The biggest boys in the class commandeer the seats in front of the fans.

It gets hot in Nanakuli, and in the power structure that takes shape among high school students struggling to sit through a lesson in a dingy, sweltering classroom, the most valuable commodity is a bit of cool air that really isn't very cool, just less hot. The strong ones get what they can and everyone else makes do with what's left.

This "making do" is played out across the campus of Nanakuli High and Intermediate, a place where students take pride in a rare patch of green grass growing well enough to have needed mowing; a place where head-high piles of broken desks and chairs and bookshelves decay in the rain and the sun for months, providing the perfect kindling for a malicious match and convenient hiding places for students cutting class; where bathrooms often have no toilet paper and never have soap.

Everyone here is making do with what they have.

When students at Nanakuli read about the governor's talk of a state budget surplus and plans for tax rebates, they looked at the crumbling walls of their school, the stained and sagging ceilings, the rat-chewed holes and sweat-soaked teachers and thought of a long list of ways that money could be put to use.

Janet Aipolani, 15, wants to be the first in her family to graduate from college. She hopes to attend a Mainland university, become a registered nurse and come back home to work in her community.

She's the kind of girl who can bust on a boy twice her height for using profanity — "Eh, watch your language!" — and get a smile and a gentle "Sorry, Janet" in response.

Janet fondly remembers her seventh-grade science class. They could do experiments then. Now, the science classrooms are too broken for the students to do lab work. There's no gas hooked up to the nozzles on the tall black tables. No Bunsen burners in sight. There's no water in most of the sinks. The safety shower is rusted and the stall is piled high with cardboard boxes. The First Aid kit is covered with dirt, tossed behind the smudged glass of an otherwise empty cabinet.

This classroom does have ceiling fans — brown-bladed rotors that look like they came out of some old restaurant — but they don't work.

"The fans are just for looks," says Kele Roberts, also a sophomore. Kele thinks about being a biology teacher someday. Or a veterinarian. He likes science. He leads the way to the teacher prep room at the back of the science class. Here, bottles of acid with rusty lids ooze and weep onto the shelves. The window is broken and there is a thick coating of blown-in dirt. Not dust, dirt. Cardboard boxes are stacked and strewn. The neatest shelf is the one holding the VHS cassettes.

"We don't do experiments, but they use science videos," says Thorne Michael Kahele-Fontanilla. He shrugs.

The attitude here, at least that of Janet, Kele, Thorne and classmate Kathern Kupa, is a balance of humble acceptance and soft-spoken indignation.

They know they shouldn't put up with this, but they know they have to. There's not much they can do.

Nanakuli has its own brand of pride. It has to do with how much you can endure and how little you can get by on.

"The thing that influences the students here is adversity," says Thorne.

The four students lead a tour of the "worst of" their campus. It's a disarmingly good-natured tour. They know it's bad, they want better, but they have school pride.

"See all the different color paint on the walls?" Janet and Kathern point. Kathern, an aspiring electrical engineer who also likes journalism, is shooting video. There are big patches of blue and black paint on the walls and different shades of brown. That's all to cover graffiti. The paint is donated, so it doesn't match the color of the walls and it looks terrible, but at least you can't read the swear words underneath.

In another building, the students point into a darkened room.

"Those students are sitting in the dark because it's a little cooler if the teacher turns off the light," Thorne explains.

The tour continues. Building after building. Classroom after classroom.

"This door has a lock but no door knob. This one has a knob but no lock. We're not rich enough to afford both," Kele jokes.

In one classroom, there's a repair request dated May 2001 taped to a cabinet door. The paper has grown brittle and there's graffiti on the tape. "Lock jammed on closet" the work request reads. The lock hasn't been fixed yet.

The examples go on and on, and the stories of what these teachers have to put up with and what these students have come to expect, get worse and worse. There's always a topper.

One teacher gave up waiting for the state and turned to his church for help. Another teacher is writing to Oprah.

Among themselves, the teachers have developed a system to send out notices when fans go on sale at Wal-Mart. The state doesn't buy them fans.

As they cross the campus, the students spot a custodian pushing a heavy rubbish cart in the distance. They wave and he acknowledges.

"Our custodians do the best they can," says Thorne. "They really try."

The kids try, too.

This summer, Thorne and some of the other student council members tried to fix up the school's trophy case. It was a project meant to boost school pride. They cleaned graffiti off the plexiglass front and shored up the sagging wooden shelves. As they worked, they went through the trophies and plaques: