About Us: Read demographic, statistical and anecdotal information about Our Savior’s community below.

Our Savior Community Profile

Aiea is a Honolulu suburb, approximately 10 miles from downtown and Waikiki .  Honolulu International Airport is less than 10 minutes away.   The church and school share an intersection with Toys-R-Us, Pearl Ridge Shopping Center (2^nd largest in state), Kapiolani Medical Center-Pali Momi, and a condominium complex.  The Aloha Stadium (Pro Bowl Site) is nearby, and the Pearl Harbor view is partially blocked by the Pearl Ridge shopping center.

The suburb’s houses were built primarily in the 1970’s; thus the population in the immediate area is steadily aging and projections show the school age population shrinking.  The Aiea community is made up mostly of middle and upper middle class families.  Our students come from the Aiea community and several nearby military bases.  Some come from outlying communities since we have easy freeway access.

A high percentage of Hawaii’s school age population has enrolled in independent schools.   Combined with the poor public school reputation and environment, and the diverse, quality independent-school offerings, Our Savior has filled the larger community’s niches.  Soon after the school’s opening, it gained the reputation as a less-expensive school to prepare a child for entering the more exclusive, larger private schools.   It also serves as a quality school for military families based nearby.    Although we continue to have many people send their children through our school for quality academics, strong community, and good morals' training, we continue assessing and focusing our primary missions—sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, planting seeds of faith, and developing Scriptural knowledge.

O’ahu has an extremely diverse cultural and ethnic makeup.   The Aiea community has a prominent Japanese cultural character, while the surrounding communities have pronounced Filipino, Chinese, Hawaiian, Pacific-Island, Caucasian, and mixed backgrounds.   Combining with the traditional Hawaiian Aloha attitude, this diversity requires residents to develop tolerance, patience, and diversity understanding and appreciation.    Many area residents are laborers and recent immigrants who continue building the community.  Our Savior does not quantify the ethnic representations because they’re numerous and intertwined, but we do recognize a 30-40% military-family and a 60-70% local-family enrollment.   Hawaii’s society emphasizes children and the family bonds.  A strong education value pervades the area’s cultures.  

Our Savior Lutheran School Profile – Aiea , Hawaii

In 1970, Our Savior Church began a preschool and daycare.   We opened our elementary division in 1973.   Our Savior joined three other existing Hawaii Lutheran LCMS schools; the oldest was founded in 1948.   The school accommodated 100 kindergarten through 6^th graders, served by four synodically-trained teachers and one full-time secretary/bookkeeper.   Grade 7 was added in 1976, grade 8 in 1977.   Between 1975 and 1977 a two-classroom frame building and a three-story, 10 classroom, concrete and block building were added.   In 1978, we reached a capacity enrollment of 70 preschool students and 255 K-8 students.    In 1988, Our Savior Church and other founding members formed the Lutheran High School of Hawaii Association.   We definitely need more space or more buildings; presently, OSLS has approximately 236 PreSchool-8^th grade students, with 13 full-time faculty, 15 part-time assistants, 1 full-time office manager, 1 full-time principal, 1 part-time bookkeeper, and 2 pastors.

Our Savior Lutheran Church was founded in 1961.  The pastor serving Messiah Church, 'Ewa Beach, gathered 'Aiea's local families for worship in a nearby public school, Alvah Scott Elementary.   After purchasing a piece of the AmFac farmland abutting a creek, a church building was constructed.   Our Savior is one of the largest Lutheran worshipping communities in the state; we have approximately 320 members.   We average 235 in church attendance.  We have 3 worship services each Sunday, 8:15 a.m. , 10:45 a.m. , and 6:34 p.m.   While we have a good mix of ages, the congregation has a large number of military families, giving its attendance a young-family characteristic, but the military presence makes it very transient.   The Bible determines LCMS doctrines, while maintaining an outreach posture.  Our pastors emphasize serving the families by continuing a vibrant Sunday School, a high school youth group, and middle-school mid-week classes and activities, all of which are open to non-church members.   Currently, our school has 39 congregational children attending our school, or 17% of our 236-student enrollment.   (This compares to a 30% member-to-nonmember average district-wide.)  

Additionally, while our school has serving our congregational members as a priority, we have enrolled people of other faiths, including the practicing non-Christian families, since our opening in 1970; we view these families as sharing and outreach opportunities. 

Our ministry function and our staffing policy require we use the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s calling process.  This calling process has our school board give a divine call to certified and synodically-rostered Lutheran-trained teachers to serve our church and school community.   With a deepening Lutheran-certified-teacher shortage, we often reach out to the O’ahu community for qualified teachers whose qualifications, experience, attitudes, and philosophies maintain our level of quality.   Likewise, we reach out for church members to serve in our staffing openings, but often maintain quality through recruiting from the community.   Our staff members need Christian commitment and quality characteristics to serve Our Savior Lutheran School.

Our school is known for its academic program.  Our traditional structure, which cautiously considers the latest educational innovations and fads, consistently focuses on individual achievement.   A large of our graduates attend Lutheran High School and most attend private schools.  Our 2003 graduating class sent 4 students to 4 local public schools, 2 to Maryknoll High, 3 to Hawaii Baptist High, 2 to Punahou Private, and 15 to Lutheran High School .   We do well, not because we’re elitist, but because we teach students that they are blessings of God who have received many blessings, and they should practice good stewardship of these blessings.

While we inform incoming parents we are not equipped for special-needs children; nonetheless, we’re currently serving diagnosed learning-disabled students and students with considerable health considerations.  Although we are tuition-based, we have 18 students receiving tuition assistance, 16 students with staff discounts, and 26 students receiving congregational-member discounts.  Our Savior Lutheran School has an inclusive environment due to our outreach mission and being blessed with staff and supporters’ talents and capabilities.

When Our Savior Lutheran School began, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s, California-Nevada-Hawaii District subsidized our mission congregation.   The District policy prohibited subsidizing parochial schools; therefore, this school was organized as a completely self-sustaining entity, requiring tuition and other revenues to cover the operating costs.  This is still the policy.   We have been blessed financially.   For many years, our enrollment size and low salaries kept us financially solvent.  Currently, we’re able to incrementally increase our salaries and provide more services and programs.

Parents are pleased with our quality and community-focus, while they recognize our low tuition rate, compared to other O’ahu independent schools.   The SAT-10 standardized achievement test, given annually, places our students consistently in the national top quartile.  Our teachers tutor our students and students from other schools.  We have strong Band, Japanese, French, and computer instruction in addition to our good academic preparation.  Our annual events/programs include:  Grades 5-8 interscholastic volleyball, basketball, cross country, track & field teams, the National Geography Bee, National Spelling Bee, Whole School Multicultural Day, Whole School Olympics at the University of Hawaii Track, grades 5-8 Trips to the Big Island, the North Shore, and on a Science Boat, State Science Fair, 3 Band Concerts, Monthly Choir performances, Whole School Speech Festival, Whole School Story-Telling Workshop, Thursday-night grades 5-8 Youth Activities.  Our Savior’s athletic teams compete in the 8-school Lutheran Schools’ Sports League.  Girls and boys participate in 5^th–8^th Grade volleyball and basketball, cross-country meet, and track meet.  Our after-school opportunities include piano lessons, lower-grades’ Japanese Club, the “Heavenly Harmonies” performing arts club, and the art club.   Our student council has spear-headed many community outreach programs, fundraising and teaming with Loliana Family Shelter, River-of-Life Mission, and various Lutheran organizations.

We're a small school on a very dynamic campus; we pack in a lot of activities, programs, community, and growth for our families.  We've been blessed.  We prepare our students for life.  We give them tools to handle defeats and successes, and joy and purpose for the everyday existence that lies between.