KUNIA — With the Head Start preschool facility in the center of Waipahu town closed, about 15 students yesterday made the trek to a temporary day-care center at the old Kunia plantation camp about eight miles north of where they attended preschool last Friday.

Head Start officials had been planning for 20 students at the 7 a.m.-to-5 p.m. location at the former Kunia plantation school. Teacher Debbie Palakiko said the families of about three or four students, however, informed her that they would not be making the move with the rest of the class.

"It's out of the way for them to come out all this way," Palakiko said.

In all, 30 students were displaced from the Waipahu Head Start when an entity identifying itself as the board of the Waipahu Community Adult Day Health Care and Youth Day Care Center forced the program to leave as a result of a financial dispute. The remaining 10 students were placed in Head Start programs elsewhere.

Cal Kawamoto, longtime president of the Waipahu center, said the action was necessary because Head Start had not been paying rent, which consisted primarily of common area maintenance fees until lately. Head Start officials, however, said they had placed their rent into an an escrow account pending a resolution of various issues that had arisen.

The dispute began when Kawamoto increased the rent on Head Start and fellow tenant Health for All, a nonprofit that provided senior care at the center. Head Start officials said they began putting money into an escrow account pending litigation over ownership of the building, involving Kawamoto's group and another entity. They also withheld the payment because they had not received written justification for the increases, Head Start officials said.

Kawamoto said utility fees have been increasing, as have the demands made by tenants on CKK Consultants, which is paid to manage the facility. That company, CKK Consultants, is owned by Kawamoto and his daughter.

Head Start officials want to either return the program to its former site or move to a site close to that, said Lynn Cabato, director of Oahu Head Start, a subsidiary of the Hawaii Community Action Program.

"We will continue to pursue legal options with the goal of returning to the Waipahu Adult Day Health Care and Youth Care Center," Cabato said, noting that Head Start is only five years into a 10-year lease agreement for the facility.

In the meantime, she said, "We are also seeking input from the public regarding alternate/potential sites in the Waipahu area."

Kim Kang, a Head Start assistant director, said the nonprofit company has a long-term lease at the Kunia site, which also houses an existing four-hour-a-day Head Start program.

"That's why it was easy for us to move into, since it was already licensed," Kang said.

Nonetheless, Head Start recognizes the burden being put on families and is trying to find another arrangement. "I know the families are dealing with it the best that they can given the current situation," she said.

Waipahu resident Lata Marisilino, 33, said she has informed Head Start that daughter Kanani, 4, will be missing some days of preschool as a result of the relocation. The stay-at-home mother of five, including 14-month-old twins, said it would be difficult, at least on some days, to make the trip to Kunia.

Marisilino said that's not good for Kanani, noting that her two older brothers benefitted from preschool: "They're not as scared, they didn't have the anxiety about starting kindergarten."

Cora Manaea, 23, also a Waipahu resident, said the detour to Kunia to drop off her son, 4-year-old Jay-Kapone, added half an hour to her daily commute yesterday.

Like Marsilino, Manaea said her son's preschool attendance is important to his development.

"He learns a lot — in fact, he surprises us with what he learns," Manaea said. "He's a lot more into reading and he's more active with other kids."

Joseph Miarecki dropped off his son, Aiden, at the Kunia site yesterday. But the trip was out of the way and required a trip through substandard plantation roads filled with potholes and speed bumps.

Miarecki said he hopes the Kunia site is not a permanent location, noting that he is not sure if the government subsidy he gets for child care could transfer to another site.

All Head Start families must meet income requirements to enroll.

Last week, some Head Start officials and parents were hoping to secure permanent relocation at building on the Waipahu United Church of Christ campus next door to its Mokuola Street address.

But yesterday, interim pastor David Hirano said he had made the offer only as an emergency, temporary site if Head Start had nowhere to go after last Friday.

The building, while it did once house a preschool, is 60 years old and scheduled for either renovation or demolition. "The building itself would need a lot of work done to it in order for it be suitable for young children," Hirano said.

Kawamoto, a former state senator, said he has been meeting with other child and adult care providers with operations in West O'ahu about moving into the spaces vacated by Head Start and by Health for All, which was evicted earlier last month.

Among those expressing interest were the Wai'anae Comprehensive Health Center, Seagull School and Kamaaina Kids, Kawamoto said.

The Waipahu center agreed to provide child and elderly care services in exchange for nonprofit and government funding to build the facility in 2003, Kawamoto said, and he intends to keep that commitment.

Kawamoto said an agreement with a new preschool could be signed "hopefully, by this weekend."