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Makaha farm
to stay fertile
learning ground

With money, liability
and legal issues resolved,
elementary students hold
on to a popular program

---

By Suzanne Tswei
Star-Bulletin

A popular hands-on program at a nonprofit farm for Makaha Elementary School students will be reinstated.

Children will be returning to the farm as early as Friday to begin planting vegetables and learning about other farm chores as part of their science classes.

Principal Clarence De Lude said yesterday that the school and the farm, Hoa 'Aina O Makaha, will "begin the process" to draw up a contract for the 13-year program to continue.

"I am really encouraged," said Sherron Tapia, who was among the parents who spoke in favor of the farm program at a school meeting Thursday night.

"Like many other parents, the farm is one of the reasons that I am comfortable taking my children to Makaha and not to private school," said Tapia, who moved her family from Aiea to Makaha recently for her daughter to enroll at the elementary school. The move was in part due to the outstanding farm program, she said.

De Lude declined to enter into an agreement with the farm after he became principal in January. Earlier, De Lude said he would rather channel limited funds toward reading and there was not enough left for the farm program.

Yesterday De Lude said he was never against the Na Keiki O Ka 'Aina program, which takes students to the farm for activities every eight days. But he had been concerned about money, liability and legal issues, which are now resolved.

"As the principal, I need to follow all the rules and laws of the state and the DOE. The program is going to continue as it is. That was never an issue," De Lude said.

The one change to the program will be that students may visit the farm only after the school's "sacred reading block," which is from 8 to 10 a.m.

"That's the time we concentrate on our reading program. During that time the entire school is reading. No child can be pulled out of the classroom," De Lude said.

Farm manager Luigi "Gigi" Cocquio, who has agreed to do without the $6,000 given yearly by the school for farm supplies, praised De Lude's decision yesterday.

"The people in the community will really appreciate this. The community leadership really feels the farm is a very important part of the education of the children," Cocquio said.

In addition to the usual science activities, the farm program also will emphasize reading in support of the principal's effort to improve the students' reading ability, Cocquio said.

While the parties work on a new contract, the students will be allowed to visit the farm on field trips, De Lude said. This week, he will distribute information and dates for the program and ask for parents' signatures to allow their children to visit the farm. The program may begin Friday as long as parents return all the necessary paperwork in time, he said.

Tapia said her daughter, a first-grade student who had visited the farm while in kindergarten, is eager to return to it. Her daughter studied animals and plants and brought home green onions, corn and other vegetables she grew on the farm. "I think she learned to have a greater love for the land and how to care for the land. She was literally bursting with excitement when she came home.

"The farm was something other than learning from the textbooks, and that's why she loved it so much," Tapia said.