Governor Abercrombie - Release Our School Funds

The Volcano School of Arts and Sciences (VSAS) is a 188 student, decade old, tuition free, state financed, State of Hawaii Charter Public School, opens to all. The VSAS receives about ½ the annual State funding per student as do surrounding ‘regular’ public schools. Yet the students at VSAS consistently academically score higher than those students in surrounding public schools.

VSAS students learn in rotting tents and WWII Quonset huts reached by a rutted dirt and cinder road. The school auditorium is a sheet of Vinyl on large hoops, open to the rainforest weather on both ends. The playground is a former plantation equipment dump. Shards of metal continually work their way up underfoot where the children exercise and play at recess. The school is on leased land with high, annually increasing rent. The school’s burgeoning lease rent is the second highest line item in the school budget. As the rent increases, the school is forced to decrease enrollment to make ends meet.

Almost a century ago citizens of Volcano gave another plot of land, designated as for school use, to the state (via the Territory). The state now leases that land back to the VSAS. The VSAS community has cobbled up enough money (in addition to paying their taxes to support State public schools) to pay for a new school plan done by an AIA registered architect, and to generate the required environmental assessment, archeological study, road traffic analysis, zoning and land use documents, flora and fauna analysis, flood insurance zone map and studies of available water, telephone electricity and sewage disposal resources for the new school. All are required by either the county or state. Thousands of hours of citizen volunteer efforts have been expended.

Meanwhile, the kids trudge the dirt road to their rotting tents to leaking Quonset huts.

With constant pleading by volcano citizens, the elected State Legislature has twice appropriated $618,000 of State construction and improvement funds specifically directed to the VSAS. The Governor of the State Hawaii, exercising virtual line item veto, has for two years, arbitrarily withheld these funds. Repeated pleas for their release have been ignored. Meanwhile, in August of this year the governor ‘released’ $1.8 million in construction funds almost exclusively directed for ‘regular’ public school athletic facilities, including a new ‘press booth’ for school athletic events. More ‘administrative’ offices and salaries and fringe benefits for more state employees were also added.

The Hawaii County Fire Marshal has warned that the present VSAS facilities are unsafe for use by Volcano’s children.

We are struggling to educate our children in one of the fastest growing areas in the state. We have given to the state land on which to build a decent new school. Our present ‘Third World’ school is already producing better educated children than nearby public schools. We have cobbled up $156,000 to contribute to our ‘bootstrap’ building effort. We have been successful in having our legislature re appropriate funds for a decent, safe school only to have the effort arbitrarily strangled by our Governor.