Canadian firm’s Kapolei
school plans delayed

The private elementary school
was expected to open this autumn

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By Susan Essoyan
sessoyan@starbulletin.com

A Canadian company's ambitious plans to open a private elementary school in Kapolei this fall turned out to be overly optimistic, and the school has delayed its opening until September 2004.

Island Pacific Academy began soliciting applications from prospective students and staff in December, before even breaking ground on the school. Officials had hoped to fast-track construction while organizing the school's launch.

"We were having so many things compressed into such a short period of time that I didn't feel we were going to be able to deliver the school that we wanted to deliver," said Larry Caster, chief operating officer of Academex Systems (Hawaii), which plans to build the school.

Academex Systems Inc., of Richmond, British Columbia, operates three small schools in Canada. All of them started in temporary, leased facilities, and the largest is still based in a shopping mall.

In Hawaii, however, the company said it was ready to spend $5 million up front on the school, to be located on a 3-acre site next to Kapolei Library.

Roughly 100 families had applied to Island Pacific Academy, and another 300 had expressed interest by the time officials decided last month to delay the project, Caster said.

"The market's ready for it, the families are ready for it," he said. "We have apologized for the disappointment and the inconvenience, but in the long run, it's the best thing for the school and the community."

The school is billed as the first private, nondenominational, college preparatory school in West Oahu. It intends to start with pre-kindergarten through seventh grade, then add a secondary school a few years later.