DOE forecasts
‘crisis’ in crowded
classrooms

Lawmakers are told that a school
space shortage will become
severe in 3 to 5 years

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By Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.com

The Department of Education is falling behind in the construction of new classrooms and other school buildings, and forecasts a classroom shortage "crisis" in the next three to five years that could result in more overcrowding, state lawmakers were told yesterday.

Assistant Superintendent Alfred Suga said enrollment increases demand new classroom facilities at existing schools.

"When schools are exploding in population, then we've got to put up new schools," he said. "So that's the two things we call crisis."

A decrease in funding, a shift to deferred repair and maintenance projects, and an increase in school-level personnel due to the Felix consent decree appear to be factors.

Suga told members of Senate Ways and Means Committee and the House Finance Committee that the department faces a $1.2 billion backlog in capital improvement projects over the next 10 years if the Legislature does not increase funding.

"New schools, additional classroom building and additional classrooms to alleviate overcrowding will not be built in sufficient quantities or in a timely manner," he said.

Suga said the department got hit with a double whammy.

First, the amount set aside annually in a fund for new school construction was cut in half three years ago -- to $45 million from $90 million.

The DOE and the Board of Education support legislation to increase the fund back to $90 million.

Second, the focus of Gov. Ben Cayetano's administration has shifted more toward repairing and maintaining older schools, work that was deferred in the mid-1990s because of budget cuts and the concentration of capital improvement program funds on building new schools and classrooms to help bring down a shortage of 400 to 600 classrooms back then.

The state now has its sights set on attacking a $640 million repair and maintenance backlog.

"He's doing more repair and maintenance now. It would appear to me that there's a lot more emphasis into renovating aging schools," Suga said. "It's a choice that the executive makes."

Suga said that in the department's request for supplemental funding for next fiscal year to build new classrooms, the administration reduced money slated for classroom construction by $16 million and increased funding by $17 million for lump-sum accounts to take care of renovations, technology improvements and compliance issues.

Suga said the department is currently behind about 200 classrooms, but it can barely keep up with construction with the current funding.

Areas where new schools are needed to alleviate crowding at other schools but are not coming up anytime soon include Maui Lani in central Maui, Waiawa Intermediate School and Royal Kunia near Waipahu.

Suga said his niece teaches at Kanoelani Elementary School in Waipahu, where the enrollment for the kindergarten through fifth-grade school is more than 800.

"The enrollment over there is just bursting. My niece is a special-ed teacher there. She got overwhelmed. But this other school in Royal Kunia would relieve that," Suga said.

The Waiawa project would take care of overcrowding at Waipahu and Highlands Intermediate.

But classroom buildings are not the only facilities affected. Libraries, cafeterias and administration buildings could be put on hold. Specifically, no construction funds are in place for sorely needed facilities such as locker rooms at Konawaena Middle School and Lahainaluna High School, and a Keaau Middle School band room, buildings that are necessary to support classroom instruction, the department said.

The increased need for facilities comes at a time when enrollment is at a plateau, but it is compounded by the state hiring 320 new employees since July 1 to deliver school-based educational and mental health services to special-education children under the federally mandated Felix consent decree.

Schools are having trouble finding places to house these new employees and the facilities they will need to do their work. "These guys are struggling with it because funding is not available yet."