A planned floor-to-ceiling renovation of Farrington High School, expected to cost upwards of $40 million, could pave the way for addressing inadequate facilities at dozens of aging schools statewide and prepare them to meet the needs of 21st century education.

The state is finalizing a contract with a San Francisco-based firm to kick off a pilot project at Farrington that will determine not only what large repairs need to be made at the school, but how today's expectations for education can be incorporated into a campus built five years before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"There's all kinds of things we need to take a broad look at, rather than, how many classrooms are you short?" said Duane Kashiwai, state Department of Education public works administrator.

Once completed, perhaps in as little as five years, the project could transform Farrington — one of the oldest and largest public high schools in the Islands — into a state-of-the-art campus designed to meet new educational concepts, including vocational or subject-based academies, and technology needs. The price for that transformation has been estimated at between $40 million and $100 million.

A new school would cost just over $100 million.

Kashiwai said if the Farrington project works, other aging schools would follow.

The plan represents a new approach to improving school facilities and addressing a statewide backlog of repairs and maintenance that at one point neared $1 billion and has left students and staff in sometimes deplorable conditions while they wait for fixes that often take years.

There are sure to be financial constraints to the new plans, though.

The pilot comes as the state is zeroing in on those years of neglected repairs at schools statewide. In the 1990s the backlog at schools reached nearly $1 billion. The total is now around $500 million, thanks to an aggressive campaign of repairs.

But the new program would add tens of millions of dollars to annual DOE budgets for decades to come — at a time when lawmakers are warning of increased fiscal demands and dwindling revenues.

At Farrington High School alone, there are more than 80 backlogged repair projects, totaling more than $34 million. Those projects include $12 million for work on the athletic complex and to demolish a pool that was shut down years ago, and $10 million to air-condition the school, where many teachers wear microphones to talk to their students over the drone of the nearby H-1 Freeway.

But DOE officials say that when the pilot project is completed, the school will no longer require millions of dollars in repairs.

"We're not putting money to stuff that's old. We're solving the problem for good," said Ronn Nozoe, the Farrington-Kaiser complex area superintendent. "It's almost like being able to create the school from the bottom up, while the school is still in operation."

OLD PROBLEM, NEW EYES

The planning and design firm hired to oversee a master plan for revamping Farrington — called MK Think — has worked on similar projects at Mainland high schools and colleges. The total budget for the contract is $350,000.

Kashiwai said an outside consultant — as opposed to an in-house planner — was brought in so an old problem could get a fresh look. "It's a set of outside eyes," he said. "It gives us a different perspective."

The MK Think analysis of Farrington and its needs is expected to take a few months. Once it is complete, officials will start tallying up how much the renovation project will cost.

Kashiwai said it is too soon to say where the money for the project will come from, and whether funding for other projects — including repairs on tap — will get siphoned off to the Farrington renovation. He said the plans will be taken to the Board of Education for review sometime this year.

Officials say Farrington was chosen for the pilot because of its many problems. Not only are its facilities crumbling, but its infrastructure is inadequate.

Farrington Principal Catherine Payne said the school is unable to install new computer labs because it doesn't have enough power from the street, and it cannot plug in thousands of dollars worth of new equipment in shop classes for fear of blowing out a fuse.

She said teachers and students can't be expected to move into the future when their campus is stuck in the past.

"The school itself is not able, with the electricity and just the way it's structured, to do the kinds of things we want to do," Payne said.

While the pilot project is under way, the school will also be looking at how it can improve after consistently falling short of federal No Child Left Behind requirements.

MANY CHALLENGES

Though Farrington has projects that incorporate everything from robotics and Hawaiian studies into classrooms, the school of 2,500 students is better known for its problems.

Many of its students live in poverty, or close to it. And about 500 have limited English proficiency.

Payne said the pilot project gives Farrington an opportunity to reach out to parents, alumni, and others for support, advice and even donations to pay for some of the planned improvements. The school will hold a meeting for parents on the pilot project March 10, and will invite the community, alumni and city and state representatives to a presentation April 28.

She said Farrington has enjoyed strong community support in the past. The school's auditorium, for example, was renovated with federal grants and private funds from New Hope Christian Fellowship, which holds weekend services at the school.

State Rep. Joey Manahan, whose district includes Farrington, said the community could become a driving force in renovating the school, especially after seeing funding requests for the campus fall through in past years. The DOE has been trying for more than 10 years to get money to repair or demolish the dilapidated pool at Farrington, he said.

Manahan asked for the money again this year.

He added that he supports the DOE taking a broad approach to renovating schools, rather than a "Band-Aid approach," and said he is interested in seeing how the pilot project progresses.

He also wants to see the historic aspects of Farrington retained, especially since its oldest buildings are on the state Historic Register.

Payne said that while classrooms and offices would be renovated as part of the pilot project, the exterior of older buildings would remain largely the same.

"It's important," Payne added, "for us to still look like Farrington."

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.