(ABOVE PHOTO) Screen grab from the website, hopeforhaas.org.

NEWS BRIEFS

• As the June 27 lava flow heads towards Pahoa, the students of the Hawai’i Academy of Arts and Science have come up with an idea and produced a website (hopeforhaas.org) to ask the general public to help keep their charter school alive.

INSIGHTS

HAAS is potentially in the path of the active lava flow that is threatening to sever Highway 130 and cut lower Puna off from the rest of the island. Pahoa area preschools (Montessori Country School and Kamehameha Early Education Program) have already closed. HAAS is more than 100 students below their projected enrollment count. School officials are blaming the lava-induced exodus of people and businesses in the area.

The Hope For HAAS website currently shows a two minute news video clip featuring fifteen year old sophomore at HAAS, Stella Javier. The effort is part of the senior project of sixteen year old Logan Treaster.

“All we ask for is a dollar,” wrote Steve Hirakami in an email to Big Island Video News. “Hopefully, we will raise enough dollars to see us through this year.”

Last year, HAAS educated 637 students. The current enrollment is 560.

Stella Javier, a fifteen year old sophomore at HAAS, does the talking in a video featured on the new website.