Green announces opening plan for Maui’s Kulanihako‘i school

Gov. Josh Green announced today that the state and Maui County have entered into a memorandum of agreement that finally will allow students to attend school on the campus of Kulanihako‘i High School in Kihei, possibly starting in August.

The new school, which cost at least $180 million, has been sitting empty, stuck in bureaucratic limbo, because the state Department of Education failed to build a “grade-separated pedestrian crossing” — an overpass or underpass — that has been required since a 2013 Land Use Commission decision.

Students have been attending high-school-level classes at Lokelani Intermediate School in the interim.

Under the memorandum of agreement, the Land Use Commission will issue a temporary certificate of occupancy to the DOE, and in exchange, the state will temporarily indemnify the county. School buses will transport the students to campus on an interim basis so that students will not traverse the busy Piilani Highway.

The DOE is “optimistic” that arrangements can be finalized in time for students to start the next school year in August at the new campus, DOE Deputy Superintendent Curt Otaguro said in a news release from the governor’s office.

The department will continue work on building an elevated pedestrian crosswalk, which is required for a permanent certificate of occupancy to be issued. Construction of the raised crosswalk will take three years, at an estimated cost of more than $25 million, a news release from the governor’s office said.

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