Despite recent efforts to cool down Hawaii’s most sweltering classrooms, just one school has gotten the go-ahead to install campus-wide air conditioning since that campaign intensified nearly a year ago.
Hickam Elementary at the Air Force Base is joining 12 other public schools statewide that already have central AC, according to Department of Education data. An additional school — Kihei’s Lokelani Intermediate — is undergoing final construction to install AC, a project that started in 2008.
When those projects are completed, about 5 percent of the state’s regular public schools will have central cooling.
“There needs to be a greater urgency,” said Corey Rosenlee, a grassroots organizer and teacher at Campbell High School, where class sizes often reach 40 students and temperatures can rise to the mid-90s. “We’re baking our children.”
Heat can hinder student learning; research suggests that the optimal classroom temperature is around 72 degrees. AC also helps mitigate other classroom nuisances as well, such as noise, odors and insects, Rosenlee said.
But other than some piecemeal capital improvement allocations, the Legislature hasn’t budged on the classroom cooling front.
Lawmakers on the budget committees declined to set aside the $25 million that both the DOE and Gov. Neil Abercrombie requested in their supplemental budget proposals to help pay for school AC. And a bill that would’ve required the DOE to conduct a survey of schools’ needs and develop a “cooling master strategy” died at the last minute this past session despite garnering strong support from lawmakers.
Despite recent efforts to cool down Hawaii’s most sweltering classrooms, just one school has gotten the go-ahead to install campus-wide air conditioning since that campaign intensified nearly a year ago.
