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August 12, 2025 6 mins

An AI generated and office reviewed report summary.

In January 2016, Governor David Ige announced in his State of the State speech that he was working to cool 1,000 classrooms by the end of the year.  That May, the Hawai‘i Legislature approved $100 million in general funds to cool 1,000 public school classrooms by the end of that calendar year.  The department’s plan would later be referred to as the “Cool Classrooms Initiative.” 

Three years later, the State’s heat abatement efforts changed course with the Department of Education’s (DOE) introduction of its School Directed AC program, which unlike the Cool Classrooms Initiative, gave schools the authority to air condition classrooms themselves, with minimal DOE involvement.  

Report No. 25-09, An Update on the Department of Education’s Heat Abatement Efforts is an extensive review and assessment of the legislative and funding history of this initiative to account for the $100 million.  We also reviewed DOE’s subsequent heat abatement effort, the School Directed AC program.  

Learn how:

·       The Cool Classrooms Initiative’s rushed planning and poor decisions early on contributed to DOE moving forward with expensive and complex solar-powered air conditioning systems that ultimately didn’t work very well.

·       DOE was unable to provide an accounting of the $100 million, requiring the Office to estimate the amount spent through contract documents and other records, some of which were incomplete and missing. 

·       The Office was able to estimate that the Cool Classrooms Initiative cooled 838 classrooms at a cost of about $105 million, an average of more than $120,000 per classroom.

·       DOE provided minimal structure and oversight over its School Directed AC program, which followed the Cool Classrooms Initiative.  The department’s knowledge of and involvement in the program to be so incomplete and limited that the Office was unable to assess it.

Read the full report here:
https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2025/25-09.pdf


Report summary:
https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2025/25-09AuditorSummary.pdf

Thanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at: auditor.hawaii.gov

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Host (00:00):
Welcome to the Audible Audit, an AI-generated podcast
summarizing the Hawaii Office ofthe Auditor's Report, an update
on the Department ofEducation's heat abatement
efforts.
While AI may slightlymispronounce some words, the
content has been reviewed by theOffice of the Auditor and is
consistent with the informationin the report.
The podcast offers anothermeans to learn about the audit
and is intended for publicinformational and educational

(00:21):
purposes only.
Listeners are encouraged toconsult the full report for
detailed and authoritativeinformation about the audit.

Speaker 02 (00:28):
You're in a classroom in Hawaii, and the
temperature is climbing past 100degrees Fahrenheit.

Speaker 01 (00:38):
Yeah, that was the harsh reality for a lot of
students in public schools nottoo long ago.
Really uncomfortable.

Speaker 02 (00:43):
Right.
So back in 2016, Governor Igeannounced this plan, the Cool
Classrooms Initiative.

Speaker 01 (00:48):
That's the one.
Pledged $100 million, the goal.
Cool 1,000 classrooms by theend of the year.
A really ambitious timeline.

Speaker 02 (00:58):
Very ambitious.
So let's get into it.
So the Department of Education,the DOE, they were under
massive pressure,

Speaker 01 (01:03):
right?
Immense pressure.
Public pressure, that supertight deadline.
I mean, projects that usuallytake years.
They had months.

Speaker 02 (01:09):
And faced with that, they chose solar-powered air
conditioning systems.
Complex ones.
Why go that route?

Speaker 01 (01:14):
Well, two main drivers.
There was this mandate to aimfor net zero energy for the
state.

Speaker 02 (01:20):
Ah, the environmental goal.

Speaker 01 (01:22):
Exactly.
And practically, they reallywanted to avoid huge electrical
upgrades.
That could have cost another$100 million easily.

Speaker 02 (01:30):
Okay, so trying to be green and save on
infrastructure costs.

Speaker 01 (01:33):
Right.

Speaker 02 (01:34):
But how did it pan out?
The DOE spent about $105million and only cooled 838
classrooms.
That averages out to, what,over $120,000 per room?

Speaker 01 (01:45):
That's the number.
It's staggering, really.
And a lot of those solar ACsystems, they either failed
right away or just didn't workproperly from the get-go.

Speaker 02 (01:54):
So more money needed.

Speaker 01 (01:56):
Millions more for salvage, for repairs, sometimes
just connecting them to the gridanyway.

Speaker 02 (02:01):
And there's that Castle High School example,
which is just kind ofunbelievable.

Speaker 01 (02:05):
Installing solar panels literally under the shade
of big monkey pod trees.

Speaker 02 (02:09):
It seems so obvious.
An engineer pointed out theywere getting less than 20%
power.
The quote was, it's dark mostof the day and nobody stopped
it.

Speaker 01 (02:17):
It really points to a breakdown, doesn't it?
Like basic checks and balancesjust weren't there.

Speaker 02 (02:22):
Seems like it.
And the systems themselves,they had limits.

Speaker 01 (02:25):
Yeah, designed to run only five hours a day,
aiming for 75 to 78 degrees.
Not exactly ice cold.

Speaker 02 (02:31):
And teachers, probably desperate for cooler
rooms, pushed them harder.

Speaker 01 (02:35):
Understandably, yeah.
But running them longer oftenled to more malfunctions.
It was a cycle.

Speaker 02 (02:40):
And then the unintended consequences, sealing
the windows.

Speaker 01 (02:43):
Right.
They sealed them withplexiglass to try and make the
AC more efficient.

Speaker 02 (02:47):
But when the AC was off.

Speaker 01 (02:48):
Exactly.
No natural trade winds couldget in.
Those rooms became, as one DOEengineer put it, Unbearable.
Hotter than before sometimes.

Speaker 02 (02:57):
Wow.
So fixing one problem createdanother.
And they prioritized portableclassrooms, too.

Speaker 01 (03:02):
They did.
Which makes sense in a way.
Those often get the hottest,but they're usually old, poorly
insulated, really hard to coolefficiently.

Speaker 02 (03:11):
And sealing those up led to CO2 issues.

Speaker 01 (03:13):
Elevated carbon dioxide levels, yeah.
Which isn't just uncomfortable.
It can actually impair thinkingand learning.

Speaker 02 (03:18):
So on top of everything else, the potential
learning impact andaccountability, was anyone
keeping track?

Speaker 01 (03:24):
That was another major finding.
The DOE just couldn't fullyaccount for the $100 million.

Speaker 02 (03:30):
How come?

Speaker 01 (03:30):
Poor records, staff turnover, a heavy reliance on
outside consultants.
The information they didprovide was often inconsistent,
incomplete.
It was a mess.

Speaker 02 (03:41):
Okay, so after all those issues with the first
initiative, they tried somethingelse.

Speaker 01 (03:45):
Yes.
In 2019, they launched theschool-directed AC program.
A different approach.

Speaker 02 (03:51):
How different?

Speaker 01 (03:52):
It basically put the power...
or the responsibility back ontoindividual schools to handle
their own AC installs.
It actually started kind oforganically.

Speaker 02 (04:00):
Organically?

Speaker 01 (04:01):
Yeah, like parents literally just dropping off
window AC units at schoolsbecause the need was so great.

Speaker 02 (04:06):
Wow.
So the DOE role was?

Speaker 01 (04:08):
Minimal, really.
They offered to pay forelectrical assessments if
schools inventoried theirexisting AC units, but there
wasn't much structure, not muchoversight.

Speaker 02 (04:18):
So a hands-off approach.
Did they even know what washappening?

Speaker 01 (04:21):
Their knowledge seemed pretty limited.
Officials couldn't give basicinfo
like how many schools even participated or how many units got installed.

Speake (04:27):
That seems disorganized.

Speaker 01 (04:29):
It was.
Apparently one policy decisionwas made literally by an
impromptu vote among officials.
Not exactly standard procedure.

Speaker 02 (04:37):
And the future of that program is uncertain, too.

Speaker 01 (04:39):
Very unclear.
A DOE official mentioned arecent procurement policy change
basically ended it.
But again, no official writtenpolicy was provided.
So who knows?

Speaker 02 (04:50):
Leaving schools in limbo again.
Let's talk about costcomparison, because the Mokapu
elementary example is reallystriking.

Speaker 01 (04:56):
It really is.
So remember those expensivesolar AC systems?
Mokapu got them in nineportables, cost $750,000.
Okay.
Then later, those portableswere demolished.

Speaker 02 (05:07):
Oh, wow.
All that money.

Speaker 01 (05:09):
Gone.
But then the school airconditioned other presumably
permanent classrooms for aboutfive thousand dollars each, plus
one forty thousand dollarelectrical upgrade for a
building.

Speaker 02 (05:19):
Five thousand dollars versus what was the
average before.
Over eighty three thousanddollars.

Speaker 01 (05:23):
Exactly.
A tiny fraction of the cost.
And they even salvage someparts from the original
expensive systems.
It just shows how a morelocalized, maybe more practical
approach can be way moreeffective.
And now there's another loomingissue.
Many of those original solar ACbatteries are starting to fail.
They're reaching the end oftheir lifespan.

Speaker 02 (05:42):
Ah, so schools face another decision point.

Speaker 01 (05:44):
Exactly.
Do they shell out for expensivebattery replacements, or do
they just switch to conventionalgrid-tied AC?

Speaker 02 (05:52):
And if they switch, what does that mean for DOE's
goal of net zero energy by 2035?

Speaker 01 (05:58):
That's the million-dollar question, isn't
it?
Or maybe thehundred-million-dollar question,
given the history.
It puts that goal underpressure.

Speaker 02 (06:03):
So, a final thought to leave everyone with.
Whose ultimate responsible formaking sure these classrooms
stay cool moving forward?
And how do we balance immediateneeds with long-term energy
goals?

Speaker 01 (06:14):
Big questions with no easy answers right now.
It's definitely something tokeep watching.
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