Assets to move high school to AOP site

Assets School is finalizing a deal to take over the vacant Alewa Heights campus of another private school that shut down last summer.

Academy of the Pacific, which closed in June citing financial struggles and dwindling enrollment, is in negotiations to transfer its assets and property to Assets School for an undisclosed amount.

School officials are describing the deal as a merger of the campuses, with Assets being the surviving entity.

Academy of the Pacific had focused on educating "out-of-the-box learners" for 52 years while Assets specializes in intensive academic remediation and acceleration for gifted, dyslexic and gifted-dyslexic children.

Assets had responded to a call for proposals from nonprofits on ways to best use the property.

Assets plans to relocate its high school to the 4-acre hilltop site, described as a former estate dotted with historic buildings and small cottage classrooms.

The deal is scheduled to close by the end of May, school officials said. Assets’ high school would open in its new location in summer 2015, following renovation work.

Former Academy of the Pacific board members will be asked to join Assets’ board of trustees "to work together to discuss the legacy of (Academy of the Pacific) and how Assets can help preserve the mission and vision of the school," the schools said in a statement.

"It is our sincere hope that through this merger, Assets School will continue to ensure that the needs of children requiring a creative alternative to traditional learning environments are met," Assets Board Chairman John Morton said in a statement.

Assets is still moving forward with building a new campus that will replace portable buildings on its existing school grounds near Honolulu Airport, according to a spokeswoman for the school. Relocating the high school to Alewa Heights will allow the new campus to have more space for Assets’ elementary and intermediate programs.

Construction is scheduled to begin next year and be completed in mid-2017.

Assets has about 340 students in grades kindergarten through 12.