“I think better when I’m cool.”

“We all do.”

That brief conversation was initiated by a Campbell High School student, who along with Principal Jon Lee watched as 16 fans were dropped off for the 3,049-student campus Wednesday.

The fans were courtesy of state Rep. Matt LoPresti’s “Cool Schools 4 Ewa” initiative, which seeks donations from businesses for fans and air conditioners for Ewa schools. Launched Wednesday, the program had already obtained a donation of 54 fans — six of them purchased by LoPresti — with money from an anonymous donation and a discount from City Mill in Ewa Beach.

For several years, residents and officials have pushed for air conditioning in the area’s hot classrooms. An online petition that calls for more funding for additional air conditioning at Campbell High has so far generated about 600 supporters.

LoPresti (D, Ewa Villages-Ocean Pointe-Ewa Beach) said hot classrooms are a health and safety issue. Of the 54 donated fans, Campbell High and Ewa Beach and Ewa elementaries received 16 each and Ilima Intermediate got six.

“It’s a crisis. It’s unacceptable,” said LoPresti, who helped deliver the fans Wednesday. “The sky’s the limit. Anything we can get is going to help the kids in some way.”

The program will also assist Holomua and Kaimiloa elementaries.

Lee said the fans would help provide some relief to his students and teachers.

“We definitely appreciate that,” Lee said Wednesday. “We want to make sure that they spread them out. We’re just going to strategically check in with our teachers to see who has the fewest numbers of fans at this time.”

In January, Campbell is expected to receive eight portable buildings that will provide 15 air-conditioned classrooms. The units will be moved from Hawaii island, where they had been used last year during the evacuation of Keonepoko Elementary School due to encroaching lava.

The state Department of Education’s air-conditioning priority list includes four Ewa schools. The first on the list is Ewa Beach Elementary, followed by Ilima Intermediate, Campbell High and Kaimiloa Elementary.

Other schools on the list of eight include Aikahi, Nimitz, Mokulele and Pearl Harbor-Kai elementaries.

DOE estimates that installing air conditioners in all of its schools would cost $1.7 billion, and would increase electricity costs.

LoPresti, an associate professor at Hawaii Pacific University, said state lawmakers have appropriated about $8 million for air conditioning for Ewa Beach schools.

School officials have also been working on other heat-abatement options, including use of solar-powered ventilators, solar lights and ceiling fans. The goal is to reduce classroom temperatures to 76 degrees.

At Ilima Intermediate, Principal Christopher Bonilla said some of the fans would be placed in classrooms that serve special-needs students. “It’s going to be a tremendous help for them dealing with hot air,” he said.

Campbell High sophomore Joey Tavai expressed similar concerns about the heat in her classrooms. “It gets hot,” she said. “It’s kind of hard because we’re trying to focus.”