Really good advice you have gotten, agree with it ...
re the private school idea, you are probably looking at a charter school, so maybe start researching the possibilities? The true "private school" experience on the island is for the wealthy. HPA costs 16-20 thousand a year in tuition, and is not near Puna in any case.
Last I checked, Hawai'i public school was ranked 48th or 49th in the nation, so right there with Kentucky.
I am always ambivalent about wholeheartedly saying yes to bringing a school age child here. Some will thrive and some will not. There is a very strong prejudice towards being born here if you want to be fully accepted. The "solution" to that is find an environment where a good number of the kids are also "transplants."
You will find here that other transplants think it doesn't matter if you are from here, but people born here place great importance on how long you have lived here. Not only you, but your parents, your grandparents, and earlier generations. Perhaps Kentucky is like that too, don't know.
Lots of happiness to be found, but as the parent of a young child, just be aware that his life will be altered by moving to a place where he doesn't automatically belong.
Two other places you might check out are Honoka'a and North Kohala. Both have a strong artistic community. They are more expensive when it comes to housing, but only slightly higher with other areas of cost of living. Both areas have deep soil for gardening, because they are on the slopes of Mauna Kea, where no lava has flowed for thousands of years.
There is also deep soil on parts of the Mauna Loa flanks -- Kurtistown, for example. The lava areas are very fertile, but you'll need to learn a new way of gardening to adapt to ground that you can't put a shovel in unless it has been build up with cinder soil. That was a big shock to me when I moved here, so much rock, so little dirt!
Everything grows like crazy here -- that's the good and the bad news. Good plants, bad plants, bad bugs, everything is competing. Most of the work for me is getting the weeds out of the way, and the weeds never quit.
The west side has much better water accessibility; we have more water views than great water access over here. What there is here is mostly more crowded because there's less to go around, even though we don't have nearly so many visitors.
If you have never been to the Big Island, then I'd say do a two week or longer vacation before you commit to even a rental. It took me several trips to this island to decide where to live, and even then my first few decisions were not right. You may strike it lucky, but the more time you have to look around first, the better.
Best wishes! [
]
