Written by: Melissa Tanji

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KIHEI — The $245 million, long-awaited Kulanihako’i High School in Kihei will officially open its doors to more than 100 students next month, county and state officials announced on Thursday.

The school will open Aug. 1 for teachers and Aug. 7 for students for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, marking the first time students will set foot on the actual campus for classes.

Currently 120 students are scheduled to attend, with Principal Halle Maxwell hoping to have more. The first two classes will be freshmen and sophomores. Some of the sophomores were among the 34 freshman who attended high school classes in three portable classrooms at the nearby Lokelani Intermediate School campus last school year.

One of those students was Tyler Sammon, who is the sophomore class president and is currently in Oregon with Sea Cadet Training. Mitsue Okamura Eldredge, Sammon’s mom, said she is “so excited” for the students and teachers.

“I am so thankful for all the people who worked really hard for Kulanihakoi High School to actually open,” Okamura Eldredge said via text Thursday afternoon.

Okamura Eldredge is part of the Kihei Parents Hui who have advocated for a solution to safely open the high school.

The milestone has been a long time coming, and in order for it to happen this year, Maui County had to grant the state a temporary certificate of occupancy, and the state needed to indemnify the county, as the school will be opening without a grade-separated crossing mandated by the state Land Use Commission in 2013. The Department of Education has not moved forward with the crossing for years, with officials citing missteps during the process.

But with the temporary certificate of occupancy in hand, state education and transportation officials said they will continue working on the crossing, which will be an overpass.

Meeting the condition had been a sticking point for some in the community and the LUC over concerns of students crossing busy Piilani Highway to get to school, as the campus is mauka of the highway and Kulanihakoi Street. The DOE said it has a temporary pedestrian safety plan that will include shuttles for students walking to and from school until the new pedestrian overpass is constructed.

“It is indeed a great day when our students can be provided the opportunity to attend a school where their community is located,” Mayor Richard Bissen said Thursday during a news conference in the school’s library, which still needs to be filled with books and other resources. “As we work together to resolve long-standing issues, the safety of our students remain our top priority. Because students will be arriving by vehicle only, and not face the street crossing that the South Maui community rightfully raised concerns about, the students can arrive safely.”

In March, Gov. Josh Green announced that the state and Maui County had entered an agreement regarding the temporary certificate of occupancy and the state’s decision to temporarily indemnify the county against theoretical future claims of liability.

“Today’s announcement is proof that when public servants get together and collaborate to help people, great things can happen,” Green, who was out of state and not able to attend the news conference, said in a news release. “I am grateful for the hard-working leaders in my administration, the steadfastness of lawmakers from Maui, and, of course, Mayor Richard Bissen for their collective determination to do what had to be done to get students into this brand new school this school year.”

The new school may rival some college campuses, with its large modern windows that let the sunlight shine through rooms along with creative “learning stairs,” which are staircases several feet tall located outdoors and in the cafeteria/auditorium area that encourage students to sit and gather.

It also has spacious classrooms equipped with moveable walls with white boards, water features that tie into the irrigation on the campus and a large health room in the administration building that will accommodate a nurse from the Hawaii Keiki nurse program, which Maxwell said other Maui schools have participated in.

The nurse can help with things such as student physicals, including those needed those to play sports. Maxwell said this alleviates the burden on parents and students who may need to leave school to get these visits with a doctor or nurse elsewhere. There is also an opportunity to expand the health services to the community, she added.

On Thursday, the campus included some grassy areas along with other non-landscaped sections and one area blocked off by a black dust fence.

Maxwell said that behind the fence, construction is ongoing for the school’s career technical education building, where electives will be housed. She did not have an estimate on when that would be completed.

Currently there are no solar panels on the campus, but there are service lines in the parking lot to accommodate solar in the future, officials said.

The buildings that have been completed are toward the top of the campus, and farther down toward Piilani Highway will be the schools’ athletic fields that are yet to be completed.

The school has been admitted into the Maui Interscholastic League, and this fall there will be girls volleyball, along with cross country, air riflery and bowling.

Maxwell plans to have 30 teachers on staff when the school opens and is close to getting all of them hired. She also likes to keep classes small with around 18 to 20 students.

At Lokelani during the last school year, the 34 freshmen had 16 teachers among them.

The high school is designed for 1,600 students and will add a new grade each year until it reaches grade 12.

Phase I of construction on the campus began in January 2016 and included the drilling of new irrigation wells and site grading, which cost $46 million. The first phase was completed in October 2020. Phase II began and the upper campus was completed in December 2022 at an approximate cost of $136 million.

Overall, officials are pleased the school will open and are moving forward with plans for the overpass.

“Being here on this new campus fills us with pride and excitement for our bright future that awaits our students,” DOE Superintendent Keith Hayashi said during the news conference. “It’s been a long journey to get here and we know there is still a lot of work to do.”

He added that the department is “fully committed to ensuring student and pedestrian safety” and it is working with G70, a firm on Oahu, and with the DOT on design and construction for the overpass.

State Department of Transportation Director Ed Sniffen said that there is no firm timeline for when construction will begin on the overpass, especially since the Legislature did not fund it during the last session.

The DOT has closed off the crosswalk at the roundabout to prevent pedestrians from crossing to the campus. The roundabout fronting the school, which has drawn criticism from the community, has been constructed to reduce speeds approaching the area, the DOE has said.

Education officials expect the design for the overpass to be completed in late summer.

Construction of the crossing is estimated at three to five years, pending project funding. The Governor’s Office has said the estimated cost of the overpass is more than $25 million.

The DOE has long sought to amend the condition over the crossing, which the LUC has denied. In late 2022, the DOE sought a temporary certificate of occupancy, which was not signed off by former Planning Director Michele McLean, who pointed out that the LUC’s condition had not been met. Eventually the county and state came to the agreement to issue the temporary certificate.