The ironic element in Corey Rosenlee’s work life: The most outspoken advocate for air-conditioned classrooms in public schools, after years of teaching in a sweltering environment, now has one. Saber Hall at Campbell High School, where he teaches social studies, opened in the last two years.

"This is the first time here I’ve had an air-conditioned classroom," said Rosenlee, whose dozen years in the state Department of Education includes eight at Campbell. "This is not a common experience. I know it."

Rosenlee, 41, has been at the forefront of lobbying efforts at the state Legislature for funding the air-conditioning project. The one given the best chance of passing is the budget appropriation of $25 million for the priority list, which "would fund the top three schools, Campbell, Ilima and Ewa Beach.

"But right behind us, connected to us, is Kaimiloa," he said, referring to the nearby elementary. "They’re not going to get anything. They’re far down the list."

Rosenlee is hopeful about this allotment but maintains that the fairest thing to do is commit to a statewide program. What motivates the married father of a public school student is the hope that his own daughter can have a reasonable learning environment without worrying about such things. He dismissed various low-budget approaches — using fans, painting ceilings white, going outside — as entirely inadequate.

"It should be an embarrassment to our state that our children have to go down to the state Capitol and beg for the opportunity to have a quality education," Rosenlee said. "And Campbell’s not the first to do this. Maili was the one that started it. They were the ones that gave me the idea.

"We need to decide as a society, do we value the idea that all children in Hawaii should get a quality education?" he added. "And sadly, I think the answer right now in Hawaii is no. We’ve decided some children should get a quality education, but not all. We have a two-tiered society."

QUESTION: Is this the first time you’ve gotten active in any kind of political sense?

ANSWER: No, I’ve always been somewhat politically active. … I was a part of the parents that were part of the "Furlough Fridays" protest.

Q: So you’re a public school parent?

A: Yes, my daughter is a 10-year-old at Holomua (Elementary School). …

Q: Civic engagement is something you believe in, then?

A: I always teach my students, sociology, I think, is about activism. You teach the students that the first step is to become aware of the rules. Then you have to decide if the rules are right or wrong. And then the next step is, you have to do something about it. If something is wrong, you have to do something about it.

For something like the air conditioning, you’re sitting there having kids in these 90-plus-degree temperature classrooms and you’re seeing them melting, you just start feeling the inequality. …

Q: What difference do you see with your students in this air-conditioned classroom?

A: You can automatically see the difference in students’ behavior immediately. In those classrooms, you constantly feel the heat. … You’re so worried about the heat and the temperature, you’re not focusing on learning.

I feel like in this room, we’re all sitting here nice and cool, we just chill together. We can talk, and their behavior’s better. In the other rooms, I literally had 11 fans going on, and the noise is there, and the kids are trying to stay cool and you just feel restlessness. That creates all these problems.

Q: Do kids come to this building and just hang out?

A: They do. In fact there have been problems before, where kids would just be literally hanging downstairs. We’d have to have the security shush them out. They’re just trying to stay cool.

We have schools, Honowai in Waipahu, they posted a picture of 91 degrees. … Waialua High School, they posted 91 degrees.

Q: What’s the record that you’ve put up with?

A: Ninety-five this year was a Campbell classroom in the portables. But I’ve heard, it was a Star-Advertiser story, that had Kahuku at over 100 degrees.

One of the realities is that people think, you see the temperature’s 88 degrees outside, that it’s the same thing in the classroom. But it’s not. … Some of these rooms, four cinderblock walls, and they put two little tiny windows at the top. Two walls have absolutely nothing because they’re connected to other rooms. Little tiny rooms and you stick 40 kids in that room. I mean, it’s an oven. It’s unbelievable that this is the standard of education that we put students through in Hawaii.

People believe we’re the only state fighting for air conditioning, and it’s not true. Minnesota, Wisconsin, their parents are protesting for air conditioning this year.

Iowa passed a law saying all the rooms had to be air conditioned. And 94 percent of their rooms are air conditioned and the 6 percent that weren’t this summer, they closed down school in Iowa. They closed down school in Denver.

So other places get it — that you don’t stick kids in hot rooms all day.

Another thing I always point out is this: It is illegal to stick a 6-year-old child into a car, even if the windows are open. Because what we learn in studies is that children cannot regulate their body temperature the same way that adults can. So we make that illegal.

But the same parent that would never think twice of leaving their child in a car if it’s 80 degrees will drop off that child and leave them in a room like that for all day. That’s wrong. That’s wrong. Our children shouldn’t have to deal with that so they can go to school.

Q: It’s fairly well-established that our schools are old and not up to current standards …

A: They’re not.

Q: Why do you think that’s so?

A: On average Hawaii schools are 65 years old. …The bigger issue is, why do we allow hot classrooms, why do we allow these old buildings? Why do we have this high teacher turnover and this poor teacher quality?

And it comes down to funding. Our funding for schools in Hawaii is grossly inadequate, across the board.

Q: Compared to other states?

A: When we want to compare education, we can compare Hawaii to other states. But Hawaii is the only statewide school district. What we really need to do, if we want to understand funding and education in Hawaii, we need to compare Hawaii to other expensive cost-of-living districts.

Q: Like?

A: Chicago. Washington, D.C. New York. … What happens is, Hawaii constantly has the problem that we can’t recruit and retain teachers. …

And there is genuine consequence to this. Here it is, we have these hot schools, crowded classrooms, underpaid teachers. People in Hawaii, what they’ve decided to do was (to say), "Well, screw this. I’m sending my child to private school." Private school participation in the state of Hawaii is the highest in the nation. So the investment we make in children is very different.

I give you this example: Do you think a Punahou parent would allow their child to be in a 95-degree classroom all day? They would say, "No way — you’re not doing that to my child." And Punahou, ‘Iolani, Kamehameha, they air-condition their classrooms.

Q: But why were our classrooms built this way to begin with?

A: I think they were made hurricane-proof. These are strong structures, cinderblock walls. Also, I guess they’re worried about vandalism and security. So great, we have schools that are like prisons. (Laughs.) But, interestingly enough, our prisons are air-conditioned.

I’ll give this story. In December a federal judge ruled in Louisiana that putting prisoners in temperatures above 88 degrees is cruel and unusual punishment. Violates the Constitution, but our students are in 95-degree classrooms.

Q: How much time would you give the state? Perhaps some schools need air conditioning more than others.

A: I brought up this question to other teachers, too. I remember talking to a teacher in Waimea (Hawaii island), which is supposed to be very cold. He said their schools get hot, too. He said it’s not just the heat. Flies. Vog. You have schools that have noise, or they’re next to dumps. …

It’s easier to say all schools than to start — you give it to this school, and they’re going to say, the school next-door that doesn’t get it, "Why not us?"

Once we get into criteria, it gets complicated. I will tell you this: Guam this year said all classrooms that get above 78 degrees will get air conditioning. And they’re putting air conditioning in 2,000 classrooms this year. … So they can make that criteria. Why can’t we do the exact same thing?

Q: You’ve been talking about less-expensive alternatives for accomplishing this. Solar power?

A: We have abundant sunshine. That’s why it’s so hot. Couldn’t we do something with photovoltaic? The biggest problem is the electrical systems are so old at schools that they can’t handle the upgrade: They’d blow out the schools if you put in air conditioners.

The air-conditioner unit is probably the cheapest part. The electrical upgrades, what they have to do is, in order to make sure you don’t have a high electricity cost, they change the insulation. So that brings up their high costs. …

So I started calling around and there was this product I found called a photovoltaic air conditioner. You have photovoltaic on the roof, it goes to a battery pack, which then powers the air conditioner. They think they can do that for about $25,000 per classroom.

Q: I’ve heard some say that PVs can’t power a full air conditioner. You’ve heard to the contrary?

A: Well, there is already one school in Hawaii that has photovoltaic, and that is Niihau. Their unit was much more expensive. It was like $200,000. But theirs has to go on 24 hours a day; ours doesn’t. … They have refrigerators, and they have computers.

But they have a full unit.

So people who say it can’t work, there is a system where it works. It’s an expensive system, but we think we can do it cheaper. …

This is a possible solution. This is a solution we need to test out and look at.