With a mixture of nervous smiles and tentative steps, about 320 Pahoa students displaced by lava filed into their new schools in Keaau on Friday morning.
With a mixture of nervous smiles and tentative steps, about 320 Pahoa students displaced by lava filed into their new schools in Keaau on Friday morning.
As their buses or personal vehicles pulled up to the entrances of Keaau High and Keaau Middle, the students were welcomed by smiling faces and waves from members of the schools’ communities.
“The faculty came down this morning to greet them, and members of the student body government were up front and wherever they (the new students) got dropped off,” said Keaau High Principal Dean Cevallos.
The former Pahoa High and Intermediate students, some of whom proudly wore their green and white Daggers T-shirts, looked around them as they wandered through the wide expanses of the 56-acre campus — considerably larger than their formerly cramped 23-acre plot in Pahoa.
“I was pretty nervous and unsure how it would be here,” said one former Pahoa sophomore girl, who isn’t being identified because the new students’ parents haven’t yet had a chance to fill out media release forms. “Coming in, I didn’t really know how the schedule would work, and I didn’t really know the people.”
A fellow sophomore, however, said she had a bit of an advantage when coming to the new school Friday.
“My family works here, so I already know a lot,” she said.
One of the primary concerns among former Pahoa students has been centered on how their participation in athletics will play out, but the girls said that as volleyball players, they weren’t worried.
“Our season is already over, so it’s not a problem,” one said.
Cevallos explained faculty and staff are working hard to work out those details and more.
“This really ended up being perfect timing because we’re in between sports right now. It’s the end of last quarter and beginning of the second quarter.
“So, that was helpful. And our athletic director is working out the rest,” he said.
Other questions also remain to be answered, such as what diplomas handed out to seniors who graduate this year will say on them — Pahoa, Keaau, or a mixture of the two.
“Those are very good questions, and this is a brand new thing,” said Keaau High Vice Principal Paul McCarty. “This is a work in progress, and there are things like that where we want to be really sensitive. … They’re our kids now, and it’s hard for them. We want to be sensitive to that.”
The plan Friday was to keep Keaau High’s previous students out another day, providing the new students from Pahoa an opportunity to learn the lay of the land before being overwhelmed by having to fit into the stressful social scene of a large, bustling high school.
“We wanted it to be a day just for them, to get used to the campus when there aren’t 1,059 other kids around,” Cevallos said.
Only Keaau High’s student body government representatives were on hand to help make the new students feel welcome and to introduce themselves.
“I think it’s exciting that we get to meet new friends,” sophomore student body secretary Jadelyn Fernando said.
About the reason for her participation Friday, sophomore student body treasurer Jessica Andres said she could empathize with students being forced to relocate to a strange place well into the school year.
“It’s a new environment to them,” she said. “We’ve talked to some of them.”
Sophomore student body president Narizza Saladino agreed.
“Yeah, they’re kinda nervous,” she said.
In rotating groups separated by class year, the new students were welcomed by faculty and staff, taken on tours of the campus, and then provided a chance to go through a shortened schedule of their classes to meet each of their teachers and learn their way to classrooms, Cevallos said.
In one particularly high-tech effort to quell the new students’ relocation blues, the school partnered with Oahu’s University Laboratory School Moonshot Academy program to build a 3-D map of the campus.
Each student will be provided access to an iPad Mini during school days, allowing them to tour the campus virtually, using the same technology that powers Google Street View.
They’ll even be able to walk their parents at home step by step through their school day, showing them the way to their classrooms, the cafeteria and more, explained Moonshot Academy teacher Brendan Brennan.
“Our goal is to solve local problems with unique applications,” he said. “We hope this will make them (the new students) feel more comfortable.”
Students and academy personnel were using a 3-D camera Monday to piece the maps together, and Brennan expected they should be ready in time for the start of classes Monday.
To see the Keaau maps once they are complete, visit bit.ly/KeaauHSMaps. (Note: as of Friday afternoon, the website was not operational).
On Oct. 29, the state Department of Education announced the indefinite closure of Keonepoko Elementary, as the campus is estimated to be within the path of the June 27 lava flow — which remained stalled Friday.
Since then, preparations have been made for the transition of those students and others.
On Oct. 30, schools closed for students at Pahoa High &Intermediate, Pahoa Elementary, Keaau Middle, and Keaau High to allow for preparations to receive students attending Pahoa schools that would be cut off to the north of the lava flow once it crosses Highway 130.
About 850 Pahoa students reside north of the flow in the Orchidland, Ainaloa, and Hawaiian Paradise Park neighborhoods and are moving to the Keaau complex to correlating schools.
Meanwhile, about 850 students who reside south of the flow, including at Hawaiian Beaches, Hawaiian Shores, Nanawale, Leilani, Kalapana and Pahoa, will attent Pahoa High &Intermediate or Pahoa Elementary.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.