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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 12:53 p.m., Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Le Jardin celebrates new construction Thursday

By Bev Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer

Le Jardin Academy in Kailua on the Windward side of O'ahu has completed the first phase of a major long-range construction plan that will ramp up the size and offerings of the school to accomodate almost 1,000 students by 2013 and 1,100 studets by full build-out in 2015.

Current enrollment is 750 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.

When the new fall semester begins Thursday, students, parents and the public may join the celebration to bless a new library and six-classroom building that positions the school to almost double the size of its middle school class in the next year.

Thursday's program is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. and will include performances by Le Jardin students, plus the presentation of $7 million in checks from the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, the Charles B. Wang Foundation, and the school's own trustees.

The new facilities are the first to be completed for the $21.4 million campus expansion that moves into the second phase this week when grading for a $9 million gymnasium is launched.

The second phase will also include an administration building and 12 more classrooms.

To date fund-raising has reached $9 million and headmaster Adrian Allan hopes the goal will be reached in another three years.

The school is also in the process of doubling its acreage to almost 50 acres, as attorneys work with a new donor who is hoping to give the school an additional 20 acres along the Quarry Road.

By the fall of 2008 Allen hopes to have all Le Jardin students on the main campus. Currently the school is also renting space in Kailua for 81 of its youngest students, those in pre kindergarten and junior kindergarten.