Lawmakers give initial OK for more public school AC funding

Bills that appropriate funds to install air conditioning units for public school classrooms that have not received air conditioning were approved by the state Senate Education Committee and House Education Committee in the last week.

Approximately 6,000 of 11,000 classrooms have window air conditioning, according to written testimony from the Hawaii State Department of Education. Of the 5,000 classrooms without air conditioning, approximately 60%, or 3,000 classrooms, have sufficient electrical capacity to install window units, HIDOE said. Installing air conditioning in those 3,000 classrooms will cost about $24 million and $5.3 million in recurring annual electricity costs.

The HIDOE said the remaining 2,000 classrooms may require electrical upgrades using additional general or construction funds known as capital improvement (CIP) funds. Once converted to AC, those 2,000 classrooms will also incur approximately $5 million in annual electricity costs, according to the HIDOE.

“School should be cool. To make our classrooms more suitable for student learning, the Hawaii State Teachers Association asks your committee to support this bill,” said HSTA President Osa Tui, Jr. in written testimony on House Bill 2267.

“We ask that you also consider more air purification measures too during these pandemic times,” Tui wrote. “We thank you for your past support to cool our schools and ensure air quality, but more needs to be done to complete this task. It is not complete yet, and our students, teachers, and staff are still suffering.

“They need to be comfortable so that they can focus on their learning, not their extreme discomfort,” Tui added.

Former HSTA president Corey Rosenlee has advocated for more air conditioning in classrooms, years before he became president of the union in 2015.

A social studies teacher at Campbell High, Rosenlee submitted written testimony to the Senate Education Committee that said, “With the unique situation of the state surplus and the requirements of ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief federal pandemic aid for public schools) funding, the state has the opportunity to finally finish the goal of making sure our students never have to learn in a hot classroom again.”

The initial Senate Bill 2862 called for $40 million to convert about 5,000 classrooms to AC.

During a hearing on Feb. 4, Senate Education Committee member Dru Kanuha (D, Kona, Kau) asked, “Is that even enough money or are there better ways to do the heat abatement that weren’t originally done?”

Randy Tanaka, assistant superintendent of the office of facilities and operations, told senators, “I’m hoping my people have done the estimate correctly. We will give it a good go at that budget, but we still have electrical capacity issues.

“When these projects were initiated, there was a lot we didn’t know about the electrical load, and that’s what caused some challenges in terms of getting enough air conditioning by matching the electrical loads. We have a number of very old schools that need to refit. They cannot carry the load,” Tanaka said.

“In addition, when COVID came along, we were putting more computers in the classrooms, we were putting air purifiers in the classrooms and box fans. So that exacerbated our problem,” Tanaka told lawmakers.

“We have electrical assessments for more schools so we have a better idea. I will tell you that the technology has actually changed quite a bit where window units are quite effective versus split systems. And the most recent units we looked at, addressing the concern of air purification or air filtering, the new units allow us to put a filter into the window units which really support the magnitude of air filtering,” he added.

House Bill 2267 was approved by the House Education Committee Thursday. Meanwhile the Senate Education Committee unanimously passed Senate Bill 2862 on Feb. 4. That bill is being referred to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi submitted written testimony in favor of the AC bills.

Hayashi said the department is working to determine the electrical capacity for window air conditioning by building. To date, 690 electrical assessments of buildings have been completed with 257 in process, he said.

HIDOE is also installing basic classroom window units. To date, 3,342 air conditioning units have been installed with 778 in progress.

You can find updated HIDOE AC information here, and look up the status at your school.

“The department appreciates this proposal and the inclusion of funding but asks that any additional funding does not affect the department’s top budget priorities to restore funds that were reduced as a result of the fiscal fallout from COVID-19 and funding of existing budget shortfalls that were included in the department’s supplemental budget request. Without those funds, the department will face severe constraints on its ability to continue to promote equity and access to needed resources and support for all schools,” Hayashi said.

The Senate bill noted that “studies show that while classroom temperatures over 80 degrees can negatively impact student achievement, temperatures in Hawaii‘s classrooms are regularly recorded at over 100 degrees during certain periods of the school year.”

At a hearing Thursday, House Education Chair Justin Woodson (D, Kahului, Puunene) asked Tanaka, HIDOE’s assistant superintendent in charge of facilities, “So you just articulated that you believe that with with the addition of potential ACs across the state, that that would increase operational costs by the magnitude of $5 million. We know that in recent past, the department has leveraged new technology specifically defined as AC units incorporating closed circuitry system, battery technology, and solar systems. If the department were to continue to look at that type of solution, would that then reduce that $5 million figure?”

Tanaka answered, “Your assumption is correct. A couple of things we’ve learned from the previous installs, both battery and rooftop on PV, my team tells me it’s better for us to feed the grid and draw down from the grid. The beauty with PV for the DOE is in the periods that we’re generating, it’s great for the public. During the evening times, we’re not users of electricity because our schools are closed so the value is highly prized, so to speak.

“We have looked at batteries. We have not had great success with the batteries,” Tanaka said. “Some of the lifespan of the batteries are not achieving what we had hoped for. So that’s why my team has come back and says, ‘Just, let’s feed back to the grid, feed back to the grid.’ And that’s, in their estimation, that’s the best way to go. We continue to also install LEDs to reduce overall consumption, which will help us reduce our energy use through AC, so it’s a tranche of different things that we put on the table to reduce our energy consumption.”

School AC developments, studies in recent years

In 2016, the Legislature passed and Gov. David Ige signed a bill funding $100 million for air conditioning. In 2017, lawmakers approved and Ige signed a measure allowing the HIDOE to borrow $46.4 million of Green Energy Money Savers (GEMS) funding for “energy-efficient lighting and other energy-efficiency measures.”

In 2019, the HIDOE changed its policy to allow the use of energy-efficient wall units in classrooms, which dramatically lowered the cost per classroom.

In 2021, the Legislature passed HB613, which would have appropriated financing for finishing air conditioning in our schools, which Ige vetoed.

A study by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University found that students between 4th and 9th grades at demographically similar schools showed increased gains in reading vocabulary, total math, problem-solving, math procedures, pre-writing, and editing at schools with air conditioning, as compared with peers from non-cooled schools.

The study demonstrated that the longer and more consistently students are exposed to classroom cooling, the better and more stable their performance gains tend to be. Conversely, students exposed to thermal conditioning for only short or intermittent periods of time achieved less than their peers.

These findings are supported by U.S. Department of Education-sponsored research, which found proper cooling systems lead to better attitudes toward learning, fewer disciplinary problems, and sustained achievement.