Ma'ili Elementary gets air conditioning

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward OÎahu Writer

Surrounded by farmyards, chicken coops and hog lots, for years rural Ma'ili Elementary School pupils and teachers were forced to choose between 100-degree classrooms or dust, foul odors and swarms of pesky black flies.

"The problem is when it gets hot in the summer, you have to open the window," explained Gina Ichiyama with the state Department of Accounting and General Services. "And when you open the windows, all the flies and the dust and the odor comes in."

Now, Ichiyama said, the Wai'anae Coast school has something cool to look forward to: air conditioning.

Nearly two years after the Legislature appropriated $3 million to do the job, work has finally begun on installing air conditioning at the school. The project began a week before Christmas and is expected to be completed next July, before the 2002 school year gets under way.

School principal Linda Victor, who previously has said she would "believe it when it happens," is overjoyed.

"Now that they are here working, I know it will happen," she said. "This is a great New Year's present."

The work is being done by KD Construction and involves time-consuming electrical upgrades that must be completed before the school's 39-year-old wiring can accommodate the new air-conditioning system.

"It doesn't involve window units or split air systems," said Victor.

"It's a chilled-water system that I think is being built into all the new schools with air conditioning. I understand it is very reliable."

Before the school shifted to a year-around teaching schedule five years ago, it had the traditional three-month summer vacation break. But Ma'ili Domingo, school clerk and typist, who grew up in the area, said: "It's hot all year around over here."

On any day of the year classroom temperatures could soar to 100 degrees or above, Domingo said.

According to Victor, the Ma'ili Elementary campus has seven buildings in addition to 15 portable classrooms. The air-conditioning system will connect to them all.

Winter break began Dec. 20, and the school's 813 students will return Jan. 14. The school will remain open while the work is in progress. Victor said the construction period will involve a lot of coordination and shuffling for the students.

"We will just move the classes to wherever we have empty rooms so that they can work on a building at a time."

After the project is finished, Victor said, Ma'ili Elementary School will not only be cool, it will have bragging rights. With a special waiver because of the school's unique fly and heat problems, "we'll be the only school in Wai'anae with an air-conditioned cafeteria," she said with a laugh.