Posted on: Friday, May 3, 2002

JROTC will parade, then fade off campus

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

There will be one last parade for Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets Thursday at Kapalama Heights, as Kamehameha Schools prepares to shut down its JROTC program for good.

The schools notified the state Department of Labor Wednesday that they will "separate" six people from employment with the schools in connection with the closing of the program.

Schools spokesman Kekoa Paulsen said no decision had been made on what will replace JROTC classes in the curriculum, but added that the schools hope to provide classes involving similar character building, leadership and discipline but not on the military model.

Paulsen said the six employees in the program are eligible to seek other positions for which they may be qualified at Kamehameha.

In a letter to state Department of Labor director Leonard Agor, the schools said Wednesday they will discontinue the JROTC program June 30.

The decision was made as part of an effort to protect the private schools' Hawaiian-preference admissions policy from legal challenge.

It is the latest federally supported program to be relinquished by the schools' trustees to avoid challenges to their requirement that school applicants have Hawaiian blood.

Paulsen said the decision was "made after extensive deliberation, in alignment with the trustees' policy to uphold and protect ... the trustees' admission policy."

Schools chief Hamilton McCubbin announced the JROTC decision at a campus meeting in January after trustees explored a last-ditch effort to save the program by paying for it entirely with the schools' own money.

ROTC stands for Reserve Officer Training Corps at the college level. The junior program operates at the high school level.

Paulsen said the schools had "explored other options," including a National Defense Cadet Corps, but found it would have "the same exposure to potential liability."

Paulsen said the closing of the JROTC program is a continuation of the trustees' decision "to move away from federally subsidized programs at Kamehameha Schools. ROTC was one of the last to be addressed."

Trustees have already given up federal money for lunch programs, scholarships, college counseling sessions, and a drug awareness and education program. The schools had been receiving between $2.2 million and $2.5 million a year from federal sources, Paulsen said. Many of the programs will continue without the federal dollars, he said.

The JROTC program started at Kamehameha Schools in 1916. This year, it has 450 cadets and six instructors and is mandatory for boys in the ninth and 10th grades.