Starting in 2008, some students at Wai'anae High School will enjoy the luxury of learning in air-conditioned buildings.

The state this week released more than $23 million for improvements at 14 O'ahu schools, with $2 million of that going to Wai'anae for air-conditioning and electrical upgrades.

The biggest allocation from the money — nearly $6.7 million — will go toward construction of an eight-classroom building at Campbell High School to handle an anticipated increase in enrollment.

In addition, Roosevelt High School will receive almost $4 million to build an access road to its swimming pool and improvements for the school's track and football field, also shared with Farrington High and McKinley High.

At Wai'anae High, the air-conditioning was, well, pretty cool news.

"I think the comfort level of the students has a huge bearing on their learning, so it will have a big impact," said Daniel Gomes, Wai'anae High's facility coordinator. "(In Wai'anae), the sun is always shining, so it gets pretty warm."

Only two of the school's seven primary classroom buildings — A and B, two of the oldest — will get the air-conditioning, Gomes said.

He said the work is part of the Department of Education's initiative to cool classrooms in areas where heat is an issue.

Construction will begin next month and is expected to be completed by August 2008. Building A has 16 classrooms, primarily for English, social studies and health class, and Building B has 10 classrooms, used for math, science and social studies classes.

Gomes said the high school's enrollment is more than 2,000 students and is expected to increase.

The two buildings will also receive electrical upgrades to better support the classrooms' computer network.

Campbell High's new building will include two science and five general education classrooms, in addition to one special-education classroom. The project is in the design phase, and construction is scheduled to be completed before the 2009-2010 school year.

The new classrooms will help accommodate Campbell's increasing enrollment. Its current enrollment of 2,009 is expected to rise to 2,225 by 2009.

Gail Awakuni, principal of Campbell High School, said last year that there were 21 teachers who had to rotate classrooms because of severe shortages.

"I had to impose a policy that gave new teachers (permanent) classrooms," said Awakuni. "We had veteran teachers volunteer to give up their classrooms."

Awakuni said that although the school is thankful for the funding to construct the new building, she has asked for additional money from the state to alleviate the classroom shortages that will still exist after construction is completed.

"Fortunately, we have the land," said Awakuni. "So now we just need the buildings."

The remainder of the money released this week will go to one high school, seven elementary schools, two middle schools and one intermediate.

Among them (see box for others), approximately $3 million will go to Pauoa Elementary ($1.8 million), Dole Middle ($740,000) and Ala Wai Elementary ($400,000) to design, construct and renovate their restrooms in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.