The Department of Education is trying to expedite the purchase of as many as 1,000 portable air conditioners in hopes of bringing temperatures to tolerable levels in the hottest public school classrooms.

“We’re trying to find ways that we can make it more comfortable in addressing the situation that is obviously urgent and just record-breaking this year,” Brent Suyama, communications specialist for the department, said Wednesday. “These are temporary fixes. They are not permanent measures.”

The department posted a notice Friday seeking an exemption from procurement rules to buy up to 1,000 units that have a capacity of more than 10,000 BTUs at a cost of up to $500,000. Suyama said the actual number of air conditioners bought will depend on availability and electrical capacity of campuses.

The money will come from heat-abatement funds already allocated to the department, he said.

The public school system recently bought 145 portable units from Lowe’s via the Western State Contracting Alliance price list, exhausting all available stock in Hawaii and on the West Coast, according to the posted notice. Due to the urgent need, the request seeks approval to buy up to 1,000 additional air conditioners from any available vendor provided the price is reasonable.

Some of the 145 new units already in the pipeline will go to Campbell High, Ilima Intermediate and Kaimiloa Elementary, schools in Ewa Beach that are high on the priority list for air conditioning, Suyama said.

Ewa Beach Elementary is currently at the top of that list, but that campus is undergoing an electrical upgrade that is needed before air conditioning can be installed.

Most of Hawaii’s public schools are at least 50 years old, and the explosion in use of technology has ramped up the need for electricity, even without the heavy load posed by air conditioners.

“We are going through our priority lists,” Suyama said. “One challenge we have is electrical capacity. Even when we started to install some of these (portable air conditioners), it was too much for the electric load and so you would see the circuit trip.”

Shayne Greenland, vice principal at Campbell, is looking forward to trying out the portable ACs once they arrive on the campus, which has 3,100 students.

“We hope that they work,” Greenland said. “We definitely need some type of cold air in the classroom. It’s been extremely hot. We have a couple of community groups trying to get as many fans as we can to just even try to move some air. In some of our rooms it’s unbearable. It gets up to high 90s and low 100s.”

Greenland added: “Our students do a fabulous job to try and deal with it, and our teachers do a fabulous job, and I know the DOE is doing the best they can. When you have really no money and you’re trying to take care of all schools, your hands are tied a little bit.”

People who would like to contribute to the “Be Cool 4 Campbell Fan Drive” can drop off new or gently used fans in the O Building parking lot on Saturday between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.

The DOE is fast-tracking air-conditioning projects that have been funded, with 17 on Oahu this year, including retrofitting buildings. It also has 35 projects this year to upgrade electrical infrastructure.

The school system is also trying other approaches such as solar-powered ventilators that help pull hot air out of classrooms, as well as ceiling fans, better insulation and reflective roof coating.

One of the newest options is using the sun to generate electricity to cool classrooms, which has an upfront cost but doesn’t add to the electrical load or monthly electric bills. A photovoltaic air-conditioning system keeps a portable classroom at Waianae High School cool, with three PV panels for each unit. A team of private school students recently raised money for a similar system for a portable classroom at Campbell, which should be installed over the fall break, Greenland said.

Greenland hopes to reach out to photovoltaic companies in hopes of expanding on these examples.

“Let’s partner together, let’s adopt a building, let’s see what we could do to try to make something happen, what grants could we write, how could we help each other,” he said. “The overall benefit is for the kids.”

Greenland added: “I see how hard our teachers work and our students work. They want to learn, they want to have fun, and we want to make sure we provide that environment.”

To learn more about heat-abatement efforts and how you can help, visit 808ne.ws/1UK63Ci.