Donations pour in to buy fans for Wai'anae schools

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer

A grassroots effort to bring relief to sweltering Wai'anae Coast classrooms this summer has been so successful that organizers say they've raised almost enough money in less than a week to achieve their goal of putting two fans in each of the area's 500 classrooms.

"The fans are up and running and helping to make life a little more comfortable around here," said a delighted Randy Scoville, vice principal at Leihoku Elementary School, which last Friday became the first school to receive donated fans. Twenty were installed that day, and 70 more are expected to be added soon.

"More fans are on the way," said Scoville. "And they are now talking about maybe air-conditioning the portables. That would really be terrific."

The donated fans campaign was inspired in part by Wai'anae High School senior Jesse Johnasen, 17, who gathered thousands of petition signatures asking the state to install air conditioning at his school.

Of the nearly 300 public schools in Hawai'i, fewer than two dozen are fully air-conditioned, according to the state Department of Education. Most of the remaining schools have partial air conditioning, such as in libraries and computer rooms.

Although officials have talked about air-conditioning all schools in the state, DOE spokesman Greg Knudsen has said it's a matter of priorities. With the state facing an enormous repair and maintenance backlog, air conditioning becomes a priority only in extraordinary cases.

Johnasen's efforts moved state Rep. Maile Shimabukuro to see if she could offer immediate relief in the form of classroom wall fans. Since the first installation last week, word about the fan drive has spread like wildfire, said Shimabukuro, D-45th (Wai'anae, Makaha, Makua).

"It's just been amazing," she said. "I would estimate that we've already raised about $15,000. We had one guy donate $10,000.

"I think we're going to meet our goal of putting in a thousand fans. Now we're thinking about possibly putting air conditioners into some of the really hot portables."

That news is music to the ears of folks such as Malia Busby, a teacher at Kaunakakai Elementary School on Moloka'i. Busby says forcing kids to learn in blistering heat is an unfair and unrealistic expectation — especially since the federal No Child Left Behind Act places additional performance demands on them.

She calls hot classrooms a serious problem that needs to be dealt with.

"I don't mean to minimize the efforts and generosity of the people who fought for and donated ... fans for Leihoku Elementary," she said. "But simply pushing hot air around a room that is full of sweaty children just doesn't solve the problem."

Busby says that if people who have jobs in air-conditioned workplaces want to better understand the problem, try turning off the cooler for a day.

But people such as former Ma'ili Elementary principal Linda Victor — who fought for and eventually succeeded in getting air conditioning at her school, where classroom temperatures used to routinely top the 100-degree mark — say that in the absence of air conditioners, oscillating fans are the next best thing.

Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.