Periodic requests over the past year by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser to accompany Hawaii public school officials on “campus vulnerability assessments” have all been denied, and requests to view documents from the campus assessments already conducted remain at an impasse.

Since 2017, state Department of Education leaders have been gradually visiting the state’s public school campuses to look for vulnerabilities and devise next steps for the greatest possible safety and preparation in the event of an active shooter. So far, only 140 of the state’s 258 campuses have been formally assessed, but the DOE recently changed the voluntary program to mandatory and intends to have all campuses assessed by June.

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The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has periodically requested to go with officials on the assessment visits or active-shooter response trainings, citing the public’s right to be informed about student and school employee safety, department accountability and use of taxpayer dollars as mass shootings and school shootings continue to plague the nation at near- record levels.

But in a May 23 email from DOE Communications Specialist Derek Inoshita, the department finally denied the visitation requests, saying the department’s Office of Facilities and Operations “is not comfortable providing that level of access due to the possible sharing of vital information that could compromise a school’s security.”

Separately, Curt Otaguro, state deputy superintendent of operations, told the Star-Advertiser, “I hope you respect that we don’t want to hide anything, but we don’t want to show the exposures of the schools at this particular time.”

Documents with the results of the vulnerability assessment are not readily available to the public.

The Star-Advertiser since last summer also has submitted multiple requests to the DOE for access to the assessment results so that parents, students, educators and taxpayers can learn how their neighborhood campuses may be vulnerable, how problems are being addressed and how taxpayer dollars are being used.

The department in August declined, saying the media outlet must file a Uniform Information Practices Act request via the state Office of Information Practices.

The DOE’s response to the formal request has been that it can release only redacted versions of the vulnerability assessments, which leaves open the possibility that meaningful information could be hidden. In addition, the DOE said that for the 120 hours it would take for DOE employees to review the documents and redact them, the price would be $7,142.50, making them largely inaccessible to the general public.