Lehuanani Huddleston-Hafoka of Kihei said she’d save about $560 a year in bus transportation to send her two children to Maui High School in Kahului if a high school were built in South Maui.

A South Maui high school would give more Kihei youths the opportunity to participate in sports and social activities, including band, she said.

"We’re taking away from the kids their opportunity to grow," said Huddleston-Hafoka, executive director of the Kihei Youth Center. "I think you’d also see an increase in parent participation."

State Department of Education officials are planning to build a high school on 77 acres of pastureland in South Maui, the island’s most populated region, within the next several years. But the department is still looking at ways to meet construction financing — an estimated $120 million in the first phase completed by 2016 and $30 million for the second phase in 2025.

"We’re pretty much poised to go … but without the money, we can’t do much to get it off the ground," said Robert Purdie, the department’s coordinator for the project.

State Sen. Rosalyn Baker said she plans to ask legislators this year to authorize general obligation bonds to provide some money for infrastructure, including grading and utilities.

Baker (D, South Maui-West Maui) said financing the infrastructure now would lower the cost for a future builder that might enter into a private/public partnership with the state to develop the high school. She said in the past, legislators authorized $20 million toward the high school, and some of that money has been spent in the study and design of the project and acquisition of the land.

The department recently submitted a draft environmental impact statement study to the state Office of Environmental Quality Control. Written comments about it may be submitted by Feb. 5.

The high school is being "built to serve the South Maui area with a population of about 27,000 residents," according to 2010 U.S. Census figures, larger than Kahului or Wai­luku, each of which has a high school.

Baker said the lack of a high school has raised enrollment at Baldwin High School in Wai­luku and Maui High School in Kahului to the point where they’re beginning to "burst at the seams."

"The impact is being felt not only in the Kihei area, but also in Kahului and Wai­luku as well," she said. "We’ve needed a high school for a long time in Kihei."

The population of the Kihei-Makena region has increased by 49 percent to 22,870 from 1990 to 2000, and is expected to jump by 57 percent to 35,962 by 2025, according to the draft environmental study.

The plan proposes building the high school mauka of Pii­lani Highway between Kulanihakoi and Waipuilani gulches.

Huddleston-Hafoka said her 13-year-old daughter was in second grade when she held a roadside sign saying, "We need a Kihei High School," and one of her other children who went to Maui High School is now a 21-year-old adult.

"The wait has been long," she said.