As questions remain about when schools in West Maui will or should reopen, other schools around the island have welcomed displaced and relocated students with open arms in the wake of the wildfires that have ravaged the island. 

Fellow students have been a pseudo welcoming committee to their new classmates.

“It’s been good coming back to school seeing everybody, especially for the Lahainaluna people for coming and making them feel welcome to Maui High,” Maui High School senior Ofa Falekaono said Thursday afternoon after the second day of school this week. “We’re all just one island and one love.”

Falekaono is a leader for the Sabers’ football team, an NCAA Division I prospect and the reigning Maui Interscholastic League Defensive Player of the Year — he has been working to make sure that any new students become a part of the MHS family.

Some students wore red and some MHS staffers wore Lahainaluna shirts on Wednesday and Thursday.

“It’s very important to us because we lost a lot of people on the Lahaina side, they lost homes, lost lives, and we’re just all here to support them, to help them get their lives back and their homes back,” Falekaono said. “It helps really a lot for us as Maui High to help them out. Seeing friends and even a couple of Lahaina people that came over, some of them are my friends and they came. We’re just introducing them to the school and community at Maui High.”

Hawaii Department of Education Superintendent Keith Hayashi visited Maui this week to take stock of the school situation around the island — he reported in a letter posted on the DOE website that Lahaina schools Princess Nahi’ena’ena Elementary, Lahaina Intermediate and Lahainaluna High “remain closed and will reopen when it is safe to return.” The three schools sustained wind damage but remain in good condition, the DOE said earlier this week. 

King Kamehameha III Elementary on Front Street “was damaged beyond repair” and he encouraged displaced students to enroll “in the neighborhood school where you are staying, even if your housing situation is temporary.” It was among the more than 2,000 structures destroyed in the Lahaina fire. 

Braden Albrecht, a senior at Maui High, said returning to school was a bit of routine, not necessarily normalcy, after missing a week due to the wildfires.

“A lot of people complain about it, but really I’m glad to be back, especially after missing our freshman year and our football season, we skipped a little bit of our sophomore year (due to COVID) — I want a normal senior year as much as we can,” Albrecht said. 

Albrecht wore a red T-shirt to school on Thursday to show support for Lahainaluna.

“Lahaina has always been kind of our rival for at least the past couple years because they’ve been beating us back to back and whatever,” Albrecht said. “It’s one island, so we need to come together. Although we’re really competitive, we’re all people and people of Maui.”

Charlie Peterson is a Maui High junior who also plays football.

“It’s been really nice” being back at school, Peterson said, “but with the Lahainaluna incident it’s been really sad, but I’m happy to be back on campus.”

Peterson said that the overwhelming support for the Lunas “has helped a lot — everybody here supports 808 and we’ll always help each other out, no matter what. Even though they’re our rivals we still help them out and love them the same.”

Kaimana Brummel, director of advancement and an assistant volleyball coach at Seabury Hall, said having the school community come together is key. School started on the Olinda campus Monday. Upcountry has been dealing with fires of its own in Olinda and Kula that burned down about 20 homes, according to the county. 

“We learned from COVID that having kids in school, having them interact, having them be face to face, having them have a routine is positive for them,” Brummel said Wednesday. “Having their peer time and having those conversations, it’s really good and we’re seeing that at our campus as we open day three today.”

Brummel cited a Hawaiian olelo noeau when asked about the importance of students helping with the relief efforts. For some older students, the chances to help are readily available and for the younger students, the time will come when they can also lend a helping hand. 

“It goes ma ka hana ka ‘ike — in doing one learns, knowledge is gained by doing,” Brummel said. “So through service, through volunteerism our kids are going to learn about this tragedy and all of the different layers that we’re starting to uncover that this tragedy has brought to our community.”

“Everybody wants to help right now, including our kids, but it’s OK that now is not the time. They can build understanding, they can build compassion within themselves and each other and then when the time is appropriate for them to hana, to do, we will have those opportunities available.”

Maui Preparatory Academy Principal Ryan Kirkham said Wednesday that more than 400 students displaced from Lahaina schools have inquired about enrolling at the private Napili school.

“On Monday and Tuesday, even today, we have an admissions team down in the lobby of our gymnasium and we knew just from emails and phone calls that people were trying to figure out education and school solutions for their children,” Kirkham said. “So we had admissions teams down there and we met with every family that came in. Basically they were doing abbreviated admissions for the school and what we are hoping to do is serve the West Maui community.”

Kirkham emphasized that his school is ready to help as much as is possible.

“There are 3,000 displaced students from schools and we’re doing our best to fill that void as much as we are able to, recognizing that we are still just a small, little school,” he said. “We don’t have 100 empty classrooms sitting vacant, but we want to serve our community and we really want to meet families where they’re at financially as well.”

Before the fires, MPA had an enrollment of about 275 students in preschool through 12th grade.

“If it’s a family that’s lost everything we’re trying to secure funding and have it be so that that family has very little financial payment to come to the school because we just want kids in school, that’s what we want,” Kirkham said.

“We’ve done some assessments and we feel that we can fit a decent number more, but it’s still only going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the number of kids who are displaced.”

Seabury Hall started school Monday after having the teachers come in Aug. 11 and then a pair of virtual parents meetings on Aug. 13. Head of School Maureen Madden said that Seabury Hall is also standing by to help displaced students however possible.

“The vibe has been really good, the kids are really, really happy to be back,” Madden said Wednesday. “All of them, ‘How are you doing? How’s your family?’ But they really have been very, very positive. We’ve taken in a couple of students who have moved Upcountry who were relocated from the fire. And they’ve been gracious and accepting and our focus has really been caring, empathy, support, kindness. 

“Empowering the kids, that’s one of our values, just empowering the kids: ‘If you have an idea, if you think of a way to help,’ making them understand that this is not Seabury Hall, or another school. It’s all of Maui.”

* Staff Writer Rob Collias can be reached at rcollias@mauinews.com.