2011-05-04 Windward Planning Commission Hearing Transcript SP 11-115

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excuse me. Thank you. All right, next six testifiers Erick Cockcroft, Matthew Cruz, James Weatherford, Elizabeth Weatherford, Mike Ment, Mentnech, sorry, and Tyann Flower. I’ll swear you all in first. If you will all raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. So swear. KERN: Very good. We’ll start with Erick Cockcroft, name and district you represent. COCKCROFT: Hello. Hi, my name is Eric, Eric Cockcroft and I represent, I guess I live in Kapoho, and I am representing a lot of hats here today. I sit on the board of ASC as the treasurer. I am also a founding teacher at HAAS who took the leap of faith and went from Pāhoa High School to the tents and the church sites and stuff ten years ago. I am also a parent of a HAAS graduate who did actually go on to, is currently enrolled at the Oregon Institute of Technology doing alternative engineering and I am hoping, hopefully a lot of people are doing that right now. Alternative engineering and, engineering and alternative energy I think is really important with the current gas prices and other things that we are seeing. He graduated from HAAS but he didn't start out at HAAS. He started out at Pāhoa High School, he really loved Pāhoa High School. He was at Pāhoa Elementary School all the way through sixth grade. He had a lot of negative experiences when he entered the middle school, and he came over to HAAS. Then he didn’t have the best time at HAAS, and he went back to Pāhoa . And then he came back to HAAS, and I think he went back to Pāhoa one more time. And then he came back to HAAS, and he stayed there and graduated, and actually had about half of his college credits by the time he graduated, going to early enrollment at UH. And then he got accepted into the Oregon Institute of Technology with full scholarship, which was important because my other son broke the bank going to Boston University (Laughter). I have a daughter at HAAS right now. She is in the seventh grade, she's 12 years old, she loves her school. And I really appreciate having that school for her to go to. She has been at HAAS since basically first grade through all the different programs. I don't know if you are aware that HAAS spreads out through the community into what used to be community home school groups and has actually umbrellaed (phonetic) them and turned them into regular public charter schools. But let us stick to the topic right now, which is that we have a beautiful high school and intermediate school right there in Pāhoa, choice free for students and parents; and a long waiting list of people who wish they could get their kids in. But how do you really tell if the school is a good school in a small community like the big island of Hawaii? Well, a lot of my information I get this on the golf course. I was playing some golf at the Hilo Muni the other day and I was walking with a guy I had never met before. And he said, “Oh what do you do?” I said “I’m a teacher.” And he said “Well, where do you teach?” I said “I teach out in Pāhoa”; and he gave me that look I used to get for 13 years when I taught out in Pāhoa - sort of an “Oh my God, you do, really? Wow.” And then I said. “No, well, I did teach at Pāhoa School and I really loved Pāhoa High School. It has a lot of really great people working there and wonderful families that support their kids, but I actually teach at a charter school we started there ten years ago. It’s called the Hawaii Academy of Arts and Sciences, most people refer to it as HAAS.” And when he said, “Wow, I heard that’s the best school in all of Puna,” I said to myself we’re doing something right. Because that really is a barometer of your school, is how do people see it, what is its image in the community. And so I’ll just leave it with that. I was blown away when he said that. And I was really appreciative that that’s our image right now. 13 EXHIBIT A