Volcano has a highly rated Charter school, Volcano School of Arts & Sciences, which operates out of some aging WWII "temporary" military buildings, yet it turns out top performing students, on 1/2 the money of regular public schools.
Until the 1970s Volcano had its own public school, built on property donated by the Lee family early in the century. Then the state consolidated schools, and today the nearest to Volcano is in Mountain View, which requires kids to catch a 6am bus.
Going to the charter school, many can walk or ride bikes, or get dropped off easily by their parents.
Now they need a bigger facility, with a roof that doesn't leak, and they've been trying for years to get back into that original Volcano Public School property, which the state still owns. And the Lee family still lives a block away from the property they donated for a school.
They finally succeeded in getting the state to lease the property to the school, and a lot of volunteer work and donations have gone into making the old school useful again,but they've been stalled for a couple of years in getting the necessary funds to expand the old school to accommodate present needs. Twice appropriations have been made by the legislature to do this, but the Governor has refused to release the necessary funds.
This article on page 11 of the current Volcano Community News has a more complete description of the issue...
quote:
TWICE our ELECTED LEGISLATURE has passed appropriations to at least begin building. Our governor has ignored them. (Our Governor enjoys
fund ‘release’ power in what amounts to line item veto). The funds will expire next June 30th, several months before the governor is up for reelection. Our repeated requests and visits to his staff have
simply been ignored. Our county fire marshal has advised us that the school could soon be closed down as unsafe for occupancy by our children. Yet our kids continue to trudge down the dirt road to
their leaking and torn tent classrooms.
This August our governor ‘released’ $18.7 MILLION in construction funds for things including covered play areas for an Oahu school; a new gymnasium and wrestling room, locker rooms, an athletic
director’s office for a Kauai school; and about a million dollars for things such as a ‘synthetic’ cinder race track and a “Press Booth” for another Oahu school; and increased Oahu ‘administrative offices’
on Oahu and wages and fringe benefits for more bureaucrats to occupy them. Our kids continue trudge to worn out tents.
http://thecoopercenter.org/vcn-2014-01.pdf
