After a surge of growth in the 1990s, enrollment in Hawaiian language immersion programs at the public schools has leveled off over the past few years, but the Department of Education hopes for more money from the Legislature to boost offerings and attract more students.

It is clear 18 years after they were created that interest in schools that seek to revitalize Hawaiian language and culture hasn't waned. If enrollment is holding steady at 1,400 across 19 DOE immersion sites, it is due in part to competition from five public charter schools offering immersion programs and nine other charter schools teaching with a Hawaiian focus in English. There are about 2,000 students enrolled in Hawaiian-focused charter schools, with 350 of those students in immersion programs.

In addition, many students who start out in immersion programs later transfer to Kamehameha Schools, leaving spots open in the upper grades where it is difficult to enroll students who lack the Hawaiian language background necessary to succeed in the program.

But while the immersion program has taken root, it's not going to truly blossom until such problems as the lack of teaching materials and fluent teachers are addressed, educators say.

To bolster its Ka Papahana Kaiapuni Hawai'i program, the Board of Education is asking the Legislature to increase funding to $4 million from $1.7 million.

The DOE has success stories to justify its request. At Anuenue School, the decade-old kindergarten-through-high-school campus, principal Charles Naumu points out, "by the time our students reach high school ... we're up to or even surpass the test scores of the Roosevelt High School complex and the state."

The school has so far graduated about 50 students, most of whom have gone on to college. Some graduates intend to return to the program as teachers.

Although some argue that immersion programs will hamper students' success when they move into English-only college campuses, that has not proven to be the case.

Anuenue parent and University of Hawai'i Hawaiian language instructor Laiana Wong said a Hawaiian-only education starting from preschool does not create deficiencies in English. "If anything, their English is stronger than their Hawaiian," he said, noting that children will pick up English even if it's not taught formally in the classroom until the fifth grade.

Wong, a father of three, has seen one son graduate from Anuenue and another play for the school's first junior varsity football team. And Wong plans to send his third son to Anuenue after he leaves the Punana Leo immersion preschool program.

He is pleased with the education his children have received — the son that graduated is studying Hawaiian studies and language at UH — and he is encouraged by the growth the small school has seen.

The JV football team and cheerleading squad have helped to boost morale at the school by offering some of the programs immersion schools have missed because of their small size.

Noting that some of the immersion program graduates are now starting to have families of their own, Wong hopes these children will be the next immersion students.

"We need to encourage the next generation to carry on the work," he said.

The immersion program was created to revitalize the Hawaiian language. While there are a few sites, like Anuenue School, that are complete immersion campuses, in most cases the immersion program is contained within a traditional school.

Currently, the $1.7 million allows for 36 teaching positions at 19 schools. The other 64 positions are funded through the regular DOE budgets, forcing principals who run both Hawaiian-only and traditional programs to choose where to allocate resources.

The increase in funding would allow the immersion program to pay for its own teachers, easing the burden on principals who must make tough choices about whether to keep traditional classes large to teach a smaller number of students in Hawaiian.

"We would probably fund additional positions and have money for curriculum development," said Puanani Wilhelm, who oversees the program for the DOE.

The program is limited in other ways, as well.

Creation of Hawaiian-language teaching materials has fallen through the cracks, since no one is creating them full-time. Even translations of English materials, generally considered inferior to those originally created in Hawaiian, are hard to come by, and don't come close to covering the breadth available to those studying in English.

Money isn't the only issue. There are only about five people fluent enough in Hawaiian to create high-quality textbooks, and they all have full-time jobs doing something else, Wilhelm said. There are no jobs dedicated to Hawaiian immersion curriculum development, she said.

"Making it a job possibility actually starts to encourage people to think about doing that job," she said.

Naumu said a big challenge is finding teachers who not only are able to teach in Hawaiian, but also specialize in intermediate and high school math, science and other core subjects.

That is the case at Kahuku High School and Intermediate, where the three-year-old immersion program is still seeking teachers, principal Lisa DeLong said.

Having teachers trained in these areas is critical under the No Child Left Behind Act, which puts the same academic demands on immersion programs that it does on traditional schools.

Immersion advocates worry that even if students are taught in Hawaiian, the focus on English-based standards is leading to a situation where the students are, in essence, speaking English in Hawaiian, instead of learning the Hawaiian world view the immersion programs seek to instill.

"What we don't want to do is just offer an English curriculum using the Hawaiian language," said UH instructor Wong. "We want the world view to be Hawaiian as well."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.