Kapaa High graduates 275 seniors, including 39 valedictorians
Kapaa High sent 275 seniors across the stage and 39 earned valedictorian status, the island’s biggest graduation census.
Wind that rolled across the Bryan J. Baptiste Sports Complex Field kept tugging at tassels and green robes, but it did not slow Kapaa High School’s Class of 2026. The east-side school graduated 275 seniors on Friday, and 39 students earned valedictorian distinction, a strong signal that the class was both large and academically deep.
The 275 graduates made Kapaa the largest graduation census on Kauai this year, ahead of the 261 seniors the school sent out in 2024 and the 228 who graduated in 2023. Kapaa also had 273 graduates in 2018, showing that the school regularly sits near the top of the island’s class-size ledger even as the total shifts from year to year. Across Kauai’s public high schools, more than 700 seniors were eligible to graduate this season.
The clearest look at what comes next was already visible before commencement. Four Kapaa seniors had earned Associate in Arts, Liberal Arts degrees through Kauai Community College, and the school said 64 students had earned college credits and certificates from Chaminade College and KCC. The Kapaa High School Foundation also handed out nearly $110,000 in scholarships to 46 seniors, with awards that supported students heading to two-year colleges, trade schools and four-year colleges or universities, and future studies in medicine, health care, engineering, business and teaching.
Kapaa High School, at 4695 Mailihuna Road in Kapaa, serves grades 9 through 12 under Principal Thomas Cox. On the graduation stage, Cox told the Class of 2026, “Once a Warrior, always a Warrior!” and Kauai Complex Area Superintendent Leila Maeda-Kobayashi urged graduates to stay “Kauai-committed” as they moved on. For Kauai families, the class is more than a ceremony count: it is a measure of how many students are leaving Kapaa with college credits, scholarships and a wider set of post-high-school options than previous classes carried.
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