Karisa Bayudan spent her junior year of high school moving between hotel rooms after her family lost their home in last yearʻs Lahaina wildfires. She did her homework from the couch when she didnʻt have space of her own.

Now a senior at Lahainaluna High School, things are better — for her and her classmates. Sheʻs keeping up with her coursework and taking classes at a local community college. And school spirit is better, she said, with students more eager to participate in homecoming traditions and volunteer events.

But there are still challenges ahead. Bayudan is worried about what will happen when her familyʻs temporary housing ends in the spring. And the consequences of the devastating Lahaina fires on Aug. 8, 2023, can be seen in her classmatesʻ academic scores and attendance, even as Hawai‘i’s education department has struggled to bring more mental health support to the schools.

“I’m in a much better head space now than I was in junior year, especially since I’m in more stable housing at the moment,” Bayudan said.

Recent data from the Hawaiʻi Department of Education illustrate just how difficult last year was for Lahaina students, with math and reading proficiency rates dropping by nearly half at some schools between 2023 and 2024.

The department received a $2 million federal grant to support student learning and mental health earlier this year, but a shortage of behavioral specialists and therapists has prevented schools from hiring necessary personnel. Instead, most of the funds spent so far have gone toward bus services allowing students to commute from Central Maui to Lahaina for school.

Only two-thirds of Lahaina students have returned to their schools since the fires, which destroyed King Kamehameha III Elementary and closed three other campuses from August to October 2023. Some families are skeptical that Lahaina schools will ever return to previous levels of enrollment and staffing, especially as teacher burnout is high and some students move away from West Maui.

But educators like Jarrett Chapin, who teaches at Lahainaluna, believe their students are benefitting from the stability and structure of this year. Kids are more engaged in class and attend school regularly, teachers say, and schools are doubling down on tutoring and personalized check-ins, with an eye on ensuring kids graduate on time. 

“The fire is a landmark or touchstone that everyone has in common, but it’s not as raw,” said Chapin. “I think school life has improved.”

Improvements In Learning

At Lahainaluna High School, Chapin said his students were in survival mode after the fires. It was difficult for students to stay focused and motivated, he added, especially when they were facing so much uncertainty at home.

Last year, 5% of Lahainaluna students tested proficient in math, down from 10% in the 2022-23 school year. The school’s college enrollment rate dropped from 48% to 40% between 2023 and 2024, despite the University of HawaiÊ»i’s offer of full scholarships to students who graduated from Lahainaluna in June.  to keep up in their classes after the fires and complete graduation requirements.

Test scores for the current school year won’t be released until next fall, and it’s unclear what long-term effects the fires will have on student learning. But at least itÊ»s a less chaotic year.

“Kids still go through stuff, but gosh, it was so raw last year,” Chapin said. “We are so much further away from that.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, meeting with state leaders and Lahaina principals earlier this month, emphasized the importance of high-quality support for students as they continue to grieve after the fires, and for staff, who may be experiencing burnout.

Students at King Kamehameha III Elementary experienced some of the greatest disruptions, missing over 50 days of school last year. In the spring, roughly a third of students tested proficient in math and reading, down from 45% the year before.

Mindi Cherry, a teacher at King Kamehameha III Elementary, said her first graders seem to be on track with their learning this year. To curb absenteeism, the school is offering ice cream parties to classes with the highest attendance rates, she said. Teachers will also offer tutoring in January to students who have fallen behind.

DOE said recruiting and retaining teachers also remains a priority, although the drop in student enrollment at some schools has corresponded to the loss of some staff. Lahainaluna lost a few teachers in the math and English departments, Chapin said, but the remaining staff has been able to serve the existing student population, which fell by 200 kids this year.

Erin Vegas, who taught fourth grade at Princess NāhiÊ»enaÊ»ena Elementary last year, said she’s worried schools could continue to see a drop in their staffing in the future with the high cost of living and lack of affordable housing in West Maui.

“They won’t be able to retain anybody if there’s this huge fear that so many teachers will never be able to stay,” Vegas said, adding that she moved to OÊ»ahu after she wasn’t able to find housing at the end of last school year. The education department plans to build  on Lahainaluna’s campus that could be available for teachers starting next summer. 

Where Did The Students Go?

While Lahaina’s student population dropped by a third this year, not all students left at the same rate.

Before the fires, roughly half of Lahaina students were low-income. Now, at least three-quarters of students at Lahaina schools are, according to data from standardized tests issued every spring.

King Kamehameha III Elementary teacher Robert Livermore says wealthier families may have moved out of Lahaina schools since the fires and transitioned to private or charter schools.

“Those who could did, those who couldn’t went without,” Livermore said, adding that he sees more students coming to school without snacks or supplies this year.

It’s more difficult to explain declining enrollment trends among other groups of students. For example, white students made up over 45% of King Kamehameha III Elementary’s student population before the fires but have since dropped to less than 30% of the overall enrollment. English language learners now make up more than a third of the elementary school’s population, compared to only 18% before the fires.

The department did not respond to questions about enrollment, and there’s little data available on how the overall population of Lahaina has changed since the fires.

Shrinking student populations in Lahaina could mean cuts in staffing and budgets in the coming years, since enrollment determines a large part of schools’ budgets. DOE Deputy Superintendent Tammi Oyadomari-Chun said the department plans on slowly reducing Lahaina schools’ budgets over the next few years to prevent schools from losing resources and teachers entirely.

Some families who sought other learning options after the fires still haven’t returned to Lahaina schools.

David Weeks chose to enroll his children in HawaiÊ»i Technology Academy, a charter school with a Lahaina campus, when he didn’t feel safe sending his children to DOE schools near the burn zone last year. While his daughter returned to Lahaina Intermediate this fall, Weeks added, his son has remained at HTA. 

Kaliko Storer, a parent at Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary, said some families simply don’t have the money or time to wait for housing to open up in West Maui. She’s hopeful more students will return to Lahaina schools in the future, but she also understands if families don’t want their children to keep moving campuses.

“It’s a work in progress,” she said.  

A Need For More Services

But while there are some indications that academics are on the upswing in schools, staff and students say they’re worried about having enough mental health resources to help those who are still processing the events of last year.

Heather Long, program director for Maui Youth and Family Services, said some students are only now understanding the loss and trauma they experienced after the fires. When Lahaina schools reopened last year, she added, many students were still focused on securing their basic needs and weren’t fully processing their emotions.

“Dealing with the trauma now, I actually do think it gets worse,” Long said, adding that a shortage of counselors and therapists on Maui can make it harder for students to connect with trusted adults or focus on their schoolwork if they’re struggling emotionally.

King Kamehameha III Elementary Principal Ian Haskins said the elementary school has two counselors and a behavioral specialist for students, but it’s still a struggle to find providers . After the fires, DOE trained Lahaina staff to help students cope with mental health struggles and trauma, and partnered with Kaiser Permanente and other organizations to offer support groups for students.

The Lahaina complex and surrounding region is hiring five positions focused on student behavior and mental health, with some of the positions vacant since January, according to DOE’s .

But the department has struggled to spend much of a $2 million federal grant supporting mental health and academics. So far, Chun said, DOE has spent roughly $600,000 on bus services for students who are commuting to Lahaina schools from other parts of the island, but hasn’t been able to hire mental health professionals like it intended under the grant.

The grant will run until next summer.

In the meantime, school principals say they’re worried about students and staff who spent the last year running on adrenaline. Teachers are tired, said Lahainaluna Principal Richard Carosso, and many were burned out at the end of last school year.

“I don’t think summer was long enough for our staff,” he said earlier this month in a meeting with state and federal leaders.

Bayudan, the senior at Lahainaluna, said she’s grateful for the therapists available on campus but wishes students received more encouragement to seek care. Many of her friends and classmates are hesitant to open up about the emotions and challenges they’re facing, she added.

“I don’t think what we have right now is serving us enough,” Bayudan said.

This story was originally published on Civil Beat.

Lahaina’s four public schools will close on Aug. 8 to honor the first anniversary of the Maui wildfires, the Board of Education decided on Thursday.

Students at King Kamehameha III Elementary, Princess Nahienaena Elementary, Lahaina Intermediate and Lahainaluna High School will begin classes on Aug. 7 as planned. Incoming freshmen at Lahainaluna High School will come to campus a day early, on Aug. 6, for orientation.

The four schools will reopen on Friday, Aug. 9.

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The board’s decision to close schools on Aug. 8 follows a Maui County Council resolution asking the Hawaii Department of Education to delay the start of the school year for all Maui schools by a week so classes on the island wouldn’t coincide with the anniversary of the fires. The council passed the resolution last month, although some community members said it could be logistically difficult to start classes a full week later than planned.

Superintendent Keith Hayashi said he recognized that not all families will be able to take off work on Aug. 8. But, he said, it’s important for staff and students to commemorate the anniversary of the fires with their loved ones, and the department is seeking resources and services to support families who can’t find child care on the anniversary of the fires.

“We also remain committed to ensuring students’ academic well-being and providing essential support and resources at our schools, such as additional behavioral health specialists on campus,” Hayashi said in his to the board.

Even if schools remained open on Aug. 8, Hayashi added, it could be difficult to staff campuses if many employees took personal leave.

In response to board members’ concerns about students’ academic progress, King Kamehameha III Elementary Principal Ian Haskins said his school has offered summer learning opportunities to help children catch up on missed instruction from last year. Schools will continue to address any learning loss in the upcoming academic year, he added.

“We will make sure students get what they need,” Haskins said.

Students at King Kamehameha III Elementary of the academic year after their campus was burned beyond repair last August.

At least one private school has adjusted the start of its school year to recognize the one-year anniversary of the fires. Maui Preparatory Academy announced earlier this summer that classes will begin on Aug. 9 instead of Aug. 7.

Throughout last year, Lahaina teachers repeatedly asked the department for more scheduling flexibility and mental health resources in the aftermath of the wildfires. In response, DOE announced that employees can donate leave days to teachers who lost their property last summer.

Teachers can donate or request additional leave until mid-September.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

This was originally published on .

Teacher retention and student safety are top of mind for West Maui families and school and union leaders as an academic year marked by deadly wildfires comes to a close. 

Since August, enrollment at Lahaina’s four public schools has dropped by roughly 1,000 students. Some families are still hesitant to return their children to the campuses next year, citing concerns around emergency preparedness and the mental health toll of attending classes near the burn zone.

In addition to a declining student population, the teachers’ union predicts that Lahaina schools may face greater challenges recruiting and retaining educators next year. Some teachers say the Hawaii Department of Education has failed to support its employees after the fires by not offering additional leave and flexibility for teachers who needed to find housing and move out of West Maui. 

Lahaina teachers are also asking for more counselors and mental health support for students next school year. 

The union is now mobilizing to push the superintendent and Hawaii Board of Education to fulfill educators’ requests, including pay raises for Lahaina teachers and expanded paid leave benefits.   

DOE had already designated Lahaina as a hard-to-staff location in 2020 due to the area’s high number of teacher vacancies and emergency hires. 

“It’s just incredibly stressful for so many people,” said Jarrett Chapin, an English teacher at Lahainaluna High. 

Staffing Challenges

Even before the fires, hiring teachers in Lahaina was difficult, Chapin said. Housing was scarce, and the cost of living was high — even with the annual $5,000 bonus Lahaina teachers have received since 2020 due to severe staffing shortages in the area. 

The union has asked DOE to raise the annual bonus to $8,000 in response to the rising cost of living on Maui. The department said in March it would not fulfill the request, although superintendent Keith Hayashi said Thursday that it’s an option he’s now willing to consider. 

Hayashi added that the department has provided mental health support to students and teachers through staff trainings, partnerships with the Department of Health, online platforms and more. 

Earlier this month, the department was hiring for five teaching positions at Princess Nahienaena Elementary, King Kamehameha III Elementary and Lahainaluna High School. The department said funding for Lahaina schools will not drastically decline next year but did not specify if it will be hiring fewer teachers than usual because of reduced student enrollment. 

In Wailuku, Iao Intermediate is currently hiring seven teachers for next year, while Wailuku Elementary is hiring four teachers. Schools in other parts of Maui are facing similar hiring needs. 

Andrea Eshelman, deputy director and chief negotiator for HSTA, said she’s concerned more teachers will leave their jobs at the end of the year because of severe housing shortages in West Maui and DOE’s lackluster response to supporting faculty after the fires. HSTA previously asked DOE to provide post-disaster leave or mileage reimbursement to teachers who lost their homes in the fires and relocated from West Maui, but the department rejected the requests. 

In response, HSTA has begun a petition asking DOE to initiate a program that would allow teachers to donate their sick days to Maui teachers affected by the fires. As of Thursday, the petition received over 600 signatures from union members across the state, and over 20 teachers testified at Thursday’s BOE meeting asking the department to establish the leave bank and provide additional support for educators. 

The bank would allow Maui teachers to take paid time off to address the aftermath of the fires. 

During Thursday’s meeting, Lahainaluna teacher Michelle Abad Brummel said she lost her home in the fires and is temporarily living in South Maui. Her family spends nearly $500 each month on gas, and she’s resorted to using sick days to visit her home in the burn zone since DOE didn’t offer additional leave to teachers affected by the fires. 

“There will be one less good teacher in a school already in need,” Abad Brummel said.

Ashley Olson, a teacher at Lahainaluna, said DOE should also provide more mental health support to staff and students. DOE has made crisis counseling and mental health providers available to Lahaina staff, but Olson said she would like professionals to consistently check in with teachers and proactively offer their help.

“I’m pretty unimpressed with the progress we’ve made,” Olson said. “Do better by all of Maui.”

BOE members agreed with teachers’ requests on Thursday and said they would offer more support in the next school year. 

“We heard you loud and clear,” said board member Makana McClellan. 

Alternative Learning Options

Before the August fires, the four Lahaina public schools served around 3,000 students. Next year, their combined enrollment is expected to drop to roughly 2,000. 

In November, DOE estimated that most of the students who had not yet returned to Lahaina campuses had enrolled in other public schools on Maui. A smaller percentage of students had moved out of state or enrolled in Hawaii schools outside of the DOE. 

Rita McClintock, who lives in Kaanapali, has no plans to return her daughter to Lahaina Intermediate in the fall. In September, McClintock enrolled her daughter in Hawaii Technology Academy, a charter school that began offering hybrid classes in West Maui within a month of the fires.

The school initially offered instruction out of the Door of Faith Church in Lahaina but moved into the space formerly occupied by Kapalua’s Pineapple Grill restaurant in March.

McClintock said she believed DOE campuses had safe water and air quality after the Department of Health completed extensive testing on the schools in the fall. But she worried about whether DOE had adequate safety plans in place if another fire began near the schools. 

“I trusted the science, but I didn’t necessarily trust they had a plan in place if they got bad news,” McClintock said. 

Now, McClintock said, she plans on keeping her daughter at HTA until eighth grade. She doesn’t want to disrupt her daughter’s education, she added, and she’s found a place that offers her family stability. 

Ginny Kamohalii-Dew, community coordinator for HTA’s Lahaina campus, said they expect approximately 60% of students to return to the school next year. Many families are moving out of West Maui, she added, and can no longer make the commute to campus. The school enrolls roughly 115 students. 

The charter school placed a strong emphasis on children’s mental health and recovery this year, she said, adding that she’s especially proud of students’ end-of-year projects that reimagined what Lahaina could look like once it’s fully rebuilt.  

“If our kids leave happy this year, we’ve done enough,” Kamohalii-Dew said. 

Other families are still unsure about their children’s futures. 

Before the fires, Miriam Keo’s two children attended the Hawaiian immersion program offered at Lahaina Intermediate. Since March, Lahaina’s Hawaiian immersion students have attended classes at the temporary campus for King Kamehameha III Elementary. 

The department hasn’t decided if Hawaiian immersion students can remain on the temporary campus next year, and Keo said she’s still considering her family’s options for next year. Like McClintock, she’s not convinced students would be able to evacuate safely during emergencies but wants her children to remain in the same school as their peers. 

“I just want to keep my keiki wherever the majority goes,” Keo said.

This was originally published on .

The Hawaii Department of Education continues to be pressed to address community concerns around fire preparedness and health precautions at Lahaina’s reopened school campuses, including the lack of transport at Lahainaluna High if a mass evacuation was required.

The issue was raised Thursday, as the House Working Group on Schools heard public comment on its  recommending how Hawaii schools can better prepare for future fires and disasters. The working group, one of six  of the Aug. 8 wildfires, will release a final version of the report next month that will inform policy priorities ahead of the 2024 legislative session. 

Last month, students and faculty  to Princess Nahienaena Elementary, Lahaina Intermediate and Lahainaluna High despite community  that toxic ash from the nearby burn zone could contaminate the campuses. The DOE emphasized that extensive testing of air quality, water and soil indicated it was safe for students to return.

Princess Nahienaena’s campus is also hosting students and faculty from King Kamehameha III Elementary, whose campus was lost in the fires.

At Thursday’s Board of Education meeting, deputy superintendent Tammi Oyadomari-Chun said just over 2,000 students are enrolled in the four Lahaina schools, roughly 1,000 fewer students compared to the start of the year. Many students have relocated to other public schools on Maui or enrolled in non-public schools across the state.

Parents had already raised concerns that there was only one road in and out of the three Lahaina campuses at a community meeting in September. In response, DOE and Department of Transportation built an  days before schools were set to reopen. Justin Woodson, co-chair of the House working group, commended the DOE for the quick response. 

“It is one way in which we show how we can be more responsive to community concerns,” Woodson said. 

However Woodson questioned schools’ abilities to respond to future disasters. Currently, schools do not make their emergency action plans publicly available although the House draft report recommended that they do so. 

But DOE deputy superintendent Curt Otaguro said the department will not release the plans at this time. Emergency action plans can include sensitive information, including schools’ responses to security threats like active shooters, he said. 

He added that the department may reevaluate its stance to see if it could publicly release information about evacuation plans in the case of a fire. 

“We have nothing to hide,” Otaguro said. 

Students’ abilities to evacuate in the case of emergency was another point of concern for representatives. Right now, Otaguro said, some schools don’t have buses on campuses that could assist with the mass evacuation of students. For example, at Lahainaluna High, students would use personal vehicles or evacuate the campus by foot, Otaguro added.

“When you say that evacuation is reliant on personal vehicles, already that concerns me as a parent,” Woodson said.

DOE is discussing potential options for providing transportation to schools in the case of a mass evacuation, Otaguro said. He added that boarders at Lahinaluna High used personal vehicles to evacuate the campus on Aug. 8, although the school has since purchased transportation that can move boarders off-campus in the case of emergency.

Rep. Lisa Marten also recognized that some Lahaina parents have been following school air quality monitoring “like crazy” out of concerns that heavy winds in the burn zone could cause toxic dust to spread across the campuses. 

Students have also raised worries about the air quality following high winds at the high school over the past week, said Lavinia Tuavao-Tupou, a senior at Lahainaluna High who attended Thursday’s BOE meeting. She added that many of her peers didn’t attend school earlier in the week in response to the red flag warning issued for the state.

“The fear is still there,” Tuavao-Tupou said.

Air quality monitors are sensitive and may suddenly change in response to harmless activities, like weed whacking, that stir dust on campus, Otaguro said. But he recognized that DOE could provide additional communication to families explaining why air quality readings unexpectedly change during the day. 

In the case that students need to shelter in place if the air quality significantly worsens, some Lahaina classrooms will also need to be retrofitted with air conditioning, Otaguro added. 

“It’s a work in progress,” he said. 

Moving into the second half of the school year, DOE must address ongoing concerns about the housing insecurity of Lahaina students and teachers, Oyadomari-Chun said. In the Lahaina schools that reopened last month, just under half of the students had former home addresses that fell within the burn zone. 

“What we have concerns about is what’s going to happen in the long-run in terms of both staffing and student enrollment,”  Oyadomari-Chun said.

Lahaina schools will continue to offer free breakfast and lunch to all Lahaina students through the end of the school year, Oyadomari-Chun said. With donor support, DOE began offering free meals to all students when they first returned to campus, and the initiative will continue with the support of the Bezos Family Foundation and Marriott Foundation, she added. 

Gary Kanamori, principal at Princess Nahienaena Elementary, told the BOE that free meals will be vital in helping families transition back to school.

“Our entire school community will continue to rebuild and thrive,” he said.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Megan Cochran’s daughter attended preschool for the first time just days before the Lahaina wildfire. Even in her short time at Holy Innocents Preschool in Lahaina, Cochran saw her daughter thrive.

But after the Aug. 8 fire destroyed much of the seaside town, including Holy Innocents, Cochran struggled to find a new preschool on an island that already faced a child care shortage before the disaster.

“To have (preschool) taken away from her, it really affected her,” Cochran said, adding that she enrolled her daughter in Maui Adventist Pre-Elementary School in Kahului last month.

Lahaina, which had approximately 1,700 children ages 5 and under before the wildfires, lost 255 licensed child care seats in August. At least six Lahaina centers serving young children remain closed nearly three months after the deadly blaze, according to a , a child care resource and referral agency.

A ‘Deep Need’ For Child Care

The two Lahaina preschools that are open — The Preschool at Kapalua and Maui Preparatory Academy’s preschool program — are operating at full capacity, leaving many families without options as they return to work and try to rebuild after the fires. 

“We can’t get back to work, we can’t rebuild our homes or anything if we have little toddlers around who need so much attention,” Cochran said. 

Meanwhile, many providers who lost their centers in the fire face uncertainty about when and how they can start offering child care again. 

The loss of facilities has exacerbated a longstanding child care shortage.

Liz Turcik, director of admissions and a history teacher at Maui Preparatory Academy, said she has received calls from pregnant mothers asking to reserve waitlist spots for their unborn children.

Since August, she added, she’s received more desperate calls from parents asking if they can enroll their toddlers in the academy’s preschool.

“The fire has not changed that deep need for preschool programs,” Turcik said. 

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, who has made increasing preschool capacity in the state a signature issue, said the state has identified West Maui as a community with high child care needs.

She said that, even before the fires, Lahaina had no state-run preschool classrooms that were free of charge for families, although there was a federally funded Head Start program.

Now, with heightened demand for child care in Lahaina, the state is considering how quickly it could open public preschool facilities on Princess Nahienaena Elementary’s campus, Luke said, referring to one of the recently reopened Lahaina schools.

As some families leave Lahaina or remain out of work, child care remains essential for helping students heal and socialize after the fires, said Kaina Bonacorsi, the early childhood resource coordinator for Maui County.

Unclear Timelines For Rebuilding

Child care centers also provided families with a safe place to leave their children in the days after the worst U.S. wildfire in modern history as parents visited resource hubs and sought aid from state agencies, Bonacorsi added. 

Recognizing this need, , a nonprofit providing educational programs across the state, offered free child care in Kahului until mid-September. Dana Vela, the program’s president and CEO, said her organization was able to find permanent placements for several families in child care centers elsewhere on Maui.

“It comes down to the stability of the children,” Vela said. 

But uncertainty remains around finding long-term child care solutions for Lahaina. 

Children of the Rainbow Preschool was a child care fixture in the Lahaina community from the 1970s, when it first operated under the name Lahaina Preschool. The preschool served 36 students before the fires and had a waitlist of three years, said director Noelle Kamaunu.

Kamaunu hasn’t been able to visit her school since the fires. From what she can see from Google Maps and drone footage of the burn zone, she believes the preschool’s main building was completely destroyed.

Kamaunu said she is unsure if she should reopen in a temporary location or wait until she can completely rebuild the school at its original location. She added that she has no idea when she could start the school’s construction in Lahaina.

“I’m just looking at all the options and really just trying to figure out what would be the right thing to do at this time,” Kamaunu said.

In the meantime, Kamaunu said, she’s applied for a public assistance grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help cover the cost of her school’s losses, which she estimates to be at least $1 million.

Adam Weintraub, communication director for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said nonprofit daycares and preschools can apply for public assistance grants if they have also applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration. Between SBA loans and public assistance grants, child care providers may qualify for aid covering the full value of their losses in the fire, Weintraub said. 

Adam Weintraub, communication director for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said nonprofit daycares and preschools can apply for public assistance grants if they have also applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration. Between SBA loans and public assistance grants, child care providers may qualify for aid covering the full value of their losses in the fire, Weintraub said. 

Before the fire, Sacred Hearts School in Lahaina enrolled 48 students in its early learning center and junior kindergarten program. Although the school’s campus was lost to the fires, kindergarten to eighth grade students have resumed classes at the Sacred Hearts Mission Church in Kapalua. 

But because child care centers have different facility requirements than primary schools, Sacred Hearts’ preschool has yet to reopen, said early learning center and junior kindergarten director Kawailani Silva. Sacred Hearts is looking for other spaces for a temporary preschool, but the process has been slow, Silva said.

She added that families are frustrated with the lack of available child care options, especially when many are nervous to send their children to programs on the other side of the island.

“We need these programs,” Silva said. 

High Demand, Limited Options

Lahaina’s Head Start, a federal initiative which provides free preschool and family services to eligible 3- and 4-year-olds, operated on Princess Nahienaena’s campus before the fires, said Debbi Amaral, director of early childhood services at Maui Economic Opportunity.

While Princess Nahieanena reopened to elementary students last month, Head Start has yet to welcome back students. The program’s large shade structure was badly damaged from heavy winds during the fire and has yet to be replaced, Amaral said. She hopes Lahaina’s Head Start will reopen to students in January, if not earlier. 

At Maui Prep, the preschool program had enrolled a maximum of 32 students at the start of the year, and its waitlist has more than doubled from 20 to 45 students, Turcik said. She added that the annual tuition for the preschool is $8,856, although the school is offering financial aid to preschool families this year.

Head of School Miguel Solis said Maui Prep hopes to expand its preschool capacity by 13 students next year in response to the high number of families without child care after the fires. 

“There really aren’t a lot of options for preschoolers to attend school, and it was already difficult to begin with,” Solis said. 

But, he added, he’s unsure how difficult it will be to add another preschool teacher amid the state’s ongoing shortage of child care providers. 

Vela echoed Solis’ concerns, adding that, even if more spaces become available to host child care programs, she’s unsure how many Lahaina providers will be able to immediately return to work. 

More assistance was offered in late October when the Department of Health opened its Child Care Subsidy Program for families impacted by the Lahaina fire and waived past eligibility requirements such as families’ income cap.

As of Oct. 31, DHS had received 110 applications for the program, Scott Morishige, benefits, employment and support services division administrator at DHS, said in an emailed statement. The program helps to cover the costs of child care, and payments for eligible families will run for 12 months, Morishige added. 

Moving forward, Kamaunu said the state must recognize child care as a means of revitalizing the community after the fires. In the meantime, she added, she’ll continue to consider her reopening options and wait for more information about rebuilding in Lahaina.

“It has to get better,” Kamaunu said. “That’s all I know.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Robert Livermore’s wish list for his new classroom includes staplers, pencil sharpeners and other basic supplies. But some items in his destroyed King Kamehameha III Elementary classroom can’t be replaced anytime soon — hundreds of dollars worth of Lego bricks, a huge rug displaying the letters of the alphabet and parachute projects his first grade students made every year.

As he prepares to welcome students back to Lahaina, he wishes he had said goodbye to his classroom before the deadly Aug. 8 wildfire consumed the school along with hundreds of other buildings.

“I didn’t get to take anything with me,” Livermore said. “I’m going to start all over again from scratch.”

Three surviving Lahaina schools, which temporarily closed because of the fire, are set to reopen their campuses next week. Educators began preparing for the reopening with concern high about students’ mental health, new classroom arrangements and lost learning time.

Many teachers also question how they can offer stability to their students despite the upheaval in their own lives and a lack of clarity over the number of children returning to campuses and logistical arrangements.

Safety Concerns

Some have chosen not to return to jobs in the historic Maui town and have sought alternative teaching arrangements. The Department of Education said that, while a majority of educators will be returning to Lahaina, a small number of teachers has sought temporary relocations. The DOE didn’t specify how many teachers will not be returning to the Lahaina campuses next week.

The phased reopening will begin with Lahainaluna High on Monday, followed by Lahaina Intermediate School on Tuesday and Princess Nahienaena Elementary on Wednesday. Students from King Kamehameha III will be able to attend classes in tent-like structures on Princess Nahienaena’s campus until  next year.

That adds to the uncertainty. Livermore has yet to be assigned a teaching space and doesn’t know how many students he’ll have.

Livermore predicts that his class size may be much smaller than usual because some students may not return to campus amid questions about  after the devastating fire leveled a large swath of Lahaina, leaving a path of toxic debris and worries about air pollution.

The DOE has said extensive testing of air, drinking water and soil quality has indicated that it is safe for students and staff to return to the three schools, which were not in the scorched area known as the burn zone.

Former King Kamehameha III educator Justin Hughey wasn’t reassured by the tests and recently chose to relocate to Kahului Elementary, despite teaching in Lahaina for almost 17 years. Hughey said he feels unsafe teaching so close to the site of the fires, especially when strong winds or demolition could disturb the ash and soil at the burn zone in the future.

“Maybe the water is fine right now. Maybe the air is fine right now. Maybe the soil is OK right now, but it’s only a matter of time,” Hughey said.

Sen. Angus McKelvey echoed those concerns in a letter he sent to the DOE on Wednesday, urging the department to delay the schools’ reopening until more extensive testing can be done. While the Environmental Protection Agency  to prevent ash from spreading, McKelvey worries that it won’t be enough and students and teachers may be exposed to unknown toxins near the schools.

“We’re talking about people’s children here, their number one possession they have left in the world,” McKelvey said. “So that’s even more of a reason why they should be moving cautiously.”

Prioritizing Recovery

Following the fires, learning options for Lahaina students ranged from attending in-person classes in Central and South Maui to enrolling in online instruction. But, teachers say, a focus on social-emotional learning has taken precedence over the lessons they typically introduce at the start of the year.

In a preview of what’s to come, Lahainaluna High teachers have already adjusted their lesson plans after starting school in September in temporary accommodations on Kulanihakoi High’s campus.

Lahainaluna High teacher Jarrett Chapin said his students appeared more resilient than he had expected, although he is sure the fires are always on their minds.

To make his English language arts lessons more therapeutic, Chapin said he focused on the themes of nature in the first quarter, with students analyzing the works of Robert Frost, watching a documentary about wild dogs in Turkey and writing their own poetry reflecting on the destruction and beauty of fires. 

“Generally, it did look like high school work,” Chapin said. “It was maybe just not as rigorous.” 

Even as she incorporated meditation exercises and guided coloring activities into her own lessons, Lahainaluna High science teacher Jacquelyn Ellis said she remains concerned about her students’ well-being, adding that many have been reluctant to talk about the events of the past two months.

Currently, four behavioral health specialists and 11 school counselors serve Lahaina schools, with 20 additional mental health staff members being assigned to schools on the island starting next week, DOE spokeswoman Nanea Kalani said.  

While it is important for schools to have therapy readily available for students, teens may feel most comfortable processing trauma with one another, said Liz Hartline, an assistant professor of early childhood education at Honolulu Community College. She added that it is important for students to have the freedom to simply connect with their friends.

In Paradise, California, teachers and administrators who faced similar devastation in their communities following the 2018 Camp Fire say the return to campus won’t be easy but the camaraderie forged among surviving families will help.

Paradise Junior High School principal Larry Johnson said “community was everything” after the fire, with students attending school even though it had temporarily relocated to a hardware store.

“There were very traditional schools that they easily could have enrolled in, but instead chose to go to school in a hardware store because they needed to be around each other and their teachers,” Johnson said.

Return To The Classroom

Driving to Lahainaluna High for a teacher workday on Friday morning, Ellis said she got a little teary as she returned to the school for the first time since the fire. Once at school, she saw that some teachers still had the date of the fires written on their whiteboards, while she tried not to look at the nearby burn zone.

“There’s little reminders all around,” Ellis said. “It’s a big mixture I would say of, excited to be back here but also just still mourning everything.”

Ellis spent the day setting up microscopes and preparing for a lab on the properties of water, although she also is unsure exactly how many students will be returning to her classes after fall break. 

In a letter sent to families last Friday, complex area superintendent Rebecca Winkie said the DOE is revising schools’ emergency action plans to respond to the possible need for mass evacuations. The letter also said each classroom will be equipped with HEPA air filters, and schools will continue to monitor air quality sensors every day.

Still, it’s likely to be a “rocky” transition for some returning students and families, Hartline said families. She said it can be soothing for children if families and teachers introduce and stick to new school routines.

Heather Brown, a teacher at Paradise Junior High School, said teachers tried to offer students some sense of normalcy following the 2018 fires. She took students on occasional field trips to a nearby ice cream store and helped prepare the sixth grade class for its annual camping trip. 

“As horrific as that fire was, I have to say, a lot of us look back at that time we spent with each other and the stories we share fondly,” Brown said.

At Lahainaluna High, Ellis hopes to keep traditions alive as the senior class adviser. The school will celebrate a belated homecoming week during students’ first days back on campus, Ellis said, adding that she hopes the theme of “Luna Strong” will promote unity and pride. 

Chapin is worried students may have trouble coping if their families lose their temporary housing or their parents remain out of work. But, he added, he’s determined to show up for his school – starting with repainting his room light orange and blue to brighten up his students’ moods.  

“Education can make people feel better when it’s done right,” Chapin said.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

With Lahaina schools set to reopen in about two weeks, Stefanie Hegrenes said her two youngest children are ready for a semblance of normalcy and eager to return to their friends and extracurricular activities on campus.

But she’s not sure she’s ready to pull them out of the distance learning program they began attending along with hundreds of other children after the deadly Aug. 8 fire that left much of their town in ruins. One school — King Kamehameha III Elementary — was destroyed beyond repair, while the other three temporarily closed for repair and cleanup efforts.

In the coming days, Hegrenes hopes to see for herself if the three Lahaina schools set to reopen over three days beginning Oct. 16 have clean air and safe water. State education and health officials have repeatedly assured the public that extensive air, drinking water and soil quality testing at the schools .

“As a parent, I just want to make absolutely sure that my kids are going back to a safe environment,” Hegrenes said.

As concerns about schools’ reopening abound, Lahaina families continue to seek alternatives even as the DOE scales back its distance learning options. A waitlist for the , which provides in-person support for children taking online classes, suggests that demand remains high.

Distance Learning Hub To Close But Program Continues

The DOE plans to close the hub on Thursday, although the state distance learning program will remain open for families. The department is assessing families’ future plans before making staffing decisions, said Teri Ushijima, assistant superintendent for the DOE’s office of curriculum and instructional design.

Demand for distance learning spiked in late August and early September, with the DOE’s program increasing by approximately 500 Maui students as some parents sought alternatives to enrolling their children in schools elsewhere on the island that took in many of the displaced students. For comparison, the distance learning program currently enrolls 192 students elsewhere in the state, Ushijima said.

Many displaced families went from emergency shelters to federally funded hotel rooms and had lost their cars, making distance learning an attractive option. The state DOE also provided Chromebooks to students in the distance learning program and hotspots to families with connectivity issues.

The state’s learning hub at Citizen Church has served more than 350 additional Maui students, who are counted separately from those completing their classes entirely online, according to DOE spokeswoman Nanea Kalani. 

At the peak of families’ interest in distance learning, students enrolling in the program had to wait for three to four weeks to start their programs as the DOE ordered 400 more Chromebooks and assigned Lahaina educators to online classes, Ushijima said.

Hegrenes signed her two youngest children — a sixth and an eighth grader — up for the program at the end of August, but they ended up on a waitlist. With no indication how long they would have to wait, Hegrenes bought every homeschooling book she could find and set her children to completing activities via . 

She added that, during those two weeks of uncertainty, she briefly thought about moving her family to her home state of Minnesota, where the school year wouldn’t start until early September. 

Although the online application for Maui families to enroll in distance learning states that the program still has a waitlist, Ushijima said this information is incorrect. The department no longer has a waitlist, although it takes around five days for students to receive their Chromebooks and start their remote classes, Ushijima added. 

The distance learning hub in West Maui, however, currently has 58 students on its waitlist, Kalani said. 

Mindi Cherry is one of 18 Lahaina teachers temporarily reassigned to the state’s distance learning program. 

Cherry, who had been a first-grade teacher at King Kamehameha III Elementary, currently co-teaches an online kindergarten class consisting of four Lahaina students. Her daughter, a seventh grader originally enrolled at Lahaina Intermediate, also takes online classes as part of the DOE’s distance learning program.

As both a parent and teacher, Cherry said she understands the benefits of distance learning, adding that the flexibility of online classes provided her daughter with stability and allowed her students to remain with their families during the day. But she and her daughter both plan on returning to their respective Lahaina campuses in October.

‘I’m On A Waitlist Here, I’m On A Waitlist There’

Families have other options. When Rita McClintock heard about the DOE’s waitlist, she enrolled her daughter in , a charter school offering hybrid and distance learning options to students across the state. Within a month of the fires, HTA opened a new campus in Lahaina, enrolling over 115 students in kindergarten to eighth grade who attend classes at the school two to three times a week. 

Once again, families’ demand exceeded available space: interim executive director Matt Zitello said HTA’s waitlist quickly filled to 300 students, forcing the school to close its applications in early September. Some of the families at the Lahaina campus sought out HTA after unsuccessful efforts to enter the DOE’s distance learning program, Zitello said. 

“A few families had said, ‘Oh, I’m on a waitlist here, I’m on a waitlist there,’” Zitello said. “They’re dismayed by the fact that they didn’t get into us.” 

Smaller-scale efforts also emerged to meet families’ educational needs after the fires. McClintock runs a learning group for Lahaina families, relying on community volunteers and donations to teach approximately 20 kindergarten to sixth grade students for four hours a day. McClintock said half of her families came to her learning group when they were unable to transport their children to and from the West Maui learning hub, which provides instruction in two-and-a-half hour blocks. 

While McClintock plans on ending her learning group once Lahaina schools reopen, HTA has no intention of closing down its Lahaina campus. Instead, the school plans to hire more staff and relocate to a permanent location pending final approval from the State Public Charter School Commission, Zitello said.

He added that, despite the DOE’s announcement to reopen Lahaina schools, he has not heard of many families who plan on leaving HTA.

McClintock plans to keep her daughter enrolled since she appreciates the school’s stability and challenging curriculum.

“She’s in the program that’s right for her,” McClintock said. 

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

This story was originally published in .