An Update on the Department of Education’s Heat Abatement Efforts
from Hawaii State Auditor, August, 2025, Report No. 25-09 (excerpt)
…(In) May (2016), the Hawai‘i Legislature approved $100 million in general funds to cool 1,000 public school classrooms. The measure was signed into law by the governor as Act 47, SLH 2016.
Amid the public and political pressure, it fell to the Hawai‘i Department of Education (DOE or the department) to act quickly to fulfill the governor’s mandate to cool 1,000 of the state’s hottest classrooms by the end of the year, a plan called the Cool Classrooms Initiative.
The Office of the Auditor undertook a review of the heat abatement initiative to account for the $100 million and assess the effectiveness of the department’s heat abatement efforts. We found that rushed planning and poor decisions early on – as well as instructions not to add to the energy load – contributed to DOE moving forward with expensive and complex solar-powered air conditioning systems (solar AC systems) that ultimately didn’t work very well, eliciting a new round of complaints from teachers.
(See how this starts?)
We also found that the solar AC systems installed under the initiative are often in need of repair, some have been completely scrapped and, overall, they’ve cost millions to salvage, fix, and grid connect. Despite spending, on average, more than $120,000 per classroom, some school principals report that the poorly performing air-conditioning systems have not done much to relieve the heat. Early on, teachers reported that the units didn’t work or failed to cool their classrooms to a comfortable level and that the limited period of time – only five hours a day – in which the solar AC systems were intended to be operable often left classrooms sweltering during the rest of the school day. A decision by DOE to seal jalousie windows with plexiglass to create more airtight classrooms to maximize the efficiency of the systems exacerbated the heat problems during periods when the air conditioning was off, blocking trade winds that would normally cool classrooms.
Now, with the batteries that were installed on many of the solar AC systems nearing the end of their lifespans, one DOE official warned that the systems will need to be retired altogether. He called the heat abatement initiative a $120 million disaster.
(See how this ends?)
We also reviewed DOE’s subsequent approach to air conditioning classrooms, called the School Directed AC program, which the department announced in 2019. Unlike the initial heat abatement initiative, which was a one-time effort led by the department, the new program gives schools the authority to air condition classrooms themselves, with minimal department involvement. A former DOE Administrator said the School Directed AC program grew out of parents “dropping off window AC units at the curb” out of concern for their children struggling to learn in warm classrooms. Under the School Directed AC program, at a school’s request, DOE arranges and pays for schools’ electrical assessments to help schools understand their capacity for added air conditioning units. In exchange, schools provide the department with an inventory of existing air conditioners. DOE noted in its press release that AC units could be paid for by the school, received as a donation from the community, or obtained through the department’s legislative budget request.
We found that the department has provided minimal structure and oversight over the program; for instance, DOE intended that schools report their current inventory of air conditioning units before the assessment, but a department memo outlining the installation process does not list inventory reporting as a requirement. The memo does require that schools provide notice of installation and closeout to the department’s project tracking website; however, the website does not include reporting on those requirements. Overall, we found DOE’s knowledge of and involvement in the School Directed AC program to be so incomplete and limited that we were unable to assess it. Finally, at the end of our field work, we were informed by the Procurement and Distribution Specialist II, who also serves as Acting Branch Administrator for the Office of Facilities and Operations, that the department had recently issued a memo rescinding schools’ authority to execute construction contracts, which the DOE official claimed effectively ended the program. He told us that the department had yet to establish a written policy, but it would be forthcoming. He would later provide us with the memo announcing the policy change but did not provide us with the official policy itself. …
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