2009-11-20 TPARKERSCHOOL - Laserfiche WebLink

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accepted the drop in enrollment. However, we also believe that things are not going to stay way forever, that over the course of the next five, ten, 15 years we think the economy will recover, and we think that the north end of this island will again begin to grow. And part of our goal here is to ensure that we are in the position to be prepared for that expansion of students and population into our town and surrounding towns. There are really three goals that enliven this particular project. And one of them I want to mention at the beginning is to work in partnership with the Waimea Community Education Program; they currently use our buildings for evening classes, adult education classes, community classes, and we are pursuing this Use Permit in conjunction with them, and we would continue to make our facilities available to their primarily adult education classes. Secondly, we would like to improve the quality of our academic program for ou of our facilities. We have some significant facilities lacks; we lack resource centers, we lack a gymnasium, we lack a variety of items that would immediately improve the quality of the education of our students. Finally, we feel that we need to be prepared for growth, and that a modest growth beyond our current population will eventually occur. Those students are going to be moving to Waimea and we feel that some of them would do well at Parker School. So the third wing of our proposal involves an eventual expansion of the student body made possible by an expansion of the facilities. Currently we are able to handle with what we have right now 350 students. We currently have 251 students, so we have a quite bit of wiggle room. But what would happen if we were granted this Use Permit, immediately there are some things we would do. For instance, if you see the house on PuÒuk Street thatÓs right in the middle of the campus there, thatÓs currently zoned Residential, itÓs on the east side of PuÒuk Street. That house, we would like to turn into a lower school resource center and that process could begin almost, you know, almost immediately. It would not be a major refit, but we are not able to do it without the Use Permit. WeÓd like to improve the quality of our playing fields, which also are part of the Use Permit area. The warehouse is a great space potentially for art classrooms, and we would like to look at remodeling that building sometime in the near future. More importantly, however, I think you have to understand the co will expand. We are a small school, we have a limited endowment hard to raise the $1,200,000 to build our lower school a couple of years ago. And for us to build the two main items that are part of this master plan, first the gymnasium which is closer to the stream, and then the middle school buildings, those are $5,000,000 ~ $6,000,000 projects probably, and for us to raise that kind of money, thatÓs going to take some time and a quite bit of effort. And in order to be able to begin the process of raising the money to build those buildings, I will need to be able to go to donors and say, yes, I have approval from the Planning Commission to use the land. And so the Use Permit is really necessary before I can begin to fundraise because significant donors, one of the first things they are going to ask is, do you have access to the land, or are you able to do this if I were to give you the money. So the other issue here is, or one of the reasons we are getting a long-term view of the whole process is that in order to raise funds to build these buildings I would have to do that. IÓm not able to generate funds from my current tuition for future buildings. We offer quite a modest tuition charge in the scheme of things because we do think that the school ought to be available to a wide range of North HawaiÒiÓs children. And so I canÓt add those kinds of funds over and above. EXHIBIT A 9