Over 60% of Hawaii public schools have fire alarm issues
By Diane Ako
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HONOLULU (KITV) — Many of Hawaii’s public schools have fire alarm issues. An update from the Department of Education on Thursday shows 61% of schools have either a fire alarm system considered “inoperable,” or a system that works but is so old there aren’t replacement parts for when it breaks. That’s what the DOE reported to the Board of Education’s meeting.
DOE Deputy Superintendent of Operations Curt Otaguro listed statistics from his report: “As of April 1, 2024, the status of school fire alarm systems is as follows:
22 schools have inoperable fire alarm systems and have resorted to implementing a manual fire watch plan. 68 schools are equipped with operable fire alarm systems that exceed 20 years in age, with no replacement parts available. 71 schools maintain operable fire alarm systems, either 20 years old or with unavailable replacement parts. 102 schools are equipped with operable fire alarm systems, with ages not exceeding 20 years and readily available replacement parts.” That’s 11% of thestate’s public schools that do not have a working fire alarm system. Another 50% of schools have fire alarms with no replacement parts. The DOE said repeatedly it’s their highest priority to fix but would need funding from the Legislature.
The fire watch mentioned in item number one, above, means people literally watch for signs of a fire and then report it.
The DOE is also looking to supplement a fire watch with giving staffers a wearable device to dispatch a fire alert quicker. That would give school staff members a wearable device to trigger a fire alarm event. Upon activation, the device promptly sends an alert along with location information to the Revolution mass notification system.
This system then initiates two simultaneous actions:
Dispatches a fire alert message to all school phones and Internet Protocol (IP) speakers, activating fire drill protocols until canceled by school administrators; Notifies designated school administrators, including principals, vice principals, and other pre-designated staff members, of the fire alert and the location where the alert originated, all through the Safety Shield mobile application.
Otaguro reported the pilot program at Kapalama Elementary School had a successful fire drill on March 28.
There was frustration from the board as to why this is moving slower than they’d like. BOE Chair Ken Kuraya asked, “You’ve been on this a few months. Does it keep you up at night?”
Audrey Hidano, Interim Assistant Superintendent of the DOE Office of Facilities and Operations Facilities Development Branch, answered that it hasn’t yet been four months that they’ve worked on it, and “I’ll move forward with what I can do.”
The DOE also clarified just because one school’s fire alarm system is listed as “inoperable” doesn’t mean the whole system is broken. Otaguro gave the example given that an elevator could be broken but the rest of the alarm still works. Otaguro assured the board they have a long term plan in place for improving this.
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