The Assets Story & Brief History

Assets School was originally established in 1955 to serve military families looking for a school that focused on specialized education. In 1969, under the guidance of Max Templeman, Assets began its endeavor to educate the students of Hawaii as a private school on the Pearl Harbor Naval Base for just 24 students, kindergarten to 6th grade. The school’s purpose was later defined to provide remedial services for the dyslexic student and accelerated instruction for the gifted student under the guidance of Barrett McCandless in the 1970s. To meet the needs of the community, Assets expanded its program to include a 7th and 8th grade class in 1978 and a high school a little over a decade later.

Originally housed in 13 classrooms, Assets outgrew its campus and moved from Pearl Harbor Naval Base to its current location near the Honolulu International Airport in 1992. Today, Assets School has two campuses, one near the airport and one at the site of former Academy of the Pacific (AOP), thanks to a merger agreement that was finalized in 2014.  Assets is the surviving entity of the merger and will uphold the AOP legacy by continuing to provide educational opportunities and services to Hawaii students in need of a non-traditional educational environment. Both AOP and Assets have a long history of serving students who have not been well served in other school settings, through alternative, individual approaches to education. Assets School reaches out to provide unique educational services to more than 350 gifted, dyslexic and gifted-dyslexic students in Hawaii.

Always evolving and adapting to the changing needs of the community, Assets began a new undertaking. In 1999, Assets Teacher Training and Outreach Program was established to ensure that thousands of children, not just Assets School students, benefited from better-informed teachers, parents and other professionals. A true success, Assets Outreach Program has serviced individuals locally, nationally and internationally.

A leader in education, Assets has garnered a reputation of innovative teaching practices and proven student success. Educators from schools around the world visit Assets to study our teaching methods in order to better serve their students.

Assets School provides students with the knowledge, skills and capabilities to live rich and meaningful lives, advance in their chosen career and improve the communities in which they live and work. Assets strives to make a difference in education by providing learning that transforms lives.

	Assets School will celebrate its 60th anniversary on November 2, 2015,  marking “sixty years of learning that transforms lives.”  Assets’ vision is to create a community in which all children thrive and realize their own potential, so that society benefits from their unique talents and abilities.  Through the years, Assets has been through numerous changes. Please take a moment to enjoy this photo history of Assets.
	Assets School was established in 1955 at the request of military families who needed specialized educational services.
	Housed in a Quonset hut during its first year of operation, Assets was subsequently given 17,000 square feet of space on the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor where it operated for 37 years.
	Assets School was nurtured in Building 286 at Pearl Harbor for 37 years.
	Assets offered Night Classes for adults with dyslexia. In 1978, grades 7 and 8 were added.
	In September of 1990, a lease for 2.4 acres of federal land outside the confines of the military base gate was signed.  In April of 1991, a Capital Campaign was begun to relocate Assets into modular structures on the new campus.  In 1991, Assets High School became a reality when grades 9-12 were added.
	On March 30, 1992, Assets moved into its current facilities, including an additional 1.8 acres of adjoining land leased from the U.S. Navy which was used for playing fields.
	The first Assets High School graduation was held in the Summer of 1993.
	In the Spring of 1994, military volunteers, members of the community and Assets faculty joined together to build the wooden playground, “Ala Anuenue,” which students affectionately call, “The Structure.”
	In 1999 the Janaki Foundation donated funds for a campus expansion, including special purpose classrooms such as labs, kitchen facilities and 25% more instructional space.
	In January 2014, Assets School purchased from the U.S. Navy the 3.5 acre parcel of land that it had occupied for the last 21 years.The new campus will be built on the existing site. Construction of the new campus will be begin in the near future.
	In the summer of 2014, AOP graciously finalized a merger agreement with Assets School. Assets is the surviving entity of the merger and will uphold the AOP legacy by continuing to provide educational opportunities and services to Hawaii students in need of a non-traditional educational environment. Both AOP and Assets have a long history of serving students who have not been well served in other school settings, through alternative, individual approaches to education. For more than 53 years, AOP served the community as the small school with big impact, proudly providing a nurturing, personalized educational experience to address each of their students’ unique needs and abilities that were typically unmet in conventional classrooms. In June 2015, Assets High School opened for summer school on the former Academy of the Pacific campus in Alewa Heights.