The Maui wildfires have robbed Mindi Cherry of not one beloved home, but two.

She and her ohana had only minutes to escape the massive flames that bore down on the family home in Puamana Nui that her husband had owned for 22 years, the house where her two daughters grew up. Now all that’s left of it is ash that is so fine that “there’s not even anything to sift through and find now — it was such a hot and fast fire that just ripped through everything,” Cherry said.

But the first grade teacher also lost the school she has worked at for 14 years. Where King Kamehameha III Elementary School once operated on Front Street in Lahaina, there are now only gutted ruins, Cherry’s cheerfully colorful classroom turned to a silent, blackened cavity. And her close-knit colleagues and their students are scattered to parts unknown like the now-ubiquitous ashes in the wind.

Cherry is one of about 50 Maui public school educators that their union says had their homes either burned down or significantly damaged in the fires that tore through Lahaina starting Aug. 8. At least six of the teachers with lost or greatly damaged homes worked at King Kamehameha III Elementary, the one public school that officials have deemed a loss in the West Maui fires.

While most of Maui’s public schools are in phased reopenings this week, four schools — King Kekaulike High, Princess Nahienaena Elementary, Lahaina Intermediate and Lahainaluna High schools — remain closed and “will reopen when it is safe to return,” state Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi said in a statement.

But King Kamehameha III Elementary was “damaged beyond repair,” Hayashi said. He said he has assembled an internal response team at the state Department of Education to coordinate resources and plan next steps. The affected schools together have served nearly 3,000 students and employed about 300 faculty and staff.

Cherry says while she feels sorrow for the loss of her school, and her classroom, which had just been outfitted with new textbooks and supplies for the new school year, it’s her close-knit ohana of co-workers and her students that she longs for most. “I’m gonna really miss the sense of community there,” she said by phone Monday.

“We hang out outside of work. We’re all close in age. We have kids close in age,” Cherry said of her colleagues. “But I’ll just miss waking up every day and seeing their faces and seeing the little kids’ faces. I taught first grade, so they were always happy to be there and full of smiles.”

Cherry and her husband, Ken, her daughters ages 12 and 20, and her visiting mother are staying in a hotel temporarily as they search for longer-term accommodations. Their three dogs are being housed for now by Coast Guard families.

But Cherry doesn’t want to move away from Lahaina, or work anywhere else than her school, which served about 638 students and has a proud history stretching back to the 1880s. “Especially in my grade level, we were kind of just all one big happy family, and I’m hoping that we’ll have that again — someday we’ll find a spot to be able to do that again,” she said.

Restoring King Kamehameha III Elementary’s community as quickly as possible, even if it must be in temporary portables at a safe alternate location — along with bringing back routines for all the disrupted Maui schools — is in fact what Hawaii State Teachers Association President Osa Tui Jr. believes the students, teachers and community want and need most.

“We don’t want the Lahaina community to be broken up, as much as possible. Schools are oftentimes the heart of the community,” Tui said. “We know that community members there and students there want as much normalcy as possible. And there are deep ties that students have to the schools that they go to, and they don’t want to go to other schools.”

The state Department of Education has encouraged displaced families to enroll their children in the closest neighborhood schools at least for the interim, however.

“For students and families who were displaced by the fires and are living outside of Lahaina, we encourage you to enroll your keiki in the neighborhood school where you are staying, even if your housing situation is temporary,” Hayashi said Sunday in an open letter addressed to Lahaina public school teachers, administrators, staff and students. “When children are in school, we can provide support including meals and mental health support.”

All Maui schools except for Hana High and Elementary were closed starting from Wednesday. Teachers and school staff at schools in Upcountry, South and Central Maui, except for King Kekaulike High School, were scheduled to return to work Monday, with students returning Wednesday.

For employees at those schools still closed, “I want to assure you that your jobs are safe and that you will continue to be paid while on administrative leave when schools are closed,” and for those relocating, the DOE was working on support, Hayashi said.

For families and students, “our priority is to provide a safe learning environment,” Hayashi said. He said the DOE plans to set up a dedicated phone line to answer questions from staff and families, as well as in-person and telehealth services to support mental health.

The HSTA has filed a request with the state for impact bargaining on teachers’ behalf, and for information about wildfires and their effects on schools, teachers and students. “The tragedy of the wildfire and its immediate impact on the Lahaina community and greater Maui remains top of mind for HSTA, and we are committed to working with the state of Hawaii, the Board of Education, HIDOE and our charter schools to ensure that families are taken care of, and they have the time and space they need to deal with the trauma and shock of the disaster,” deputy director and chief negotiator Andrea Eshelman said in the union request.

Meanwhile, amid the chaos, uncertainty and suffering, many teachers are helping other teachers cope.

Natalie Hoffert, a second grade teacher at Princess Nahienaena Elementary School, took in 15 evacuees from various neighborhoods in Kihei on the first night of the fires, the union said. Five Lahainaluna High teachers who live in an affordable workforce housing complex took in retreating colleagues. An HSTA member survey turned up almost two dozen more teachers willing to house people for short- or long-term stays.

“The only way we’re getting through this is by pooling resources,” Jarrett Chapin, one of the hosting teachers from Lahainaluna High, said in an HSTA statement. “We have someone who can get a generator. We have another person who can get some kiawe wood.

“Teachers naturally organize. Teachers naturally have big hearts. It’s just natural for teachers,” Chapin continued. “It didn’t throw me at all that the people who were central to organizing our little community were teachers.”