The Maui Preparatory Academy campus is shown in 2018. The state Department of Health is investigating complaints by some parents that their children experienced nausea and headaches in the wake of a propane leak in a kitchen at the school. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

The state Department of Health is in the midst of an investigation at Maui Preparatory Academy to try to determine what may have been causing some fourth-grade students to experience symptoms, including nausea and headaches, in recent months.

Maui District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang said on Thursday that the investigation was prompted by complaints from parents and indirectly from school staff and the DOH Environmental Section on Oahu about a small propane leak, which had to be closed off in a kitchen at the school.

Pang said that symptoms seen previously in the students have gone away and that the factors that could have caused them to feel sick could have been a wide variety of issues besides the propane, including vog and improper ventilation, or a combination of things.

The issue with the propane occurred in early March, according to a letter sent out to fourth and fifth grade families and teachers on March 14 by Miguel Solis, head of school, and Ma’Ann Sabino, president of the school Board of Trustees.

Solis said via phone Tuesday afternoon that neither he nor the teachers have seen any paperwork from doctors saying that a child had been sick from a gas leak. Solis said the school is awaiting reports from the DOH.

He added that the school has done whatever it could to find out what the problem could be.

“No matter what we say, (there) are more questions and more questions. And that’s our number one thing, we keep our kids safe. We are not here to gas any of our kids and that’s what we have been hearing and that’s so unfair,” Solis said in response to some of the pushback the school has been getting.

In a letter on March 10, Solis said a “tiny leak” had been found on one of the oven regulators, which was only detected when the meter was placed directly on the regulators. It was immediately turned off, and he said it would not be turned on again until the regulator is replaced.

In another letter on March 14, Solis and Sabino said that the school had placed carbon monoxide monitors in a classroom and a kitchen, and that results had been negative since they were installed on March 9, a day after two fourth grade families independently emailed Solis regarding their children having chronic symptoms of nausea and/or headaches. The school also said it would have a natural gas monitor placed in the kitchen.

School officials also acknowledged in the letter that prior to Thanksgiving break in November, children, administration and faculty noted a foul sulfuric smell. The school contacted AmeriGas and an inspection was done on Dec. 6. No leak was detected.

The sulfuric smell some noticed may have been related to sewage backup that had occurred several years ago, the letter said. The school said it was addressing this as well.

Pang said he had a meeting with school staff, the school board, West Maui physicians and concerned parents on March 24.

Hearing the issues and concerns, Pang said, “many things can be going on simultaneously.”

He said he told those at the meeting that the DOH would cast a “wide net” epidemiologically to find the cause or causes. He also gave them background information on what could be among the causes, including vog, the propane leak, sick building syndrome, environmental dust and secondhand home smoke.

Pang also acknowledged that the DOH Environmental Section had been out to the school recently and found a ventilation problem with the exhaust of the nearby kitchen, which may have been backing up into the fourth grade classroom. He said the reports from the Environmental Section would not be ready for another six weeks or so.

As of last week, Pang was continuing to investigate the matter.

Maui Preparatory parent Amy Oppedisano said last week that her fourth grade son, who has been out of school since March 8, is now “99 percent back to normal,” after suffering from chronic nausea and headaches, which began in January. He had multiple doctor’s appointments and tests to try to determine what was going on.

It wasn’t until early March that she heard from other parents about their children having similar symptoms and realized it could have been the classroom and carbon monoxide that made the kids sick.

She sent emails to the school about a smell in the classroom, which she also experienced when visiting the campus. She also explained her son’s condition and called on the school to make “systemic changes” so there is a prioritization “of the safety of the students going forward.”

From a meeting with the school that included parents, she learned that 10 students had gotten sick.

Oppedisano said her son is homeschooling and the family had already planned to move off island this summer prior to the incidents, so he will not return to Maui Prep.

“I feel the way this was handled, was a school-first mentality, not children first,” she said last week.

What frustrated her more was learning that issues regarding a smell in the classroom had apparently started months ago. She said that she only recently learned that there was a kitchen adjacent to her son’s classroom with propane appliances which had been leased out to a third party for commercial use.

Oppedisano said that issues apparently lingered after December and that more should have been done since the first issue was reported in November.

“I just cannot understand for the life of me, why it was let go and not investigated extremely thoroughly from the beginning,” she said.

Explaining the school’s response to the initial concerns in November, Solis said, “We get things breaking down like any school. Things break and we fix them. If there was a gas leak then, we would have fixed it then. There was no gas leak then.”

“It is still an issue with some of these parents, I get it, I understand that,” Solis added. “But I think we managed it with what we needed to do it and as best as we could do it and as transparently as we can do it, but they don’t see that.”

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.