With a growing student population, the Volcano School of Arts and Sciences has plans to expand to a new campus over the next few years.

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With a growing student population, the Volcano School of Arts and Sciences has plans to expand to a new campus over the next few years.

It will be located on Old Volcano Road between Nahelelani Street and Ali‘i Anela Street, just outside the northeastern entrance to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The site covers 14.9 acres and, upon its anticipated completion in 2032, will allow VSAS to serve an additional 287 students, according to Principal Kalima Kinney.

The charter school currently has a student population of approximately 360 students in pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade, with 223 on the waitlist. Kinney said that the need to expand capacity became clear in 2016.

In 2021, she said they began seriously searching for a site and in 2022 began negotiations with W.H. Shipman to develop the 14.9-acre parcel, which she felt aligned with the school’s needs and values.

“That’s why it took so long. We really considered a lot of factors with any of the parcels, as limited as they are, that we looked at,” she said. “Trying to avoid very dense, old-growth forest areas, really looking for areas that had already been disturbed. Also, a site that has good traffic access that wouldn’t disrupt a lot of neighbors.”

The new campus will house pre-kindergarten, middle and high school, which will each have its own designated section of the campus, complete with labs, workshops and recreation spaces. The campus will also feature a central courtyard, administrative offices, a cafeteria and an amphitheater for assemblies and performances.

VSAS currently operates across two campus locations, one of which is under a lease that is set to expire in 2028.

Plans for the new campus will be rolled out in phases, starting with the construction of a driveway and installation of portable classroom building to allow middle and high school students to transition to the site at the end of the lease.

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Elementary school students will remain at the other campus location which is also currently undergoing construction to help increase its capacity.

Kinney said she feels VSAS fills a clear need in the largely rural surrounding communities, and the new campus facilities will help to build on that.

“We primarily serve upper Puna and Ka‘u, although we have students from across five districts and 3,000 square miles. It’s a bit of an educational desert, there’s not a lot of schools and options,” she said. “It’s very far to travel to the neighboring schools and, secondly, we really believe in having diverse educational options because children are diverse and their needs are diverse.”

A draft environmental assessment, which included an ecological, archaeological and historical evaluation, was recently submitted for the project and found that there would be no significant environmental impact from the construction. The draft is now available for the public to view and is open for comments.

The draft EA also provided a timeline and budget for the project, which includes four phases and is expected to cost $43.8 million in total. Phase I has a cost of $3.5 million, about $1.5 million of which Kinney said has already been raised.

She said the school is working on fundraising for the rest and she is excited about the project’s progress and potential.

“It’s been such a long time coming … now the most exciting part is having good facilities for learning, and with space to grow, it just feels like a lot of pressure is kind of relieved,” she said.

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Email Grace Inez Adams at [email protected].