BOE hears multitrack
opposition at Nanakuli

By Crystal Kua
Star-Bulletin

The roadside sign at the entrance to the Leeward Coast community read loud and clear: Nanakuli opposes multitrack.

And it was the same message that greeted a Board of Education committee yesterday at a crowded cafeteria at Nanaikapono Elementary.

The Support Services Committee voted against implementing a multitrack system for a planned replacement for Nanaikapono.

The vote came after more than a dozen people opposed the multitrack system, a plan which they said would put a community already at-risk further into crisis.

A multitrack system involves students separated into different groups, attending school on multiple scheduling tracks. While one group is on break, the other groups are in school.

Multitrack allows schools to make the most use of their facilities in trying to deal with growing student populations.

But those attending yesterday's meeting said that implementing multitrack in Nanakuli would do more harm than good for an area already coping with high unemployment and other socioeconomic factors. Nanaikapono is located makai of Farrington Highway on a parcel of Hawaiian Homes land with a lease in excess of $500,000. The lease is scheduled to expire 2002 when the state would like the new school to be opened.

A $21 million replacement school, currently called Nanakuli IV, is planned to be built across Farrington Highway from Nanaikapono.

But the new school would have the capacity for 750 students while Nanaikapono's student body is 1,026.

Community members said they need to get an additional $5 million for a larger school with a year round, single-track schedule.

Families with several children attending Nanaikapono would find it difficult to obtain child care for the children on different tracks from their siblings.

Kamaki Kanahele, president of the Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead Community Association, said the multitrack system would cause "pilikia" and attack the essence of what keeps the community bonded -- the ohana.

"You're dividing the family," Kanahele said. "The family system has kept (the community) tight and secure."

Mata Tiave said the differing tracks would also make it difficult for students to be involved in activities that would keep them out of trouble such as the school's renown children's chorus, sports functions, academic fairs and an annual trip to the Big Island.

"More of our kids would be at-risk," he said.

Tiave and his wife, Robyn, who have two children attending Nanaikapono, stood along Farrington Highway next to the school before the meeting, holding signs with messages that included, "No multitrack."

Mata Tiave went door to door and collected 2,000 signatures on a petition in opposition.