Soto Academy, a small private school on Oahu, has found a new location at Makiki Christian Church, after months of uncertainty, according to Andrea Deutsch, the president of the school’s Board of Directors.
The roof of the building that Soto Academy occupied on the grounds of the Soto Mission of Hawaii, a Zen Buddhist temple in Nuuanu, started cracking in February. A month later, Eric Kanada, the president of Soto Mission of Hawaii, sent a letter to parents saying that because of the deficient building, the temple could no longer offer a lease for the school premises.
This left the students of Soto Academy in limbo as the school searched for a new location.
“It’s just a really bad situation,” said Deutsch during an interview in March for an article about the school’s issues.
Soto Academy is a small private school for kindergarten to fifth grade, which has been in operation since 1991. The school has about 50 students.
Deutsch said her son, who will enter the second grade in the fall, is autistic. She chose Soto Academy because the school allows her son to have a one-on-one aide, known as a Registered Behavior Technician (or RBT therapist), with him for the first half of the day. She said other students at the school have ADHD or special needs, and Soto Academy is one of the few private schools that will accept them and help them flourish.
Deutsch said many parents were enrolling their students in other schools, as they were unsure of whether Soto Academy would soon cease to exist.
While searching for a new campus, Deutsch said Soto Academy reached out to Makiki Christian Church in April. The church already houses a preschool on its grounds, but it also has an unused two-story building with about seven classrooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs. This building will now provide space for Soto Academy. There are also two playgrounds.
“We only had about a month to find somewhere, otherwise the school would be shut down, because of the lack of location,” said Deutsch. “I think that was a big reason for them lending their hand to help us.”
Soto Academy’s six-week summer school program will start on June 5, 2023, while the school year will run from August 2023 until May 2024.
“This is almost like a pilot program for the first school year,” said Deutsch. “If everything works out … we would be able to stay and put in another offer for a longer-term lease.”
While the same principal and all the same teachers will still work at Soto Academy, she said Soto Academy will consider changing its school name if they stay in their new location after the 2023-2024 school year.
“We're just so happy that we have a location,” said Deutsch. “This was such a huge breakthrough. We've been looking for locations for almost a whole year now.”
Michelle Broder Van Dyke covers the Hawaiian Islands for Spectrum News Hawaii. Email her at michelle.brodervandyke@charter.com.