As Maui fire losses mount, schools struggle with a plan to reopen
LAHAINA, Hawaii - In the heart of Lahaina along historic Front Street, King Kamehameha III Elementary School - Kam III to locals - once featured idyllic ocean views, fluttering butterflies and swaying trees. But the deadliest wildfires in modern U.S. history left the seaside school in ruins, the new school year halted before it ever began.
Three other Lahaina schools - Lahainaluna High School, Lahaina Intermediate School and Princess Nāhi’ena’ena Elementary School - are closed until air and water quality tests determine they are safe, amid fears of toxic plumes due to the fire. A heavy-duty cleanup of all three will be required even if testing eventually eases those worries.
The losses, permanent and temporary, have left 3,000 students and 400 staff members displaced without a clear path forward. Teachers, students, parents and Hawaii Department of Education officials say they are stretched in all directions as they grapple with ensuring safety, honoring widespread grief and restoring a central pillar of civic life - educating children.
The Department of Education first suggested, days after the fire, that families needed to swiftly enroll in schools elsewhere on the island and start classes this week. It abandoned the proposal - though voluntary re-enrolling is allowed - after a storm of protests that it imposed complicated demands on people who in many cases no longer have cars or homes, and required decisions from families still reeling from the depth of their losses.
Families and teachers, in the meantime, are divided: Some say they aren’t ready to return at all, others are committed to attending class in or near Lahaina as soon as it’s safe, and some cannot bear the thought of being separated during the school day. Still others want to relocate to different schools - or even move off the island - to find a semblance of normalcy.
Luz Tumpap, a teacher at Kam III for nine years, is captive to all those desires.
Like hundreds of others, she lost her home in the fire. Since then, she and her two kids, 17-year-old Angela and 13-year-old John, students at Lahainaluna High and Lahaina Intermediate, have bounced from place to place. They spent the night of the fire at Maui High School in Kahului, about 24 miles away from Lahaina, then took refuge in a room above a local Filipino store in equally-distant Wailuku. Another three nights were spent to the south in Kihei: one at a clinic and two nights with Tumpap’s colleague. They returned to the room above the Filipino store until Saturday, when the family of three was provided a Lahaina hotel room for a month by the Red Cross. She’s not sure what’s next - but she knows she can’t teach again any time soon.
“I need to get away from all of the chaos. I have anxiety. I’m shivering every time I hear sirens. I don’t feel safe. My biggest concern is a safe place for me and my family to stay,” said Tumpap, 43. “I’m not rushing my kids to go back to school, either. I want my kids - and my students - to be mentally ready for school.”
Tumpap is considering relocating - at least for a while. She has a brother in Las Vegas and an aunt in Oahu, Hawaii. Some time away will allow her to gather herself, she said, and maybe she could teach elsewhere for some time. The thought of driving through Lahaina’s charred streets, of seeing where her home once stood, makes her sick.
“Kam III is always going to be my ohana. I love my ohana,” she said through tears, using the Hawaiian word for family. “But I can’t go back right now. I feel so guilty, too, for not wanting to go back.”
Her kids, however, are adamant that they stay in West Maui, arguing against even a temporary relocation. Angela and John say they want to go back to their Lahaina schools, or not at all.
“I need to make a decision,” Tumpap sighed.
Tumpap and all West Maui public school teachers are on paid administrative leave until Wednesday. The state Department of Education has been reassessing that status every few days and extending leave on a week by week basis, officials said. Some teachers told The Washington Post this leaves them in an anxious limbo, unable to determine their own plans. Others say it makes them feel rushed to return.
“It’s hard to know what’s going on,” said Monica Wilfong, a teacher at Lahaina Intermediate for eight years. Wilfong lost her home in the fire. “My daughter is supposed to start kindergarten. It’s hard to make personal, family decisions if they’re giving administrative leave piece by piece.”
Between the terror her family endured and concerns around lingering toxins, Wilfong said it’s way too soon to consider parting ways with her daughter or returning to teach. “I need time. I know education is important. But I want to ensure our heads aren’t spinning as we walk down this spiral staircase,” she said.
Nanea Kalani, spokesperson for the Hawaii Department of Education, acknowledged the delicacy of the situation.
“Many have lost their homes, have lost family members. And so it’s this balance between being sensitive and mindful of that and allowing them to reestablish themselves in their own time,” she said. “But also being able to make sure that, when ready, all students can access education again.”
The “vast majority” of Lahaina teachers are accounted for, but at least a quarter of West Maui teachers lost their homes, Kalani said. It’s unclear how many students were impacted - but officials are braced for a large toll.
Kalani, too, was affected by the fire. She grew up on Lahaina’s now-charred Front Street and attended Kam III elementary. The house she lived in until she was 8 is also gone, she said.
Initial data regarding the surviving schools’ air and water quality could come this week, allowing the agency to begin moving forward on decisions for reopening them. “But as of right now, no concrete dates,” Kalani told The Post. If teachers are asked to report as early as Wednesday, she said, it’s to take “stock of where everyone is at and what they want to do. Do they want to be reassigned to another campus? Do they want to take leave? All options are on the table for them.”
Education department liaisons at shelters and hotels are keeping a pulse on families’ and students’ desires, she said. Kalani said the district “heard loud and clear” that most families want to stay near Lahaina.
So the department is now pursuing two plans simultaneously: The first is the possibility of reopening Lahaina Intermediate, Princess and Lahainaluna, and the second establishing a satellite campus wherever it can find room in West Maui, in case none of the three schools can reopen “in a reasonable amount of time,” she said. The timeline is murky and complicated by Hawaii state law, which requires 180 days of instruction each school year to ensure that schools retain accreditation.
FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said in a briefing on Air Force One Monday en route to Maui that the agency will work with Gov. Josh Green (D) to help bring students back to school. “Does he want a temporary school close to where people are, or have them attend the other schools around Maui, if that’s sufficient? Whichever path he wants to go is what we’ll support,” she said.
Parents said that they are navigating a maze of difficult decisions.
Tiffany Montiel, 32, lives mere minutes from Lahainaluna and Princess. Her family had just moved from Napili to her ancestral home in Lahaina two months ago.
Luckily it survived, but after days of deliberation, Montiel booked flights out of Maui for three of her four kids. She and her husband will stay in Maui, while her 13-year-old, 5-year-old and 3-year-old will stay with her in-laws and enroll in school in California - beginning 8th grade, kindergarten and preschool more than 2,000 miles away from home. They leave Tuesday.
Her eldest, a 14-year-old who was supposed to begin high school at Lahainaluna two weeks ago, will stay in Maui, too, in hopes that the school reopens soon. While her younger kids were ready, even excited, to head off to school away from Maui, Montiel said, she knew her eldest would have trouble leaving friends and the school she’d been looking forward to attending.
No option seems like the best decision, though, Montiel said. At home, she’s concerned about the air quality and the ongoing uncertainty. Sending her kids away - to what feels like safety and normalcy - means breaking up her family. “I have cried so many times over it already,” Montiel said. “The hope was for them to all be here, to stay here, to be with their friends.”
If a nearby alternative for school doesn’t open soon for her eldest daughter, Montiel isn’t sure what she will do.
Other parents have opted for more certainty, already enrolling their kids in schools elsewhere on the island. About 400 West Maui students have enrolled in other schools, Kalani said. Another 200 had signed up for the agency’s distance learning program - which remains a limited option, due to the area’s lack of power and WiFi.
Ariele Balagso, 42, said she felt compelled to find consistency for her 8-year-old twins. The fire spared their home, but they haven’t been able to return to it. They’ve camped out at a hotel, taken refuge with family in Wailuku and recently found temporary housing in Kihei. On Saturday afternoon, Xavier and Abigail ran around firing Nerf guns at each other at a community relief hub - just down the street from where they would have attended Princess Elementary.
Despite being unsure where they’ll live long-term, Balagso enrolled her kids in a school in Wailuku, about 22 miles from Lahaina, where their first day of class was Wednesday. Her kids, normally rambunctious, were quiet as they left for school, and afterward, Balagso said.
“We’re just not sure how long it’ll be, with cleanup, water safety. It’s a lot to think about,” she said of the timing for schools reopening in Lahaina. “But we’re just not wanting them to fall behind. We have children who already dealt with covid. It’s just about giving them normalcy and friends to socialize with, and give them something back that the fires took away.”
Xavier and Abigail, 8, told The Post they don’t know how to feel about their new school. They’re scared that there will be bullies, and miss the friends they had at Princess, they said.
“We don’t know what normal looks like for our children anymore,” Balagso said. “We’re just trying to do our best by them.”
Xavier waved for his mom’s attention. “My other friend, we couldn’t find him,” he said. “Can we visit him next weekend?” Balagso pursed her lips, and said they’d try.
Many kids remain unaccounted for, Balagso whispered: “I’m not even ready to have that conversation yet.”
At the Tumpap family’s hotel room, 17-year-old Angela remained resolute about returning to Lahainaluna, dismissing her mother’s desire to leave the island. She will be starting her senior year of high school, she said, and she had been looking forward to graduation day since she arrived.
She listed her friends, the teachers she loved and the way that an ice-cream truck often stood just outside the campus at the end of the day - the perfect treat after classes. But more than that, she said, it’s just the school itself. Nestled into the hillside overlooking Lahaina, it has a sweeping view of the sprawling town and a seemingly endless stretch of the glistening Pacific.
“I just love how the town looks from that view,” she said, pausing and staring off, as if seeing a place that no longer exists.
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Meryl Kornfield contributed to this report.
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Video: After the Aug. 8th wildfires in Maui, Hawaii, all four public schools in Lahaina remained closed, displacing over 3,000 students. Maui Preparatory Academy, a private school in northwest Maui was not impacted by the fires. On Aug. 14, the school started taking applications from displaced students, receiving over 500 applications for around 50 vacant spots.(REF:kirpalanir/The Washington Post)
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