Eleven new pre-kindergarten classrooms are set to open throughout the state by August, including one at Waimea Elementary School.
By 2024, another 44 pre-K classrooms are expected to be available, including 12 on the Big Island across nine different campuses.
The effort by the state Department of Education is the result of Act 257, a law passed last year allocating $200 million to create new pre-K classrooms in Hawaii.
The project is being led by former Ka‘u-Keaau-Pahoa Complex Area Superintendent Chad Keone Farias, who now is serving as the executive director of the DOE’s School Facilities Authority.
“We are on track to be under budget what we thought these (11) classrooms would cost,” Farias said Wednesday during a livestream interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “This is just the first appropriation of money to tackle as many as 200 classrooms, looking at 4,000 seats.”
The classrooms will accommodate 20 students per class, and locations were selected based on DOE surveys analyzing needs, demands, and availability.
“These 11 were the easiest-to-access campuses prior to the end of the school year,” Farias said. “We’re not stopping at 11, we’re currently in negotiations for up to 80 new sites.”
By August 2025, the goal is to open between 80 and 100 pre-K classrooms.
The state also announced this year plans to establish a free universal preschool plan by 2032 for all 3- and 4-year-olds, which would require an estimated 465 new classrooms.
“We know currently that we have upwards of 10,000, closer to 20,000, seats of need,” Farias said. “Those are 3- to 4-year-olds who are not accessing any type of formal education and receiving that developmental training.”
Preschools throughout Hilo have reported an increased demand among parents following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A lot of people are wanting to put their 3-year-olds in a program to learn social skills instead of just putting them with a babysitter,” said Jennifer Tomita, director of Mauna Loa Preschool in Hilo. “We are in the process of open enrollment right now, and we’ve been getting a lot of calls.”
But as new classrooms open, staffing remains a key concern.
Between 2018 and 2020, Hawaii lost 850 early education providers, or 20% of the childcare workforce, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
As of December, the DOE reported having another 737 open positions for K-12 teachers.
“Currently, especially for Hawaii, we’re short on teachers, so I don’t know how they’re going to get qualified teachers to open up universal preschools,” Tomita said. “They’re probably going to want to take some of our preschool teachers away to run the universal program.”
Some additional help may come from the new contract and tentative agreement between the Hawaii State Teachers Association and the state, which would raise starting wages for DOE educators from $38,000 to $50,000.
Other plans include addressing workforce housing.
Senate Bill 941 is still alive in the Legislature, and would establish a pilot program for three Oahu schools to develop staff housing.
“Coming out of this legislative session, we’re hoping to get some care around workforce housing and things of that nature that make it more attractive to teach in Hawaii,” Farias said. “I’m hoping these pilot projects will prove that we can enter into private and public partnerships and knock out a bunch of housing for our workforce.”
Farias is confident the DOE will be able to staff the first 11 classrooms.
“Will we staff up for these 11 classrooms in 2023? Yes, we know the numbers are out there,” he said. “We have some leads. The DOE has been very helpful.”
For the construction of the classrooms, the School Facilities Authority has favored renovating existing structures.
“Renovations are proven to be a cheaper way,” Farias said. “It’s already folded into the existing campus with their safety protocols, ADA access, parking, and it’s also in the area where parents already drop off their 6- and 7-year-olds.”
But when renovations are exhausted, building new structures will be a challenge for the School Facilities Authority, which has only three people on staff so far.
“Right now, we’re out to contract with project managers, construction managers, architects and engineers, so we’re using both public and private support to get this done,” Farias said. “Will we continue to be under budget when we look at new classroom builds on new sites or independent pre-K facilities? We’re not certain yet, we’re only in the architect and engineering stages.”
Email Grant Phillips at gphillips@hawaiitribune-herald.com.