LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Children take their places at folding tables in a church yard several miles from where their school burned. Plastic containers contain new textbooks that are quickly shipped by a publisher. Recess is at the resort’s golf course across the street.
The wind-driven wildfire that devastated the historic town of Lahaina on Maui this summer displaced many students not only from their homes but also from their schools, forcing their families and education officials to scramble to find other ways. to teach them.
Now, more than two months after the Aug. 8 wildfire killed at least 98 people, the three public schools that survived will reopen this week, posing an emotional crossroads for traumatized children and their families as they decide whether to return. to those schools. campus or continue in the other schools that welcomed them.
Some parents said they will not return their children because they worry the fire left behind toxins, despite assurances from education officials that the campuses are safe.
“I feel optimistic about it and grateful to be able to come back,” said Cailee Cuaresma, a 10th grader at Lahainaluna Middle School. “I’m grateful our school is still standing.”
Third-grade students at Sacred Hearts School pet Quincy, a comfort dog from Assistance Dogs of Hawaii, at Sacred Hearts Mission Church on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023.AP
For the past month, Lent has attended classes at the makeshift campus of Sacred Hearts School, a Catholic school founded in 1862. Most of the school burned, but its leaders quickly got classes up and running at the Sacred Heart Mission Church. Hearts, 10 miles (16 kilometers) away.
Sacred Hearts and other private schools around the state took in students displaced from public schools, like Lent, and offered a year of free tuition. Other students traveled by bus more than 45 minutes to public schools on the other side of Maui or opted for remote classes.
On a recent school day at the temporary Sacred Hearts site, teachers moved students between shaded areas to keep them away from the relentless Lahaina sun. Principal Tonata Lolesio told students gathered on padded benches in a chapel that it could be two years before they can return to a rebuilt school.
Sacred Hearts School Principal Tonata Lolesio, pictured during an interview at her temporary school. AP
“Pray that it can be sooner,” he said.
Meanwhile, space limitations force students to attend classes on staggered days. Workers have been preparing an adjacent lawn for tents to allow at least the youngest children to attend school daily.
Lent sat with a group of younger students petting a golden retriever brought in by Assistance Dogs of Hawaii. Her house survived the fire, but her father recently got his job back at a hotel. Being at Sacred Hearts was a good opportunity because the work was challenging, she said.
A public school in Lahaina, King Kamehameha III Elementary School, was destroyed. Students there will share space with Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary School, which was closed for cleaning after the fire along with Lahainaluna High and Lahaina Intermediate.
Students from Sacred Hearts School walk back to their temporary school after recess.AP
Schools are just blocks from potentially dangerous ash piles, prompting concern among parents, but education officials have said air quality testing shows it is safe to reopen.
“He’s not going to take a step back there,” said Tiffany Teruya, mother of a Lahaina Intermediate eighth-grade student.
She and her son, Pu’uwai Naho’oikaika, have been staying in a hotel since the apartment building caught fire. She has been participating in a Hawaiian immersion program connected to Lahaina Intermediate.
After the school closed, the program held classes outdoors, away from the burned area, and focused on cultural learning, such as making bamboo trumpets and working in taro orchards.
Sacred Hearts School second grade teacher Courtney Copriviza interacts with fourth grade students.AP
Teruya doesn’t know where she will send her son once the school reopens and the immersion program returns to campus, she said.
Debbie Tau’s two children will not return to their schools in Lahaina because she, too, is concerned the air is unsafe. They live in a Lahaina neighborhood north of the burned area. She plans to drive them after fall break, when the school district stops offering bus transportation to other schools in Kihei, about 45 minutes away.
“Asbestos is something that really scares me because it is carcinogenic. And within 10, 20, 30 years, our children could have cancer,” she said. “I feel like it’s like going back to COVID, where every decision you make is wrong and you’re putting your kids’ lives at risk.”
Sacred Hearts School second-grade teacher Courtney Copriviza interacts with fourth-graders at her temporary school.AP
Some of the public school students who have joined private schools plan to stay. Patrick Williams said the first time he saw his son Kupa’a praying at Sacred Hearts reminded him of his own childhood in Mississippi.
“I thought, ‘Oh, this is where I should have been all along,’” Williams said.
The family, whose home was not affected by the fire, will make sacrifices to pay for tuition, especially since Williams lost most of its Lahaina water supply routes to the fire.
The difficult circumstances have led teachers to try different ways to connect with displaced students.
Fifth-grade students at Sacred Hearts School draw hearts at their temporary school at Sacred Hearts Mission Church on Oct. 3. AP
At Maui Preparatory Academy, which at one point had housed 150 public school students, science and math teacher Gabby Suzik said she often visits her Lahainaluna High School students who lost their homes. Suzik lost the house she and her husband bought last year on Lahaina’s Front Street.
When some students showed up at Maui Prep with no shoes, no backpack and no pencil, she told them not to worry and noticed he was wearing borrowed clothes.
“I just like to be honest with them and say, ‘Hey, you know, I understand what you’re going through and you can talk to me anytime,’” Suzik said.
Third-grade students at Sacred Hearts School read a book during an English language arts class at their temporary school at Sacred Hearts Mission Church on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.AP
During a Hawaiian culture lesson at Sacred Hearts, teacher Charlene Ako sought to make connections with third-grade students at Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary School by showing them a photo of the princess with a necklace of bird feathers around her head, a symbol of monarchy that once ruled. the Hawaiian kingdom.
Ako had students draw native Hawaiian birds. Maile Asunción, 9, drew a red iiwi, also known as a scarlet honeycreeper.
Until the age of 7, she and her family lived in a cabin behind her grandfather’s house, near the historic Waiola Church, which burned down, and where the princess is buried. The cabin burned down, as did her grandfather’s house, forcing him to move to Kihei.
Maile and her family have not been able to return to their new home in a condominium, which survived but is located in the burned area. They now live in the hotel where her father works.
Many of Maile’s friends have dropped out of school, including her best friend, whom she desperately wants to see again: “She’s still in Maui. But I don’t know where she is now.” _ Associated Press religion coverage is supported through AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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