Teachers, parents speak out about mold, other problems at Kona-area elementary school

According to Okita, Hōlualoa Elementary is “in a crisis.”

“We know that there are maintenance issues statewide. We know that there are problems with buildings statewide. We are having this because Hōlualoa is in a crisis. They’re in a situation that is more acute. And we are seeing those problems and we aren’t getting the answers that the teachers and the community need in order to know that their students and the staff are being kept safe,” Okita said.

One of Hawaii’s oldest public schools, Hōlualoa Elementary was founded in 1895 and has close to 500 students and about 50 faculty and staff. Despite the best efforts from the principal and custodial staff, the campus is ridden with problems, ranging from rats to rapidly-growing mold.

Teachers say that the mold problem is “pervasive” all over campus. Last month, the mold caused two classrooms to temporarily relocate to the library and cafeteria.

In addition, some classroom carpeting is more than 20 years old and in poor condition, with some portions being held together with duct tape. For the last three years, teachers have been told the old carpets will be removed to help prevent mold, but the carpets remain in classrooms.

Paint containing lead is peeling off the ceiling of a third-grade classroom, and rats infest classroom spaces. Educators have even found rat droppings on classroom materials, and traps killed two rats in a classroom a few weeks ago.

The structural integrity of several buildings on campus concerns teachers and administrators. The largest student public restroom on campus was closed in January due to concrete pieces falling from the exterior walls. Although it has since been deemed safe to reopen by state structural engineers, longer-term repairs are still needed.

Termite damage throughout the older buildings on campus may be contributing to potential problems with buildings’ foundations. Some supports to buildings have appeared to move off their pylons, a problem that may be exacerbated by volcanic earthquakes on the Kona side of Hawaiʻi Island.

Teachers, parents detail issues with mold, termites, rats

During Monday’s news conference, teachers and parents spoke about the deteriorated condition of the school.

Hōlualoa Elementary first-grade teacher Courtney D’Agostino said the mold is so severe in her classroom that last Friday was her last day of teaching before going on medical leave to attend to her health.

“My own health has been severely impacted. Over the past six months, I’ve been in and out on medical leave. I am not someone who suffers from allergies, nor do I have underlying health conditions…yet here I am and mold is attacking my system. Friday was my last day on campus for a while. It’s for an extended time, I’m not sure when I’ll be back, and I’ve missed a lot of school, and that leaves me not teaching our keiki,” she said.

Jennifer Gillette is a parent of two children who attend Hōlualoa Elementary, both of whom are displaced from their classrooms due to mold growth.

“We need more help. It can’t be just the teachers who are trying to keep their classrooms clean. We need help from our state. It’s really just unacceptable and us waiting till our teacher gets sick with mold, and now my daughter’s education is being impacted, it’s just pure negligence on the state’s part,” she said.

Lisa Vail, the school’s student services coordinator, has worked at Hōlualoa Elementary since 1991 and considers it “home.” Maintenance issues on campus have spanned her entire career at the school.

“I started here in 1991 as a special education teacher, I started in a little portable off the side of the main buildings that was termite infested and is still termite infested. My educational assistant (EA) and myself used to staple butcher paper on the ceiling to contain all the termite droppings so they quit falling on my kids in their desks,” Vail said.

Just as recently as 2020 in the height of COVID-19, Vail recalls being on Zoom meetings and seeing when “rats would crawl up and down the pipes” of her classroom.

Sarah Teehee, a Holualoa Elementary parent, vice president of the parent-teacher organization and a member of the school community council, said, “All classrooms on our campus have one or more safety or health risks, whether it be mold, whether it be 20 plus-year-old carpet over asbestos containing flooring, termite damage, structural questions about the building, weak spots or recently, lead-containing paint.

“Are any of these hazards acceptable to our essential teaching staff and to our students who spend an average of six to eight hours per day in these classrooms? We think not,” Teehee added.

Teehee has found that her interactions with the HIDOE “lacked transparency and a lack of a sense of urgency.

“I did not feel that caring connection that I want to feel when I’m talking to someone who is in a position of power, who can make choices about the health and safety of students and staff. I did not get that,” she added.

Watch this brief video that summarizes mold and rat problems along with other issues at the school.

HIDOE response lacks specificity, timelines

One of the main goals of teachers and parents at Hōlualoa Elementary is to secure a specific timeline and plan for maintenance projects, including seeing the HIDOE’s “master plan” for the school.

West Hawaiʻi UniServ Director Audra Zook has been organizing staff and parents alike at Hōlualoa Elementary for months to bring more attention to the issues plaguing the school. On Jan. 31, HSTA President Osa Tui, Jr. accompanied Zook on a campus tour to assess the conditions there.

The poor state of facilities have been on HIDOE’s radar since at least 2002, with no significant actions taken.

Zook recently started a collaborative document to chronicle all of the school’s lengthy maintenance needs and even invited HIDOE officials to view the document so they could see for themselves the problem areas not being addressed.

Parents were also notified of all of the problems at the school via letters from the school’s administration. Parents and teachers started a letter-writing campaign to state lawmakers asking for help.

In a media statement in response to HSTA’s news conference, HIDOE said after it received reports of poor indoor air quality and mold contamination, HIDOE’s Environmental Services Unit conducted a mold assessment at the school on Jan. 5.

The HSTA said at the end of that Jan. 5 walkthrough, at the insistence of teachers, mold samples were taken using Scotch tape and plastic baggies from a teacher’s desk, without using a proper mold testing kit.

HIDOE reported, “samples from four classrooms verified the presence of spores from common species of mold that may affect those who have sensitivity and/or allergies.”

Teachers have used their own personal funds to purchase mold test kits that showed the presence of mold in some classrooms.

In a media statement, HIDOE said it had provided “near-term, intermediate and long-term recommendations to the school,” including:

• Raising the temperature in the server room and/or insulating the shared walls to minimize condensation on adjacent classroom walls.
• Promoting cross-ventilation in all rooms during school hours by opening windows and exhausting air to the outside on one side of the room using fans to minimize condensation. (HSTA response: No additional fans were distributed to teachers or staff. Several older fans broke when they tried to reverse their direction to improve ventilation.)
• Deep cleaning of all rooms that have mold issues and increasing cleaning and upkeep by the school team and additional casual hires. (HSTA response: No professional cleaning service has been secured nor have teachers been given a schedule about when they should be out of classrooms.)
• Procuring dehumidifiers for each room and running them overnight to lower the relative humidity overnight. Initial sensor monitoring data is encouraging. (HSTA response: The school purchased humidifiers and delivered them to classrooms on Feb. 9. While this is a helpful first step, the humidifiers are not strong enough to handle large classrooms.)
• Removing carpets and painting of classroom with mold-inhibiting paint (longer term) (HSTA response: No specific timetable or plan has been communicated about how and when this will happen, other than saying some of the work will be carried out during spring and summer breaks)

HIDOE also reported that “efforts are in progress to initiate renovation of at least two portables that are currently vacant to increase classroom capacity while other classrooms are renovated,” offering no specifics on when that work will be completed.