On Tuesday evening, the Maunaloa Elementary School Consolidation Task Force decided that another meeting needed to be scheduled for March before a recommendation can be made on the school’s closing.
Before Tuesday’s meeting, February 16 was going to be the last meeting of the task force. A recommendation to the Hawaii Board of Education was expected to be made soon after. According to task force member Wendy Espaniola, who is also a teacher at Maunaloa, there is too much data that still needs to be analyzed before a recommendation can be made. Sunshine laws prevent the task force from meeting and discussing the data except at scheduled public meetings.
Task Force members were presented with six or seven new packets of data at Tuesday’s meeting. Espaniola — whose brother Daniel Espaniola is also one of the 10 Task Force members — said they received information on enrollment and facilities from Kuanakakai Elementary and Kualapuu Elementary, the two schools where the 60 or so Maunaloa students would need to be transferred. Both schools received site visits from the Task Force and have since gotten strong positive ratings from the Task Force.
Members of the Task Force also heard testimonies, both positive and negative, addressing the potential school closing. “Each and every testimony was heartfelt,” said Espaniola. The Task Force is still looking for solutions and alternatives to closing the school, which many believe could have a far-reaching negative and destabilizing impact on the Maunaloa community. Espaniola said she would like to hear more input from the community that looks at the social impact of closing the school.
On Saturday, Maunaloa had a Unity Rally, which, Espaniola said, “showed the true meaning of the word ‘unity’ in ‘community’.” State Rep. Mele Carroll, as well as Maui County Council Chair and Molokai representative Danny Mateo, both appeared at the rally to express their support of the Maunaloa community. Hawaii Schools Board of Education member Mary Cochran also showed her support of Maunaloa at the rally. Espaniola said that Cochran believes in the importance of maintaining rural schools because of what they mean to the community.
From Espaniola’s point of view, the best part of Saturday’s rally was when the children from Maunaloa performed skits to show the impact of losing their school. Then the community joined hands and sang songs to again show what true unity means.
The date of the March meeting has not been set.
Filed under: Schools
[...] on this issue were published in The Molokai News on May 18, May 10, April 28, January 29 and January 26 of this [...]