Starting in the summer of 2020, the Midkiff learning center will close its doors to students and begin renovations of the facility. The plans of renovating Midkiff has been on the drawing board for several years and is currently nearing the final stages of planning.

The planning and design process of the Midkiff renovation project has received input from students, faculty, and staff. Ranging from listening to student design projects to arranging meetings with Midkiff staff, the Director of Operations at the Kamehameha Schools Kapālama campus, Allison Leary, said in a statement “All of this input, along with a detailed assessment of the building’s infrastructure have helped to shape the scope of the design for Midkiff’s future.”

When asked about the goal of the renovation, Leary said “Our goals for Midkiff include creating world-class, 21st-century learning space where Hawaiian culture-based education thrives.  The space should embody the Hawaiian and Christian values on which our school was founded.  We want to provide a variety of learning spaces that support project-based learning, student collaboration, and individual study.  And, importantly, we want to provide a space that supports building student pilina and community, including social space for students”.

The project is expected to take a year with the construction starting in Summer 2020 and finishing in the fall of 2021. During the 2020-2021 school year, classes and materials inside of Midkiff will be moved into temporary portable spaces on Konia Field. There currently is no information as to what will happen to activities occurring on Konia Field such as Ho’olaulea. However, past projects undertaken by the school has shown that this project may encounter delays along the way to completion. The construction of the middle school campus was promised to have taken a year, but ended up taking 2 years.

The renovation will bring technological changes such as more electrical outlets, smart glass that is electronically tinted, recording booths, digital display signs, smart scanners that will automatically scan ID’s as students walk past the scanners near the doors, and more. The idea behind the technological changes is to turn Midkiff “into a 21st-century learning environment”

For the remainder of the school year, the plan for the project will have a few more scheduled sessions with library staff for their input, the process of obtaining design permits for construction, building permits, and planning for the temporary portable spaces will begin.