A charter school on Hawaiʻi Island is expanding its footprint. It’s not your typical charter school — in fact, clowning around is encouraged at its Puna district campus.
The charter school operates at the Seaview Performing Arts Center for Education, or SPACE.
Expansion efforts in the past have raised eyebrows. In 2014, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources fined Hawaii's Volcano Circus close to $50,000 for “unauthorized land clearing, construction of housing structures and removal of ohia timber” on state lands.
Hawaii’s Volcano Circus Executive Director Morgan Langham said the founder of the circus and its then-director is no longer involved in the organization. This time, planned expansion is taking place with community input and county approval.
"Since then, our neighborhood has changed, and our largest supporters are now our closest neighbors. So the people that lived there 20 years ago and didn't want to have a community center and didn't want to have a school there, they no longer live in those homes that are directly affected by our facility," she said.
Langham said the school has also worked closely with its neighbors and the planning department to implement parking and traffic management on site. Events have a 9 p.m. curfew and a 50-vehicle parking capacity.
She also spoke with The Conversation about what the unconventional school has in mind. She said that SPACE wants to develop a teacher resource room to store computers, textbooks and more.
“We have around 55 kids that go to our school. Many of them unicycle, walk, and bicycle to school,” Langham said.
“We’re located right inside of a neighborhood, Kalapana Sea View Estates, and without our school, parents would have to drive around two hours in the car to and from school because we don't have a bus system that takes them to the main campus, to the nearest school. ... We're the only school that's located below the Lower East Rift Zone.”
The school's blended curriculum includes at-home instruction for subjects like math and English, and in-class instruction at SPACE for electives like hula, Hawaiian studies, gardening, and circus arts.
“Circus arts is really amazing,” Langham said. “It has profound effects on youth and adults through empowerment and building bonds and trust."
"There is a place for everyone in the circus. It's not just theater. In a circus, you have musicians, you have performers. People have to feed the circus. You have farmers and gardeners. A circus is really an entire family."
This story aired on The Conversation on Sept. 23, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
