School and Community
Kwajalein High School is located on a secure Army installation dedicated to supporting the missions of the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands. The school is a private institution operated by DynCorp International (DI), a logistics and engineering support contractor with the SMDC. The school is accredited by the North Central Association/Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA/CASI). Curriculum is designed to equip students to become life-long learners, effective problem-solvers, responsible citizens, and caring contributors to humankind.
Approximately 120 students are enrolled in grades 7-12. Most are dependents of U.S. civilian and U.S. military personnel working on the island. Many private companies and government entities participate in supporting school operations including: MIT/Lincoln Laboratory, DI, Boeing, NASA, Space Fence, RGNext, Tribal Co., and the U.S Army. Most parents have professional and technical backgrounds.
Academic Program
The four-year college-preparatory curriculum requires the following course minimums for graduation: English - 4 credits, Social Studies - 4 credits, Mathematics - 2 credits, Laboratory Science - 2 credits, Computer Science - ½ credit, Health/Physical Education - 2 credits, and Electives - 9½ credits. Most students exceed the 24-credit graduation requirement. There are seven 47-minute class periods per day with 180 student contact days in the school calendar.
Advanced Placement (AP) courses are offered in Calculus, Statistics, English Literature, and English Language.
Grading
Kwajalein High School uses a 4.0 grading scale. The lowest passing percentage is 60%. All completed courses (with the exception of any high school courses taken in 8th grade) where a letter grade of A through F is given are used in computing a student's GPA. One additional quality point is added to the GPA calculation for grades received in AP courses. The school is on a semester system with the first semester ending in January and the second semester ending the first week of June.
Faculty
The staff consists of a full-time principal and school counselor and the equivalent of 20 full-time teachers. The classroom student-teacher ratio is approximately 10-1. Most full-time faculty members have Master’s Degrees.
College Placement
In recent years our graduates have been accepted at Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rice, Clemson, Harvard, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Cal Tech, Vanderbilt, McGill, DePaul, Northwestern, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Vassar, University of Denver, St. Olaf College, Wentworth, Pepperdine, Penn State, Gonzaga, the University of Michigan, Texas A & M, Virginia Tech, Purdue, Auburn, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the University of Texas - Austin, Notre Dame University, St. John’s University, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Irvine and Berkeley; the US Air Force Academy, the US Coast Guard Academy, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvey Mudd College, Drew University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Chapman University, Claremont-McKenna College, and Drexel University.
Extra Curricular Opportunities
School Band, Yearbook, Honor Society (HS), Athletics, and the Student Government Association (SGA) are some of the school sponsored activities offered at Kwajalein High School. The Jimjera Club, another organization, is a girls’ mentoring program that works to bridge relationships between Kwajalein School students and the Marshallese citizens on the neighboring island of Ebeye.
In general, our students are well-traveled. The staff and students take pride in being globally aware and experienced in other cultures. The particular requirements of remote island living have prepared Kwajalein students to be self-reliant and effective problem solvers.
