The head of a small private school in Wahiawa vowed yesterday to keep the campus open despite a court action seeking to foreclose on the property because of alleged late mortgage payments.

Hoala School has been struggling to keep up with loan payments on a 2.2-acre parcel it bought about a decade ago from the Estate of George Galbraith, head of school Nancy Barry said.

The foreclosure complaint, filed Thursday in Circuit Court by Bank of Hawaii, claims the school has defaulted on a $440,000 loan. The amount due rose to $591,785 as of Wednesday, it said.

An attorney representing the bank could not be reached for comment.

Tucked at the end of Lehua Street and surrounded by thick vegetation, the quiet campus has seven classrooms and serves about 50 students in pre-kindergarten and middle and high school. It uses two buildings that formerly housed pineapple plantation workers as classrooms and offices.

Hoala also enrolls about 40 children in kindergarten through fifth grade a few blocks away in rented space at the Wahiawa Hongwanji Mission.

The school, which opened 22 years ago in a former Wahiawa YMCA, purchased the Lehua Street site hoping to bring its entire student body under one roof and expand.

Enrollment, however, has dropped by about 25 students from last academic year, officials said.

School officials said they were surprised to hear about the foreclosure notice, saying they had been in discussions with banks about refinancing the mortgage.

“;It's a shock to have them go ahead and do this,”; teacher Jef Fern, who had two children graduate from Hoala, said about the court filing.

“;We are a little school, and we are out in the country and it's been tough for a while,”; he continued. “;But we have been holding our own.”;

Barry informed parents about the situation in a letter yesterday, reassuring them the school would not shut down. Officials prevented the media from speaking to parents who were picking up students yesterday afternoon.

“;We are open, we are here and we are in the business of education,”; Barry said.