2011-05-04 Windward transcript HAAS

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I’m in total sync with you. Let’s make it doable. Like I said we want to do it and we want to make it right and we will make it right. We need some help. I could give you the history of charter school funding. It hasn’t been looking good and the State has said no more money, no more money in the budget. So that’s the excuse. Meanwhile they’re shortchanging our charter school students and, you know, we’re in the mix. We hardly got time. When we put up the structures, charter school funding was going up to over $8,000 a student. Right now we’re under $6,000 a student. That’s $2000 a student less. For a school of 500, that’s a million lost in revenue. We simply cannot do it. So, you know, when, I concur with you, let’s make it reasonable. You know, the timeline, it will just be a delay. But if we have to develop a State road even in five years we’ll be back here, I guarantee you, to ask for another extension. If we were to be required to work with the State and the County government to find a solution for that, that’s a doable solution; and we can bring in resources. But to say that we have to do it, I can tell you right now that we’ll be back here in five years. Because I don’t think in five years we can come up with a million dollars to put in a traffic signal, turn lanes, exit lanes, entrance lanes and left turn lanes. And so I really would like to see an amendment now that addresses reality. And I hope the Commission will take that into consideration. KERN: Very good. I’d like to throw out a possible scenario. We can look at a couple different scenarios here since we’re in discussion. This Condition 9, you know, if we did basically white-out everything up to, you know, “On site enrollment shall not exceed 250 students until all of these improvements are constructed,” not saying who is responsible for that. It’s not putting the burden on the school. It’s still allowing a potential quasi or one sided or the other to get that done. I think that’s potentially a good solution. It’s a little bit tricky because I know of the demand. So how to you find that medium balance, you know what I mean? And I know, well, one thing I hear about HAAS is like there’s a lot of people want to get in there. And so I’m sure it’s, you know, there is the want and need to get the higher enrollment. The question is can you wait, can we wait, can the community wait for that enrollment until or can we find a middle ground potentially there? You know, that’s some of the questions that I am pondering. Because I think we need the capacity. It’s huge. Commissioner Ishibashi. ISHIBASHI: Thank you, Brother Chair. Yeah, that was one of my concerns, this 250 students, and we’re trying to build. Cause I commend you for a job well done for the community. Because the glory of God is the intelligence of man; and all of our students are all individuals and they need the spark to ignite their desire to learn. So I commend you in doing that. But this 250 is yeah. So I think it’s around the right track that we move that out, take that out. So we’ve got to deal with enrollment so we can get more money cause we’re taking cuts on that $2000 per student. So that’s one area of concern I had, that 250. KERN: I just had a quick question, Mr. Hirakami. Do you see the enrollment, you know, after five years from now or you eventually see coming in for an amendment possibly to expand that enrollment or do you think that’s going to kind of be the number of 400 (sic)? HIRAKAMI: I think that -. NOMURA: Microphone please. KERN: Use your microphone, please 22 EXHIBIT A