Ma'ili students can keep their cool

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward Writer

Ma'ili Elementary School boasts of being one "Cool School," and even hands out bumper stickers saying so. But last Thursday — the first time classes ever had air conditioning — it learned just how cool a school can get.

Noreen Nagamine's first-grade class and the rest of the students at Ma'ili Elementary School are enjoying their newly air-conditioned classrooms. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

It took years and an all-out grassroots lobbying campaign to get the state Legislature to grant the school the $3.6 million to put in the new air-conditioning system.

Previously, students, teachers and staff at this 5.5-acre Wai'anae Coast facility surrounded by farmyards, pig pens and chicken coops had the option of either sweltering in 100-degree classrooms or opening the windows to dust, stink and swarms of vicious black flies.

Not an atmosphere conducive to learning.

Already teachers are noticing unexpected benefits from the air conditioning, Victor said. For one, discipline problems are down. She also expects attendance to go up and learning and test scores to improve because students can concentrate better in the comfortable conditions.

For all the potential benefits at Ma'ili, though, don't expect air conditioning to be installed in the rest of Hawai'i's schools, where cooled classrooms are still the exception rather than the rule.

There are only 15 fully air-conditioned schools in Hawai'i, and three others pending construction, said Greg Knudsen, spokesman for the Department of Education. The majority of the remaining schools have partial air conditioning — such as in school libraries and computer rooms.

Though officials have discussed whether all schools should be air-conditioned, it's a matter of priorities, said Knudsen. And with the state facing a $640 million backlog in repair and maintenance work, air conditioning can only be a priority in extreme cases such as Ma'ili's, where there was not only a heat abatement problem, but odor and health issues as well, he said.

Historically, Island schools have been designed to be open, allowing the tropical breezes to cool the buildings naturally. Today, DOE officials acknowledge that air conditioning is the preferred environment when new schools are built.

But not many existing schools have put air conditioning on their high-priority list, Knudsen said.

"If there was a full-blown discussion on this, I doubt if every school would want to be air conditioned," he said. "There are health considerations, and some people don't like working in an air-conditioned environment.

"If we have a well-designed campus that takes full advantages of trade winds, then it can be a very comfortable environment."

And the cost of retrofitting older schools can be exorbitant, Knudsen said. For example, he said the state is now retrofitting Kamehameha III Elementary School on Maui with a $2 million air-conditioning system that couldn't be installed without an additional $600,000 upgrade to the school's outdated electrical wiring.

While there are other schools in Hawai'i that could use air conditioning, in the end, it is one of numerous factors that need to be taken into consideration when trying to maintain a safe, supportive and comfortable school atmosphere, said Knudsen.

Some of Hawai'i's older schools have a welcome, energetic feel to them without air conditioning, he said. And students there are doing well scholastically.

For Ma'ili, though, the natural, open-air approach didn't work. It remains to be seen what the effects of air conditioning will mean at the school, Knudsen said.

"Of course the reaction is positive," he said. "But we can't conclude after a week that this is going to work miracles and it should be applied to all."

But at the suggestion that air conditioning isn't critical in Hawai'i's heat, Lorraine Gershun can get a little hot under the collar.

"If anybody would like to come over and teach in one these classrooms on a day like it's been lately, they'll find out how high a priority air conditioning can be," said Gershun, a journalism teacher at Wai'anae High School. "I feel sorry for kids trying to learn in stifling classrooms."