Empty public school classrooms, a looming budget cut and pressure from lawmakers have prompted the Education Department to begin studying closing campuses statewide to save money.

  Elementary schools on Oahu, Kauai and Maui, and high schools in Hilo and Molokai are among those that could be shut down or merged, education officials announced yesterday.

The decision to examine shutting down schools comes as enrollment in the public education system sank to 177,871 from a peak of more than 189,000 a decade ago. In the 2006-07 academic year, there were 10,408 classrooms among Hawaii's 257 regular public schools, a 356-classroom surplus.

The Education Department is required under an administrative rule to investigate school closures or mergers when campuses have a certain percentage of vacant classrooms and repair needs and nearby schools can accommodate extra students.

While those conditions have existed in some schools for a few years, talk of closing schools has stalled because of community opposition. Earlier this year, following a public outcry, Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a bill to form an independent panel tasked with recommending possible school closures by 2011.

Schools Assistant Superintendent Randy Moore said the issue has become urgent because of a possible $70 million budget shortfall in the $2.4 billion schools budget next year. Closing a single school could lead to more than $500,000 a year in electricity, staff and maintenance savings.

“;The pressure on us to do this is quite obvious,”; Board of Education member John Penebacker said. But he noted that it could take years for a school to be closed because communities need to be involved in the process.

Guidelines direct complex area superintendents to appoint committees to weigh benefits and disadvantages of shutting down schools, hold public hearings and make recommendations. Superintendents overseeing schools flagged for possible closure have started forming their committees, though no deadline has been set, Moore said.

State Rep. Roy Takumi, who introduced the school-closure bill blocked by Lingle, called the Education Department's study “;timely”; because the state's population shift has left some schools overcrowded while others sit nearly empty.

Elementary schools such as Wailupe Valley and Liliuokalani, for example, have more than four vacant classrooms, while some Leeward and Maui schools are more than 20 classrooms short, according to the Education Department.

Closing schools could also free up money for officials to attack a backlog of campus repair and maintenance projects that grew to $412 million in May from $341 million in September 2006, said Takumi, chairman of the House Education committee.

He noted Washington, D.C., has closed some 20 schools, while Seattle has shut the doors of about a dozen campuses.

“;To think that we can continue to maintain every school we have, no matter how many students…, and then continue to build new schools where the population is growing is simply not sustainable,”; Takumi said.