KEKAHA, Kaua'i — The blessing for Kekaha Elementary School is a campus filled with mature trees that provide shade in the unyielding West Kaua'i sun, but that does little to help classrooms that become baking hot during the warmer months of the year.

"We'd really like to air-condition the campus," said principal Carol Shikada.

But outside the heat, the little school in the former sugar town is a near-perfect community school, she said, It is small enough that teachers know all their students. And it has a strong community supporting its mission.

"I don't think that I've ever seen a school with this much support," she said.

Businesses donate cash, local groups and the Pacific Missile Range Facility have installed playground equipment and a sprinkler system, and there's a strong school-community council, she said. "People who have graduated from here come and ask, 'What do you need?' "

The school also benefits from retired teachers who come back and work part time, or who volunteer to work with the kids, she said.

A key feature of the educational experience at Kekaha is that students requiring special help are placed in small groups for more individualized attention. "What works here is small-group instruction, but it takes more staffing," Shikada said.

Kekaha's student count has been dropping in recent years, but that will change in two years when Waimea Canyon School in the neighboring community switches from serving elementary and middle grades, and becomes a pure middle school. At that point, the K-6 Kekaha campus will lose its sixth grade but will begin sharing the former Waimea Canyon elementary students with 'Ele'ele Elementary School. A growing Hawaiian Home Lands housing area also will add to the student count.