ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON @STARBULLETIN.COM A science class goes on in a former Waimea Middle School shop that has been divided into classrooms. The room also is used for storage of items like the towable lawn mower in the foreground and bags of fertilizer at the desk. The temperature in the metal building frequently reaches 90 degrees.

Student stampede
hits Big Isle
cattle country

Home building spurs
a desperate need for
a new middle school

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

WAIMEA, Hawaii >> Waimea Middle School in the heart of Parker Ranch country is in a space crisis, say school officials, parents and community leaders.

With "explosive growth" -- 830 new homes planned for Waimea in five years -- the school will go from being 20 percent over capacity now to at least 120 percent over capacity then, they say. Designed for 420 students, it will have at least 940.

"We've got trouble coming down the pike," said school curriculum coordinator Pat Rice.

The solution is a new middle school, the community says. The $60 million price tag assures that the solution will not be easy.

State schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto called the project "most challenging to achieve."

"I wouldn't want to think we're going to give up," she said. But four to six years may be needed to gather the necessary money, she said.

The combined Waimea elementary and middle schools were administratively separated in 2000. Both schools benefited, with middle school students raising their tests scores so much that the school was taken off the federal "failing school" list.

But space remained a problem.

Middle school classes are held or have been held in a teacher's lounge, on a stage in the school gym, in a storage room and in a 90-degree-hot converted shop building with metal walls, said Principal Jon Znamierowski.

The school's outdoor basketball court is one-third regulation size. The tiny court is used so intensely that four teams play two games simultaneously, Znamierowski said. The games last exactly one minute, and then new teams take their place.

The state Department of Education had planned a new elementary school, said Pat Rice.

"An elementary school is not the priority need," said Art Souza, principal of Waikoloa Elementary School, which "feeds" children to the middle school. "What is needed is a state-of-the-art middle school."

That means costly specialty items an elementary school does not need, such as science labs.

Instead of the elementary school, the Department of Education and the community worked out an informal solution on the middle school, said Alvin Rho, the department's West Hawaii superintendent.

The Department of Education would go to the Legislature for $30 million if the community will come up with $30 million in matching funds, he said. "How could the department not get excited about an agreement like that?" he asked.

Rep. Cindy Evans, who represents Waimea, has a bill in the Legislature seeking $30 million.

The community thought it might get the rest in federal funds for charter school facilities under the No Child Left Behind Act, said community leader Patti Cook. But that is unclear.

While charter schools are generally created from scratch outside the Department of Education, a 2002 state law allows public schools to convert to charter schools.

Conversion might make Waimea Middle School eligible for federal funds. But state Sen. Lorraine Inouye, who represents Waimea, questions whether the Department of Education would then want to fund a school, even at half price, that is no longer under its wing.

Inouye thinks the best that may come out of the current legislative session is some planning money.