Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

That’s the mindset of the new state School Facilities Authority as it pursues a new funding mechanism for a new East Kapolei High School. All that newness lends itself to some fresh thinking — and maybe that’s just what is needed to move the needle on projects long mired in bureaucracy.

First, there’s East Kapolei High School, which has yet to emerge despite being on the state Department of Education’s planning books since 2014. The school, estimated at $355 million and now eyed for acreage at Ho‘opili, was to help alleviate anticipated student increases from residential developments that already have impacted and expanded Kapolei High School and Campbell High School. But the cost has been formidable.

Enter a possible new funding mechanism: the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development program, which offers cheaper federal loans than the state general obligation bonds typically used to pay for new school construction. USDA Rural Development funds have been tapped here successfully to finance schools in rural areas, such as smaller charter schools in Kaneohe, Maui and Hawaii island. But a high-enrollment school in East Kapolei? A heavier lift, to be sure, even if the area is considered rural based on preliminary 2020 Census data.

That heavy lift now falls to the fledgling School Facilities Authority (SFA), created by the Legislature last year, with staff funding allocated just this year and its inaugural executive director, Chad Keone Farias, named just three months ago. Farias, a former Big Island complex area superintendent, has $100,000 to explore the feasibility of using the USDA Rural Development approach for East Kapolei High School, but acknowledged the daunting task: “It’s going to be a tough one.”

Now facing trial by fire, the SFA itself came into existence after much frustration with the DOE’s bogged-down facilities branch, which still faces a huge backlog of school maintenance and repairs. In almost desperate enthusiasm for SFA, the Legislature this spring allotted $200 million to the new agency to accelerate new preschool facilities, and other new DOE school plans are being transferred over, including a delayed vertical elementary school in Kakaako, an elementary school at Koa Ridge and more schools in Ho‘opili.

Meticulous handling of funds and close oversight are necessary, of course. But so is creative thinking, for the sake of improving Hawaii’s public schools offerings. Hope springs eternal for success. Let it spring forth on the Ewa plain, for starters, in East Kapolei.