Suit aims to ease crowding at Campbell

Republican state Rep. Bob McDermott has gone to court to try to force the state to provide funding to improve what he describes as “intolerable” overcrowded conditions at Campbell High School or else immediately select a site and begin construction on a new East Kapolei high school.

McDermott, who represents the area and has two children who attend Campbell, filed a class-action lawsuit that also demands that the state repair “dilapidated and inadequate toilet facilities” at the school and install air conditioning in every classroom at Campbell.

Earlier this year McDermott cursed at one of his fellow Republicans during heated debate on the House floor over the same issue. McDermott argued the student population of more than 3,100 at Campbell High is unacceptably high, and criticized state plans to build a new Maui high school before coping with the overcrowding at Campbell.

A response by the state Attorney General’s Office on behalf of the state Department of Education contends McDermott and his allies “simply have no legal basis to demand that the state provide with the school facilities and overall educational experience they deem acceptable.”

The state has asked that the case be dismissed, and that request is scheduled for a hearing Wednesday before Circuit Judge Edwin C. Nacino.

McDermott said in an interview that he wants Gov. David Ige to spell out exactly when his administration will address overcrowding and other problems at Campbell.

McDermott contends in his lawsuit that the Campbell cafeteria was designed to accommodate 890 students, but there is only one lunch period when the entire student body is expected to eat. Most students now eat outside or in hallways, or skip lunch altogether, according to the suit.

The lawsuit also alleges the bathrooms at the school were designed for 1,400 students, and an “inadequate number” of portable toilets have been added to serve the larger student body. Those toilets are “woefully lacking to meet current health and safety standards for all of the Campbell HS students,” according to the suit.

The lawsuit also claims that classrooms at the school heat up to more than 90 degrees during a “good portion” of the school year. That has created “an oppressive and intolerable learning environment,” and state plans for heat abatement in the classrooms are “woefully inadequate” because they do not include air conditioning for each classroom, according to the suit.

Donalyn Dela Cruz, director of communications for the DOE, declined to comment on the lawsuit but said Campbell High was built in 1961 to accommodate 1,800 students.

“Over time, the growth in the Ewa Plain has surpassed original school capacity plans,” Dela Cruz said in a written statement. Current student enrollment is 3,125.

According to a report to McDermott by the state Legislative Reference Bureau, 44 portable classrooms were added at the campus over the years, and those portables have a capacity of somewhere between 2,022 and 2,675 students. Campbell enrollment is expected to climb to more than 3,600 by 2018, according to the report.

Dela Cruz said the department this year requested $35 million for a cluster of new buildings for the campus to accommodate the growing student population, but the state Legislature appropriated only $12 million. She said the early stages of that expansion are underway and that the project will add 27 classrooms.

The department is requesting another $28 million in 2017 to complete the project, she said.

According to the filing by the attorney general, “Plaintiffs have no fundamental due process right, either under the Hawaii Constitution or the federal Constitution, to demand the particular type of school facilities and services — e.g., permanent additional cafeteria and toilet facilities, cooler and quieter classrooms, increased extracurricular opportunities, etc. — that they deem desirable.”