Aloha High School Farm was purchased, and in 1966, construction began on a new building. There were construction delays, so in September 1968, the first Aloha High School tenth and eleventh grade students used the former Merle Davies Elementary School and parts of Beaverton High School. The Aloha High School building, though incomplete, held its first classes in 1970. The community of Aloha (pronounced Ah-LO-wa) was likely named for a place in the state of Wisconsin, and not for the Hawaiian word "aloha". The association with Hawaii, however, gives the school its mascot, a Hawaiian warrior, and the design of the school crest,
Aloha of examples dating back as far as 1798 and up to 1978 where it was defined as a substitute for "welcome". The modern, common use epitomizes the appropriation of the Hawaiian Language and the cultural dispossession of Native Hawaiians. Lorrin Andrews wrote the first Hawaiian dictionary, called "A dictionary of the Hawaiian language". In it he describes "aloha" as "A word expressing different feelings; love, affection, gratitude, kindness, pity, compassion, grief, the modern common salutation at meeting; parting". Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Hoyt Elbert's "Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian" also contains a similar definition. The modern use as a greeting