The private Assets School has opened a center to make student screening for learning disabilities and differences more widely accessible to the public, funded with $378,000 from the federal Governor’s Emergency Education Relief fund.

Starting in August, the Transforming Lives Center will offer assessments to all students, including those from public, charter and private schools, and homeschooled students, said Ryan Masa, head of school at Assets.

The center on the school’s K-8 campus at 1 Ohana Nui Way in Honolulu’s airport district will be the first private school-based full resource center on Oahu to provide comprehensive assessments of students for dyslexia, dysgraphia and other language-based learning differences, and academic achievement, school officials said.

The center’s name refers to the positive effect that diagnosing a learning difference can have on a student’s life.

When dyslexia or other issues go undiagnosed, “kids draw inaccurate conclusions about themselves that they aren’t bright,” Masa said. Often, “they’re really, really smart, but school hasn’t always been successful. They don’t know how smart they really are. They just know they are struggling.”

About 20% of all students have learning or attention challenges, but prompt diagnosis can make a huge difference by enabling education and support to be tailored to the students’ needs, and the earlier that happens, the better the outcome, Masa said.

The need is critical. About 18% of students with specific learning disabilities drop out of high school, compared with approximately 6% of all students, according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Harsher statistics come from the National School Boards Association, which reports that the average graduation rate for students with disabilities is 67%, compared with about 85% for all students.

The center is meant to help ease Hawaii’s shortage of learning-assessment opportunities. Typically when a child is suspected of having a learning difference or disability, Masa said, the family’s options are to get the child tested through the public education system, which is free but sometimes takes months, or opt for private assessments that are faster but expensive.

While prices for testing at the Transforming Lives Center are not yet available, Masa said the goal is to keep them as affordable as possible.

The 1,000-square-foot center includes two testing rooms, plus a lounge where parents can wait while students are assessed, and clinicians can talk with families. Services will grow gradually to include psycho- educational assessments, attention deficit hyperactivity deficit screenings, reading screenings, speech and language assessments, assistive technology services, and executive function coaching and support. For information and appointments, email appointment@assets-school.org.

Assets is the only Hawaii school specializing in educating children who are gifted and/or dyslexic. It is also among Hawaii’s most expensive private schools, with an annual average tuition of $27,015, according to a recent Hawaii Association of Independent School survey.

The Governor’s Emergency Education Relief fund that provided the $378,000 for the center is one of four “buckets” of federal funds authorized by Congress to address educational issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress, over the past two years, has authorized more than $263 billion in all in federal COVID-19 relief funding to the nation’s schools and colleges — including nearly $950 million to Hawaii — meant to keep students healthy and safe, and help them recover from the pandemic’s learning losses and social-­emotional difficulties.

The Transforming Lives Center was among 31 recipients of innovation grants totaling $8.1 million under Hawaii’s Governor’s Emergency Education Relief fund that Gov. David Ige announced in August for selected schools, colleges and other educational entities across the state. Ige said the awardees “represent a diverse array of programs that address unprecedented pandemic needs and support the dreams and aspirations of each student.”

To those who would ask whether public taxpayer dollars should be given to a specialized private school like Assets to provide testing that could benefit the school by identifying potential student enrollees, Masa said, “the question, I think, is fair, but I would say the school has a really great track record of showing its commitment to just really helping whoever we can in the community, because ultimately that’s going to help these kids. … I don’t know another school that I can think of that has outreach and advocacy in its mission statement.”

Assets bills itself as “a private school with a public purpose.” For more than a decade, Assets has already offered a free reading screening for children in midkindergarten through third grade, and has provided training to parents, teachers and other professionals on how to identify and work with students at risk for academic difficulties and those with learning disabilities. That will continue in addition to the center, Masa said.

During a grand-opening ceremony of the center in June, UHA Health Insurance donated $25,000 to support the center’s operations. First lady Dawn Amano-Ige, a former teacher and school administrator, gave a speech saying the center “will put our keiki on a path to success which is life-changing. We know some students, in all grades, have faced academic challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while other students need to be assessed due to struggles in a traditional classroom setting. Early intervention by way of the Transforming Lives Center will help the statewide effort to reduce high school dropout rates.”