The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1921-12-13
Children Tramp
Many Long Miles
To Attend School
Transportation of Pupils Is a
Knotty Subject for Board
Of Supervisors to Unsnarl.

Questions connected with the ex-
penditure of the appropriation for the
transportation of school children liv-
ing at remote distances from schools
are expected to be considered by the
board of supervisors next Thursday
when the board meets again to take
up the 1922 county budget. There
was some discussion on the subject
late in the meeting of Friday after
noon and the general subject was re-
ferred to the county engineer and
county attorney to report and to pre-
pare tenders for bids for such trans
portation where it may be determined
upon.
There appears to be a difference of
opinion between the representatives
of the departmnt of public instruction
and some of the supervisors as to
where the money available can be
most advantageously and properly
spent. Supervising principal has pre-
pared a proposal which was handed
to Supervisor Fleming by School
Commissioner Lindsay at the Novem-
Der meeting of the supervisors but
was not presented to the board and
is not officially before that body yet
That proposal provides for transpor-
tation of a considerable number of
school children on Molokai in two
school districts such children having
passed beyond the grades taught in
the schools of the districts in which
they reside. They would be taken
to the nearest school that has the
higher grades.
Tramp Ten Miles
On the other hand there are points
on Maui where there are no schools
provided for distance of five or six
miles from the homes of groups of
children. This is notably so at Homo
kOhau, where the school was aband-
oned. In that district there are a
dozen children who have to walk
from to 6 miles each way to and
from Honokohua school, 10 or IL
miles a. day walking to school. Such
children have to rise very early and
do not get home until very late in
the afternoon, one mother saying her
children are IL hours going to and
from and in attendance at school.
There is a smaller number of chill
dren beyond Kailua who have similar
ly long distances to walk to the near
est school. On the other hand the
largest number of pupils appears to
be provided for in Supervising Prin-
cipal Murphy's plan. Against that is
offered the argument that the chill
dren to be transported on Molokai
are older, have had some education
and the Honokohau children have no
school to give even the first rudi-
ments of an education.
Plan Just Starting
The last legislature provided a
$4,000 appropriation for the two years
commencing January l, next for trans
porting Maui children to school, the
board of supervisors to decide where
the money should be spent. The ap-
preparation is not large enough to be
applied to all or even to many sec
tions and the problems of the board
OF supervisors are made more COM
plicated. AS a matter of fact it was
designed that the appropriation be
merely start toward such transpor.
tation of school children to work into
a broader plan later.
Superintendent of Public Instruc.
tion Vaughan MacCaughey says Ho.
nokohau is merely an example of a
school district where the school popu
lation has dwindled so that no school
can be provided for so limited a mum.
ber and there are numerous other
districts, some on Maui and some in
Kona where schools will have to be
abandoned until "a Japanese popu
lation comes in and reaches suffici
ent numbers to demand the reestab
| lishment of schools in such districts ;
/ He said the younger Hawaiians drift
ed away from outlying districts into
towns leaving only old folk and a few
little children. Ultimately a Japanese
population settles up such rural dis
tricts.
Mr.. MacCaughey said the law only
allows one teacher for each 35 pupils
so that it would be impossible to add
another teacher to the Moloka
school mentioned by Mr.. Murphy in
his plan and thus teach pupils who
progress into the fourth grade and
beyond in the school nearest to thelI
home. He says there are numbers OF
rural schools on Maui where the at
| tendance is less than 35 but when II
| begins to approach such a number the
department tries to supply a school,
in sections where the population is on
the increase.
Report on Suoar Markat