Every time 15-year-old Pedro Deus rides past the gleaming new buildings of the still-vacant Kulanihakoi High School in Kihei, Maui, he feels frustrated and heartsick.

Deus is among 34 ninth graders who were told they would be part of the inaugural class at Kulanihakoi this school year. He had hoped to play soccer or wrestle at the school so he can try to earn college scholarships. But three-fourths of the school year has now passed with the campus unable to open, and Deus is concerned that his loss of a year in sanctioned sports could ruin his chances.

“It’s stressful not being able to be at the new campus, and it’s frustrating because the new school is already built and it’s just sitting there collecting dust,” he said. “Not having these opportunities is limiting our potential.”

Deus and the 33 other intended Kulanihakoi students instead are stuck about a mile away in three cramped portables with limited offerings at Lokelani Intermediate School.

In the meantime, government and community leaders continue to argue about how to get past more than a decade of bureaucratic missteps that have left Kihei with a long-delayed high school that has cost taxpayers $180 million so far but can’t be used, including a $16 million traffic roundabout that failed to meet the state Land Use Commission’s pedestrian-safety requirements to open the school.

The key holdup: The commission since 2013 has required the school project to include a “grade-separated crossing” — a pedestrian overpass or underpass — for students to safely get across busy Piilani Highway — but the state Department of Education so far hasn’t built it.

Due in large part to a decade of admitted mistakes by DOE in complying with the LUC’s requirement, students likely will have to wait at least until next school year — or possibly as long as three to six more years — to walk through Kulanihakoi’s doors.

In an unusual development, state Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi and Deputy Superintendent of Operations Curt Otaguro have apologized on DOE’s behalf before the commission.

They said publicly during a Feb. 9 LUC meeting that the department erred in failing to build the required crossing and installing the traffic roundabout first instead, and in making premature plans and pronouncements for the school to open in 2021, then last August and again in January.

“It is an unfortunate situation and I feel bad. We all feel bad for the students,” Otaguro told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Feb. 22. “I apologized to the students because they’re the ones being hurt for bad decisions.”

State Sen. Angus McKelvey (D, West Maui-Maalaea-South Maui) on Friday was drafting a resolution calling for an audit of DOE’s handling of the project. “The mismanagement of this project has resulted in inappropriate usage of funds and now costly delays,” he said.

McKelvey this month also sent a letter to Gov. Josh Green asking him to consider issuing an emergency proclamation to expedite overpass construction and approving the estimated $10.4 million to $13.6 million price tag during the current legislative session. He also wants DOE to issue a memorandum of understanding to require that pedestrians access the school only in vehicles and indemnifying Maui County from liability so it can issue a temporary certificate of occupancy that would allow the school to open with interim safety measures.

Kihei parents are leading a push of their own, with about 40 people demonstrating along Piilani Highway on Feb. 24 holding signs with messages such as “Working families support this school,” trying to compel bureaucrats to focus on opening Kulanihakoi sooner rather than later for their children’s sake.

“I feel like so many mistakes have been made over such a long period of time, on so many levels by so many people,” said Rebecca Hill, a mother of four and organizer of the Kihei Parents Hui, which held the sign waving. “We just need to move forward, put our kids first and get our kids in there.”

But exactly when the new Kulanihakoi High School can start welcoming students and teachers hinges on multiple factors, including whether DOE can prove that as the school awaits the building of an overpass or underpass, the safety of students can be guaranteed — a complex issue made even more sensitive after McKinley High School student Sara Yara was killed by a hit-and-run driver Feb. 15 while in a crosswalk near the Honolulu campus.

How rapidly Kulanihakoi will open also depends on whether and when DOE can fix what all parties see as broken trust with the LUC, the Maui County administration and the Kihei community.

Student safety first

The project formerly known as Kihei High School began as former state Sen. Rosalyn Baker’s dream since the early 2000s to see a new high school to relieve South Maui residents’ long drives to other high schools on the island that were overflowing due to population growth.

The Legislature allocated money several times over the years for the project but the funding often lapsed, unused. Progress also has been mired in years of arguments over how best to ensure the safety of students and other pedestrians along Piilani Highway while also preserving the look and feel of the community and avoiding impeding the flow of traffic on the bustling highway.

DOE petitioned the LUC in 2011 to get the 77-acre parcel rezoned from agricultural to urban and got approval in 2013. Ground broke on construction in 2016. With multiple challenges, including improving undeveloped land with no preexisting infrastructure, DOE said in 2019 that it planned to welcome the first students in the 2021-22 school year.

DOE, meanwhile, held that an overpass or underpass wasn’t needed. The agency worked with the state Department of Transportation as it conducted research “to find the most reasonable and safe crossing alternatives,” Otaguro said, “and it was determined at that time that there wouldn’t be a lot of pedestrian traffic crossing because … there are not any kind of other activities there. So a roundabout was determined to be the best to slow down traffic.”

In October 2021 DOE asked the LUC to allow the high school to open without a pedestrian underpass or overpass; the commission denied the request.

DOE continued school construction, including building the two-lane roundabout featuring a road-level crosswalk with flashing lights. The department last fall announced plans to open the school in January, posting announcements on its website and advisories to news media. DOE hoped the school would be allowed to open “based on a pedestrian safety plan that includes crossing guards at the new Kulanihakoi Street traffic roundabout and school-­operated shuttles for students walking to and from school until the crossing is completed,” its website said.

But the school’s opening was delayed again after Maui County declined to issue a temporary certificate of occupancy, the DOE announced Jan. 13.

“I’m certain no agency, department, community leader and parent has ever wavered from the need for student safety first and foremost,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said at the time. “The county will not be issuing a temporary certificate of occupancy at this time and will be working very closely with the Department of Education to systematically get through the required steps.”

‘Orders are clear’

DOE’s failure to meet the LUC’s 2013 requirement to build an overpass or underpass for Kulanihakoi has perplexed and angered commission members and many residents.

Commissioners have pointed out contradictory past testimony over the years when DOE officials indicated they were making headway on meeting the requirement and other times confessed that no budget requests or concrete plans had been made.

“My question to you is, how did the school (plan to) open without these issues being resolved? And what made the DOE believe that it could essentially bully its way into having this school?” LUC Second Vice Chairman Lee Ohigashi asked Hayashi and Otaguro at the Feb. 9 meeting at the Kihei Community Center. “The prior orders are clear: You don’t open the school until you meet those conditions. … Let’s first find out if your tactic was to violate the law and to force us to open up the school.”

The two DOE officials were penitent in their testimony to the commission and said the department is now committed to building an overpass.

Hayashi insisted “definitely it was not any tactic to violate” the LUC order or force the campus to open. “I take full responsibility for that. I was superintendent,” Hayashi added, even though he became interim state superintendent only in 2021 and was appointed permanently in 2022.

“Looking back, I should have consulted perhaps with other individuals, and I apologize for that. … It was never my nor the department’s intention to violate or hold anyone hostage. I believe it was an opportunity at that time to perhaps provide the students that opportunity” to move into the new campus.

Even though Otaguro joined DOE only in October after previously serving as the state’s comptroller and director of the state Department of Accounting and General Services, he also apologized for DOE.

“All we have is our word, and obviously we’ve lost your trust and we’ve lost the community trust, and it’s unfortunate,” he said. “We can’t go back to the past, but we can absolutely make a difference going forward. The superintendent is personally committed and is holding me personally accountable to ensure that we make good on our promises.”

In the later interview, Otaguro said: “The fact is, if we listened to the LUC back in that day and used the $16 million to get an overpass, the school would be open. That is a fact.” The commission has told the DOE, “‘You circumvented and did your own thing. And it’s your fault.’ That’s why we can’t open the school.”

Community distrust

So how and when will students be able to attend classes at Kulanihakoi High School?

As DOE officials say the required grade-separated crossing could take years to complete, McKelvey, Kulanihakoi Principal Halle Maxwell, complex area Superintendent Desiree Sides and the Kihei Parents Hui contend the school could already operate safely in the interim.

They propose vehicle-only access to the campus, with police officers monitoring traffic, so that no students would be walking to the school and crossing Piilani Highway. DOE could give special permission to students who live within the 1.5-mile “walk zone” to use existing school bus routes, they say. The school also has purchased two 15-passenger vans that could be used to pick up and drop off students at designated off-campus locations.

However, the LUC and the Maui County administration have indicated that while they wait for DOE to build the required crossing, they are not in favor of surrendering their leverage by granting even a temporary exemption to the commission’s requirement.

Because of DOE’s track record, “the commissioners have not backed down from the overpass or underpass requirement because the community hasn’t backed down,” said Daniel Orodenker, the LUC’s executive officer. “The difficulty that DOE has in this situation is that it burned its bridge. It was not forthright with the community, and the community doesn’t trust them.”

The Kihei Community Association also is frustrated by the complications and delays but believes DOE must be held accountable to build the grade-separated crossing before allowing students into the school.

“That’s based on the lack of faith everybody has in that agency when you’ve been lied to and deceived for years,” said association President Mike Moran.

There is also still community debate about whether an overpass or underpass would be best and exactly where to put it, although DOE says the latest studies indicate an overpass near Kulanihakoi Street is the “preferred” option.

Otaguro said an underpass might be easier for pedestrians to traverse but would be vulnerable to security problems and flooding, and would cost around $18 million to $24 million. An overpass might be a slightly tougher walk and requires security fencing and accessibility ramps, he said, but it’s easier to keep secure and less expensive at about $10 million to $15 million.

A private firm, G70, has been contracted to design an overpass, with plans expected to be completed late this summer. Otaguro said Thursday that DOE is continuing work to provide the LUC “with concrete progress” and an “action plan.”

About 40 community members attended an invitation-only meeting March 2 with Bissen. Hill of the Kihei Parents Hui said the mayor urged those who want the school opened quickly to petition the LUC to relent, but she said they’ve tried that.

“By keeping this political battle going between LUC and DOE, none of the individuals working for those agencies suffer. It is working families with children who suffer,” she said after the meeting.

Limited activities

And time is ticking for the 34 ninth graders temporarily housed at Lokelani Intermediate, as well as for the faculty and staff, some of whom are being tempted to work elsewhere if a move to the new campus is years away.

They’ve now spent most of this school year in cramped quarters. The students receive required core subjects such as English and math but their electives and extracurricular activities are sorely limited. They have no band, no sanctioned sports; the Maui Interscholastic League turned down Kulanihakoi’s bid to start a wrestling team due to the lack of adequate facilities.

The teachers have tried their best to provide the students with as full a “high school experience” as possible, said Lisa Morrison, student activities coordinator for Kulanihakoi. “We have an Interact Club, which is a community service club, and we’re working on our yearbook — in many ways the normal things that you’d expect at the high school,” she said. “But we’re doing it in a very small space.”

Many students are worried the delays are affecting their education and futures.

Fourteen-year-old Tyler Sammon said he and his classmates are “kind of sad that we’re not moving up to the new campus. We were really excited when the teachers told us that we were going to move up in January. And then in January they told us that we couldn’t. So it kind of brought down our hopes.”

Sammon has dreamed of playing football for Kulanihakoi. “I was looking forward to just getting a better education and just more space to walk around in, and probably have some sports that I can join,” he said.

“Now every time we drive past it, I just look at it and I wish I was there.”

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Kulanihakoi High School at a glance

>> Located in Kihei, Maui, at Piilani Highway and Kulanihakoi Street; no street address assigned yet.

>> Unoccupied; potential capacity, with Phase 2 construction in progress: 400 students.

>> Capacity when all phases are completed: 1,650 students.

>> Land parcel footprint: 77.2 acres.

>> $180 million spent on project so far; Phase 3 (buildings to support electives) expected to add $17 million to $18 million; additional costs to be determined for future phases (gymnasium, track and football field, basketball and tennis courts, additional buildings and athletics fields).

>> $16 million: cost of traffic roundabout (included in current construction cost).

>> $10.4 million to $13.6 million: estimated cost of proposed pedestrian overpass at “preferred location” at Piilani Highway and Kulanikahoi Street intersection.

Source: state Department of Transportation