to honor students who speak languages that did not have an "official" test yet. Drawing on the language assets of our faculty and the community, Waipahu Seals of Biliteracy were awarded to students for their proficiency in Kosraean, Pangasinan, Pohnpeian, Tongan, and Visayan. These languages were officially recognized statewide starting with the class of 2022.
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