Lahaina schools to reopen to students in October

Lahainaluna High, Lahaina Intermediate and Princess Nahi­enaena Elementary schools in Lahaina will reopen to students in a phased plan after the October fall break now that their soil, water and air have been deemed safe, and monitoring will continue, state and federal officials have announced.

In addition, students, faculty and staff from King Kamehameha III Elementary School, which was damaged beyond repair in the wildfire, will be accommodated for now at the Princess Nahienaena Elementary campus while a longer-term temporary school is built for $5.36 million in the Pulelehua development near Kapalua Airport, officials announced.

While some Lahaina residents continue to express worry over whether campuses close to the burn zone could be exposed to toxic substances, the school reopenings announced Tuesday at a news conference at Kahului Airport were framed by officials as crucial steps toward recovery, backed with scientific monitoring.

“We see the importance of having keiki return to school, if it’s parents’ preference to return to the school that they’re most familiar with,” state Health Director Dr. Kenneth Fink said at the news conference. “It’s for their well-being to get back into their routine and familiarity and have that sense of normalcy, but only if it’s safe to return. So through extensive testing that has been described have we determined that it is safe to actually proceed at this time.”

Gov. Josh Green, who also spoke at the news conference along with several state and federal officials, added that “central to our healing is to have education for our keiki. It is time to get our students back in school, to provide our students and families a return to a sense of at least interim normalcy.”

Under the state Department of Education’s phased reopening plan:

>> Lahainaluna High School: Oct. 5 will be students’ last day of school at their temporary “school within a school” at Kulanihakoi High School in Kihei. On Oct. 6, faculty and staff will report to the Lahainaluna campus for a workday, with no students. After the Oct. 9-13 fall break, Lahainaluna boarding students will move in on Oct. 15, then all students will resume classes on their home campus beginning Oct. 16.

The return will coincide with Lahainaluna’s Homecoming Week. The first Lunas football home game, against Baldwin High School, is scheduled for Oct. 21.

>> Lahaina Intermediate School: Faculty and staff will report to the Lahaina Intermediate campus starting Oct. 6. Lahaina Intermediate students will report to that campus beginning Oct. 17.

>> King Kamehameha III Elementary and Princess Nahienaena Elementary schools: Faculty and staff for both schools will report to the Princess Nahienaena Elementary campus starting Oct. 6. Students for both schools will also attend classes on that campus beginning Oct. 18.

Having two schools’ worth of students on the Princess Nahienaena Elementary campus “is designed to be a short-term solution,” state schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi said. Classes will be accommodated in “high-quality tents that are equipped with power and air conditioning, (and) a wood floor,” creating a “comfortable teaching and learning environment,” he said.

The DOE has purchased 10 tents at a cost of about $314,000 apiece, DOE Communications Director Nanea Kalani said. Two tents have been installed at Maui Waena Intermediate in Kahului to help in part with increased enrollment of displaced Lahaina students. The remaining tents are for the Princess Nahienaena Elementary campus. The state has fronted the funds and will seek FEMA reimbursement, at an expected rate between 80% and 100%, Kalani said.

Environmental testing

To determine the safety of the Lahainaluna High, Lahaina Intermediate and Princess Nahienaena Elementary school campuses, “we have done extensive environmental testing in the weeks since the fires, taking a close look at air quality, drinking water quality, and whether or not the grounds and soil at the three schools are safe for students and employees,” Hayashi said.

“We have worked very hard with experts in these different areas using specialized contractors, and county, state and federal resources, to handle the testing and review and confirm the results, which are all posted on our website,” Hayashi continued.

The DOE’s progress report can be viewed at 808ne.ws/3Zw0dOG.

Professional cleaning of all interior spaces is complete at Lahaina Intermediate and Princess Nahienaena Elementary schools and is underway at Lahainaluna High, and professional cleaning of exteriors is being scheduled for all three schools, the DOE said.

External air quality sensors have been installed at the three campuses and makai of the Lahaina bypass road, Fink said. “Since those were set up weeks ago, they’ve consistently shown that the air quality is ‘green’ (on the safety scale, meaning) air quality is good, and again indicating that it’s safe to return to the campuses,” he said. The air quality monitors are meant to make data available to public in real time at fire.airnow.gov.

Soil testing to look for heavy metals and dioxins at the three schools was conducted by an independent firm, the DOE said, and results have been reviewed in consultation with the state Department of Health.

Because there was no visible ash, the Health Department had not recommended soil testing, but the DOE sought soil testing “out of an abundance of caution,” Fink said.

He called the results “extremely reassuring. For the testing at Nahienaena and Lahaina Intermediate, the soil results were all within standards and are clearly safe. For Lahainaluna High School there was an isolated finding in half the samples of a slightly elevated nickel level. And this is not uncommon in volcanic soil, and it’s well below the EPA threshold. So we are confident that all those soil samples are safe for folks to return into these areas.”

For water quality, “we use multiple lines of evidence to make the determination that the drinking water is safe,” Fink said. “And that has occurred by sampling from the treatment plant from above the high school, and how that provides water to all three campuses. There has been no destruction or fire damage to any of the properties in that distribution area. There’s no recorded loss of water pressure, and multiple rounds of water testing have demonstrated the absence of any fire-­related contaminants. So we’re confident that the water is safe for drinking water.”

Water testing data for the three schools from Maui County’s Department of Water Supply indicated “non-­detect” for “all volatile compounds,” and additional air quality monitors are being installed on each of the campuses this week, the DOE said.

What would happen if safety conditions change at the three Lahaina campuses is not yet clear. The DOE progress report indicates that the department is “in progress” on developing a handbook on “Procedures for Health and Safety: Occupational Safety,” and revising evacuation procedures.

Hawaii State Teachers Association President Osa Tui Jr. said in a separate interview Tuesday that some teachers continue to express concerns over the safety of returning to the Lahaina campuses. “But for the most part, teachers want to be back. They want to be back with their students in Lahaina — they want Lahaina as strong as it was before the fire,” he said. “They just want to be there for their students, back in Lahaina, where they can feel a sense of community.”

He said the union wants to see continued safety monitoring, as well as additional staff on the Lahaina campuses to help students and staff who need extra emotional support.

Kamehameha site

Meanwhile, Col. Jesse T. Curry, recovery field office commander for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said at the news conference that the planned temporary school site for King Kamehameha III Elementary would take around 95 days to build.

However, a DOE website update on Tuesday said, “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is handling the construction of the project and estimates it could take anywhere from 95 days to six months to complete.”

The temporary replacement school for King Kamehameha III Elementary will be at Pulelehua, a mixed-use development project being built below Kapalua Airport in Honokowai. The DOE said the 10.2-acre site is “centrally located” for communities within the attendance boundaries for King Kamehameha III, which include Kaanapali, Kahana, Honokowai, Napili and Kapalua, and should be able to accommodate King Kamehameha III Elementary’s original capacity of 600 students.

FEMA will provide funding upfront, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be “responsible for all site work, including roads, utilities, connection to water and wastewater, and construction of all structures,” the DOE said.

“This temporary site will be used until a permanent school is built. We are appreciative to the master developer, Mr. Paul Cheng, as well as to FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which will be building the temporary school,” Hayashi said. He also thanked Green, Hawaii’s congressional delegation and state Board of Education Chair Warren Haruki for support for the plan.

Green defended the plan in response to a reporter’s questions during the news conference about how the developer might benefit. “I don’t have any concerns, because this is a temporary school, for one thing. It’s a very upstanding gentleman. And you know, we’re putting students first,” Green said.

“A lot of developments wouldn’t want actually to put a school necessarily right there in such short order, with this amount of work that’s going on to recovery. So honestly, I think we just really are trying to do anything we possibly can” to help students, Green continued.

Asked how long it will take for a permanent school to be built, Hayashi said community input must be gathered first and then funding sought, so “it would be premature at this point to specify the exact number of years.”

98% of students located

Of the 3,001 students who were pre-registered for Lahaina public schools before the wildfire, 98% have now been in “active contact” with the DOE, according to a progress report page on the DOE’s website.

As of Tuesday, 49 students were designated as “active contact not yet achieved,” including families DOE personnel have left a phone message for that has not yet been returned.

Meanwhile, 672 Lahaina­luna High students were attending school at Kulani­hakoi High, 899 Lahaina-­area students had transferred to other Hawaii public schools, and 762 students had applied for distance learning, according to the progress report.

In addition, 76 had withdrawn before Aug. 8, 86 had transferred to a private school, 150 had transferred to a public charter school and 307 were listed as “any other active contact with HIDOE.”

The DOE is encouraging families of children who are enrolled in any of the three opening Lahaina public schools to fill out an online form by Oct. 8 indicating what they plan to do when campuses reopen. The form can be found at surveymonkey.com/r/LahainaSchools.