As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in classrooms and at home, educators across Hawaii say the rise of personalized learning is beginning to reshape how students learn, and in some cases, whether they attend traditional schools at all.

Justin Lai, an educational technologist at La Pietra — Hawai’i School for Girls, describes AI as a powerful partner for both teachers and students by supporting creativity, closing knowledge gaps and helping to organize complex information.

Lai said La Pietra uses AI as a tool to help students generate ideas and create content, as a way to provide individualized academic support, and as a resource to help organize and make sense of complex information. Students use AI to brainstorm ideas, translate difficult concepts and manage overwhelming research tasks, while teachers are beginning to integrate curriculum content into AI platforms to create customized, interactive learning experiences.

Still, Lai emphasized that keeping pace with AI’s rapid evolution is a challenge even for those deeply immersed in the field. Because students are already using AI tools at home — often beyond the reach of school policies — he said schools must engage in open, community-wide communication.

La Pietra is actively exploring how AI can serve as a creative collaborator in design thinking and accelerate project research.

One promising example, according to Lai, is “vibe coding,” an emerging practice where students use AI to develop software more easily and intuitively.

“Students can learn to adaptively use new technology while applying skills in relevant contexts,” Lai said, noting that such innovation is especially important in Hawaii, where communities grapple with high living costs, environmental concerns and talent retention.

Ultimately, he believes the schools best positioned to thrive will be those that use AI “to enhance human connection and community engagement, not replace it.”

The Hawaii Association of Independent Schools has seen surging interest in AI training across its membership.

“It’s been the No. 1 requested area of professional development by our schools,” said Deanna D’Olier, HAIS executive director-elect. She added that AI integration in the classroom is not just about efficiency, it’s about access and support.

“My hope is that AI is a supplement to school,” D’Olier said. “It helps keep learning moving in real time in ways that are incredibly difficult for any person to do, given the demands of traditional schooling.”

Homeschooling support

The emergence of AI as an educational tool coincides with the rise in home-schooling. A reason is that technology, and increasingly AI, is making the practice more viable and effective, according to D’Olier.

According to the Johns Hopkins School of Education, the number of home-schooled students across the U.S. grew during the 2023–2024 school year even as the overall K–12 population declined due to falling birth rates.

In Hawaii, home-school participation spiked during the COVID- 19 pandemic and has remained significantly higher than pre-COVID levels, though still a small percentage of all school-age children.

In the 2008-2009 school year, 1,555 students in Hawaii were reported as home-schooled. That number hit 6,438 in 2020-2021, representing just 2.7% of Hawaii’s K-12 students.

For the just-ended 2024-2025 school year, 4,161 Hawaii students were home-schooled, down from the peak but still nearly triple the number from 15 years ago.

D’Olier said the home-schooling trend in Hawaii mirrors the national movement but is also shaped by local dynamics, particularly for student athletes, military families or those seeking flexible or specialized learning environments.

“By home-schooling your child, you can (teach them) anywhere,” she said. “You’re not tethered to the brick and mortar.”

Families may also choose home-schooling for academic, social-emotional or financial reasons, particularly if they lack access to a school that meets their needs but cannot afford private tuition, which continues to increase due to inflation.

The rise in AI tools also has provided more support for home-school parents and students. These tools are making it easier for both home-schooled and traditionally enrolled students to get tailored academic support and explore subjects more deeply on their own time.

“AI will inevitably help keep students on pace with their learning,” D’Olier said. “It can serve as kind of that private tutor … helping them better understand whatever it is they’re covering.”

New tools like Khan Academy’s AI-powered learning guide, Khanmigo, allow students to receive real-time academic support, ask questions, and stay on track — even without a traditional classroom structure. Khanmigo acts like a personal tutor and coach, helping students brainstorm ideas, work through math problems step by step and explore subjects through guided conversation.

The platform is free for teachers, while families can subscribe for $4 per month to gain full access at home.

The Curipod Classroom is an AI-powered lesson platform that lets teachers create interactive, standards-aligned lessons with slides, polls and activities on any topic and in any language, while giving students real-time, personalized feedback to boost engagement and learning.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, already widely used by teens, can help students brainstorm ideas, summarize reading material, draft essays, solve math problems or translate difficult concepts into plain language.

In traditional schools

The state Department of Education has been actively integrating AI to improve both teaching efficiency and student learning outcomes.

DOE describes artificial intelligence as technology that can predict outcomes, make suggestions or help with decisions based on goals set by humans — following the definition laid out in the 2020 National Artificial Intelligence Act.

AI is used in public schools to automate tasks like grading and lesson planning and support personalized tutoring for students. Through a cross-office collaboration model, the department has launched a public-facing AI website, initiated professional development sessions, and is running pilot programs such as MagicSchool to test AI tools in classrooms.

At the private Mid-Pacific Institute in Manoa Valley, preparations for AI integration began just months after ChatGPT’s public release in November 2022. The school established an AI Council made up of educators, students and industry professionals to help shape its approach, and began rolling out professional development for teachers at all grade levels.

“We knew that we needed to up-skill our teachers as quickly as possible,” said Brian Grantham, Mid-Pacific’s director of educational technology.

Mid-Pacific’s focus ranges from building AI literacy across all grades — helping students understand what AI is, how it works, the potential biases and errors in AI outputs, and the importance of validating those outputs — and developing AI certification classes open to faculty from any school.

“Most importantly, we knew that we needed to show our students and teachers myriad ways AI platforms could be leveraged to deepen their subject matter understanding, compared to cognitive offloading and taking shortcuts,” Grantham said.

Educators say this convergence of AI-powered personalization and a growing array of educational models marks a pivotal moment for K-12 learning. But it also brings new responsibilities.

Grantham, Lai and D’Olier all emphasized the importance of ethical AI use, strong data privacy protections and professional training.

“There’s not a school in Hawaii that isn’t actively engaged in establishing effective use policies and safety features around AI,” D’Olier said, adding that OpenAI, Google and other companies are working directly with educational institutions to develop safe, school-ready platforms.

Ultimately, Hawaii’s independent schools are betting on AI not to replace human educators, but to amplify them.

“Counter-intuitive as it may seem,” Lai said, “AI has the potential to strengthen the most human aspects of education by freeing teachers from routine tasks, allowing more time for meaningful relationships, hands-on learning and authentic community engagement.”