A quarter century… that’s about how long I’ve been doing this “Think About It” thing- 18+ years (twice a week) on KHNL/KFVE, and now six years in MidWeek. For this piece, I was a bit stunned when I went back through my “TAI” archives and looked for stories I did about the lack of breathable air in our public school classrooms.
It was almost 15-years ago. A very pregnant substitute teacher I met told me that she almost fainted in classroom that day due to the extreme heat. I opined, and a benevolent local retailer immediately provided 25 portable fans to her school. Parents regaled me with their schooldays tales of heatstroke suffering- 30+ years earlier.
As I perused the middle era of the 2,200 or so editorials I’ve written/aired, I realized just how many stories- though ancient- still (sadly) resonate today. So if you go on vacation or visit a black hole in space, no need to take your phone for news updates; nothing much changes…
I didn’t even go back to the beginning of the “TAI” era (2/2/2001); I just checked a few editorials from 10-15 years ago, and voila- same old, same old. I found my “Not Cool At All” editorial about the profound lack of school air quality from February 7, 2011. I begged for no more hot air from legislators touting “the keiki are our future” (not if they can’t breathe or think). This specific topic was committee-ized and studied for decades.
By May, 2016 (five years later), $100 million was (finally) approved by state legislators to cool up to 1,0000 classrooms through a “Cool Classrooms Initiative”. Yippee! Yet the Office of the Auditor’s Report No. 25-09 which came out last month (yes- August, 2025) revealed “…a stark picture of wasted money, poor planning and unmet promises”, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Stunned folks probably heard about this while trespassing on the Stairway to Heaven trail, or avoiding rebar while swimming at the Waikiki Natatorium, or “Not-atorium”, as I labeled it in a July 28, 2014 piece, which followed lamenting in a May 26, 2014 piece; another plea appeared on May 6, 2013, and another on… well, you get the dilapidated picture.
The overall AC/air reparations failure at local schools (perhaps AC stands for “All Clueless”?) hammers home why many taxpayers get flustered and (sadly) give the “ainokea” hands up gesture decade after decade.
Think about it…