Planned location of the new classroom building, courtesy the draft EA.

KEALAKEHE, Hawaii – A plan to provide 21st century classroom facilities within the Kealakehe Elementary School campus has been published online.

In the draft environmental assessment, the Department of Education projects that Kealakehe Elementary may see a growth of approximately 33 students from 2015 to 2021, and that the “intent of the proposed KES New Classroom Building is to provide additional classroom capacity to help absorb future growth for the complex.”

KES will be adding a new classroom building to its campus. The KES New Classroom Building will include six general classrooms, one special education (SPED) self-contained classroom, one itinerant room, one art/science classroom, one faculty center, one conference room, and one custodial room. In addition to the program spaces, the building will also include restrooms and a communications room, as well as mechanical and electrical rooms.

The entire project will cost $8 million, officials estimate, and the DOE plans to begin construction in the summer of 2018 at the earliest, “if sufficient funds are appropriated to allow the Project to go to bid.”

The funding will be up to the state legislature, the document states:

The Project schedule is solely dependent on funding appropriation by the State Legislature as a line item. In May 2017, should legislative add-on funding be available in the 2018 fiscal year appropriation, then the project construction document would route for permitting June 2017. Bid would likely commence after the allotment advice and permitting. Should funding and workflow be timely, bidding could take place in the winter of 2017, with construction commencing in the summer of 2018.