Situated across Farrington Highway from the old campus, the new $23 million Nanaikapono facilities sit on state land, saving the Department of Education the $500,000 a year it cost to lease the old site from the Department of Hawaiian Homelands.

For the kids, the new location means no more distractions from the beach or highway, air-conditioned classrooms and brand-new desks, chairs and computers. For a community used to collecting cast-offs, the bright new building is a big morale booster.

"We've never had any new things. It was always old things," said Joyce Kaneshiro, a first-grade teacher who has been with Nanaikapono for 17 years. "We were always getting hand-me-downs from other schools, and finally we get our very own brand-new things."

Nanaikapono is the first new school along the Wai'anae Coast since Kamaile Elementary opened in 1989.

Principal Myron Brumaghim said he has heard only positive feedback from visitors to the new campus.

"They're pretty happy with what they see," he said. "They say it's nice, and they say it's about time."

Brumaghim and his staff were busy during the month-and-a-half summer recess. Rather than take vacations, they carried school property to the new campus.

"It was tough. We had to move all the teachers' things, equipment and furniture," said Brumaghim, who has yet to unpack all his boxes.

Librarian Derek Nakamura won't have the library ready for another week. The break wasn't long enough to reshelve the 15,000 library materials, and the library added 15 new Dell computers.

How does this library stack up to the old one?

"You can't compare it," Nakamura said. "We don't have any water leaks or anything, and it smells fresh and clean."

The second-grade teachers were full of enthusiasm as they completed an all-day staff meeting and put the finishing touches on classrooms ready to welcome their students.

The new classrooms are a big change from the old ones, where the desks were dirty, the chairs were falling apart and some audio-visual equipment didn't even work, said teacher Kalei Ponce.

"There's a lot of kids trying to transfer into this school," she said.

Second-grade teacher Marilou Bulagay said the new campus helps students get enthusiastic about learning.

"The kids are excited to come back," she said, adding that they've been ready for months to be on the new campus — since it was dedicated in February. "The kids kept asking when we were going to move."

Her colleague Denise Sakaue-Arakaki expects students will have fewer health problems in the enclosed, air-conditioned buildings. At the old school, "It was hot, it was dirty and dusty, and the bathrooms were far away," she said.

Air conditioning also makes teachers happier to be at school. Ponce said that as she set up her classroom during the summer, she often found herself reluctant to leave for home.

Kari Robles, a mom who attended Nanaikapono, likes the new facilities, but worries that she can no longer drop off her daughter at school, because it means making a left turn on busy Farrington Highway during morning rush hour.

Another mother, Amy Burgess, said she likes the new location because her daughters no longer will have to cross Farrington Highway to get to school. Although they live within walking distance, Burgess said she often drove the girls. "The other way, I felt like I was playing Russian roulette," she said.

Her daughter, Amanda Walsworth, who is entering fourth grade, both celebrated and grumbled as she ran down the list of classmates, but she was thrilled with the new campus.

"It's good," she said. "It has brand-new stuff and it has places where you can sit — lots and lots of benches."

Amanda was even more enthusiastic when she realized school was only one good night's sleep away.

"Yea!" she cheered, jumping up and down.