State classroom-cooling program heats up over summer

School contractors are expected to be busy over the next two months as the Department of Education ramps up its efforts to hit — and exceed — the governor’s target of cooling 1,000 classrooms by the end of summer.

Department officials said Friday that contractors have installed 456 air-conditioning units toward that goal while an additional 1,062 air conditioners have been ordered.

The targeted classrooms are spread across 33 schools on a priority list of the state’s hottest campuses. Ewa Beach Elementary, Ilima Intermediate and Campbell High schools — all in Ewa Beach — are in the top three spots.

“We’re well on our way to getting (those) 1,000 classrooms air conditioning,” Dann Carlson, assistant superintendent for school facilities, said Friday during a media tour to showcase cooling upgrades at Campbell High. “I’m happy to say we’re going to hit well above 1,000 with that $100 million.”

He said it’s unclear exactly how many classrooms will be covered with the funding because some cooling projects require more work than others. For example, on older campuses, energy upgrades are needed to add air conditioning to the electrical load.

Carlson said the AC initiative has been coupled with the department’s ongoing “heat abatement” program, which aims to cool classroom temperatures to 76 degrees. Air conditioning is planned for classrooms where heat abatement measures — such as installing ceiling fans and heat-reflective roof systems — don’t sufficiently bring down the temperature.

Of the 11,806 public classrooms across the state, 4,459 had air conditioning as of this week.

At Campbell, Vice Principal Shayne Greenland said air conditioning has been installed in most of the approximately 150 classrooms. The units on the school’s portable classrooms are solar-powered while others are high-efficiency units that don’t have to work as hard when coupled with ceiling fans.

Other cooling efforts at Campbell include ceiling fans, tinted windows to block heat from the sun, heat-reflective material on roofs, solar-powered vents to draw out hot air, and newly planted trees on campus. A large aluminum shade structure is expected to be installed next week over a central courtyard in one of the school’s multistory classroom buildings. The structure will be outfitted with synthetic canvas “sails” designed to capture any passing breeze.

“All of these passive measures decrease the need for excessive air conditioning,” Carlson said.

Greenland said that over the past two summers the school has coped with temperatures inside classrooms approaching 100 degrees on the hottest days. The record-breaking heat prompted community donations of portable fans, but the temporary fix often just pushed around hot air and became a distraction as students competed for space in front of the fans.

“They were noisy and at ground level. Kids would sit and hog the fans. It wasn’t a great situation. It was minimizing instructional time,” he said. “The kids endured. Our teachers have always just made do with the conditions. But with all of these (cooling) upgrades, they really feel like they’re in heaven.”

Incoming Campbell freshman Xander Laforgia, who previously attended Ilima Intermediate — No. 2 on the priority list — said he’s looking forward to learning in cooler classrooms. “It’s pretty hard because it’s hard to focus when there’s fans and it’s still hot and you just hear the whirring sound,” he said.

When lawmakers agreed to provide $100 million for the 1,000-classroom effort, they required the DOE to spend some of the funds on “other heat-abatement measures, energy-efficient lighting and other energy efficiency measures” to offset energy use, according to the funding legislation.

“That’s a big task: 1,000 classrooms with air conditioning but remaining energy neutral,” Carlson said. He said so far the department has seen its electricity use decline despite the AC installations.

Initially, Gov. David Ige had pledged to cool 1,000 classrooms by the end of 2016. That target was extended after initial contractor bids came in significantly over budget. DOE officials attributed the high bids to increased labor costs due to the state’s construction boom.

With campuses fairly empty for the summer, Carlson told Board of Education members earlier this month that the department was on track to complete the work before the new school year begins Aug. 5.