“If I had any other job, I don’t think I could do it,” Charan said Tuesday. “I think I would just wilt.”

Charan, co-founder and head of Real Ongoing Opportunities to Soar, or Roots School, returned to the preschool to 8th-grade campus over the summer. Charan had taken a brief leave of absence at the end of May when her 23-year-old brother, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, and another man were stabbed to death while protecting two teenage girls facing an anti-Muslim rant by a man in Portland, Ore.

“We are going to be OK, but it’s a long process,” she said. “It’s been extremely hard in many ways.”

During Charan’s time off, though, the school has received several blessings — from purchasing its campus to receiving its accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Melita Charan

The nonprofit school purchased its property in June after Maui philanthropists Peter Hagedorn and Miriam Trahan donated $285,000 for the down payment through the couple’s Nuestro Futuro Foundation. The school held a grand opening and blessing last month.

“For them to offer this was beyond incredible,” Charan said. “I’ve always said we’re the school of a thousand miracles and it feels like absolutely that.”

Roots School began with six students in a “one room house in the jungle” of Huelo in 2006, Charan said. The school moved six years later to its current property of nearly 20,000 square feet at 740 Haiku Road.

By then, the school had grown to 25 to 30 students but is now “bursting at the seams” with about 60, Charan said. She said purchasing the campus makes it more self-sufficient, but it will need to remodel its 5,000-square-foot, horseshoe-shaped building and look at expansion.

The school has raised close to $400,000 for its capital campaign goal of $700,000, thanks in large part to the down payment.

Eight-year-old students Illy Oliver (from left) and Bella Baskin wait to be picked up alongside Olena Rondeau, 10, on Tuesday afternoon at Roots School in Haiku. -- The Maui News / CHRIS SUGIDONO photo

“We’re going to elevate the environment that the kids are in,” she said. “Right now, it’s really grungy, and we absolutely make due. But within the next five to 10 years, we’re going to need to look for a new property.”

The building that is separated between preschool and kindergarten through 8th grade has not undergone a remodel in several years, Charan said. The building has served as a medical facility for a Japanese internment camp in World War II, a dormitory for pineapple workers and an apartment complex.

It also served as the home for Horizons Academy of Maui for two decades, Charan said. The former landowner’s daughter had special needs, so he got the property zoned for schools, which opened the way for Horizons and later Roots School. She added that some residents still confuse the location as a special needs school.

“This building has had many lives,” she said.

Due to the changes over the years, the building has an eccentric design with several sinks randomly spread across the school and unnaturally narrow hallways. The highlight was a large communal shower room with a single toilet in the middle.

“We have a large classroom with four doors,” she said inside a foreign language class. “Instead, we’d like to have, you know, a wall.”

A large master bathroom that no one uses and other underutilized areas could be added classroom space, Charan said. The floors also need to be fixed along with replacing windows and building a fence around the property for security.

“We don’t have a proper entryway too,” she said. “You come into this classroom, which is completely disruptive. We want a proper entry and office where people have to check-in.”

Charan said if enrollment continues to climb, the school could turn its current property into a giant preschool to kindergarten and open a 1st- to 8th-grade school nearby. She said it will depend on finances.

“At the same time, though, a lot of schools if you grow too quick, you lose the heart of what you’re doing,” she said. “We don’t want to do that at all and have no desire to be bigger, better. It’s actually about honing in on the quality.”

The school, which is primarily made up of Haiku, Paia and Upcountry students, focuses on creating “happy and healthy people,” Charan said. Teachers help students “learn how they learn” and “redefine success” for each one.

“We don’t only give credit (to those) who are traditionally academically intelligent,” she said. “We give a lot of room for kids who are good with their speaking skills or theatrical.”

She said her students excel in speaking and math, and build an internal confidence and security within themselves. Tuition is $8,100 a year.

“We are a private school, but we don’t want to be an elite school,” she said. “We want to be a community school where people can make sacrifices and send their kids here. It’s not just the very wealthy.”

While her school is flourishing, Charan still finds herself paralyzed by her brother’s death. She spoke to her staff and students’ parents before returning to the school where she teaches part time.

“I was nervous to come back and teach because I cry sometimes and sometimes feel like I’m going to faint,” she said. “I was nervous to be with kids and be responsible for kids having that feeling.”

Charan, whose family is from Oregon, plans to fly to Portland to meet with the other victim’s family and the two Muslim girls today.

Ricky Best, 53, of Happy Valley, Ore., was the other stabbing victim. Best, an Army veteran, left behind a wife and four children.

Charan is 15 years older than her half-brother, Namkai-Meche, and helped raise him for the first three years of his life. He was one of nine children.

Shortly before his death, Namkai-Meche graduated from Reed College, bought a home and began working for an environmental corporation in Portland. Charan said her last exchange with him was sharing his vision of living with all his siblings in Portland.

“The house he bought had a giant backyard, so he wanted all of his nieces and nephews to be running around,” she said. “He was really proud of himself and excited about his future.”

Charan uses Facetime to talk with a trauma specialist in Portland to help her cope with her brother’s death. She said she is unsure if she would be able to function without her therapy, and she wondered if the victims of last week’s mass shooting in Las Vegas were receiving the same support.

“I know without support soon after something this traumatic happens, the chances of you being healthy and coming back is scary,” she said. “This is why people go crazy.”

Charan said each act of violence she sees on the news “hits a personal place.”

“The climate of what has happened in the world and our country since his death has been really disturbing,” she said. “I have a 4-year-old, and it makes me nervous for the world that I’ve brought her into.

“We were definitely raised in a way to stand up for what we believe in and to care for other people and show compassion and kindness. All the hate on all sides right now is really hard to swallow.”

Charan said she hopes to teach a class on genetics, race, social justice and the civil rights movement. She said she believes teachers have the ability to promote positive social change.

Charan also has created a scholarship in her brother’s name for middle school students “actively working for peace and justice.”

“I think it’s a scary time in this world, and I hope all of us that can promote positive change do,” she said. “Because it’s needed.”

* Chris Sugidono can be reached at csugidono@mauinews.com.