Maui children face grief, destruction as schools start up after wildfire
By Sharon Bernstein
(Reuters) — Before wildfire ravaged the Hawaiian community of Lahaina last week, high school teacher Mike Landes was always the guy arguing that academics come first — before worries about the social and emotional development of the students.
But as parents, teachers and students begin trickling back to school after wildfires ravaged the community in the western part of Hawaii's island of Maui, mental health, he now insists, must take priority.
The wind-whipped firestorm that raged through Lahaina in west Maui killed at least 111 people in a death toll that is still mounting. It destroyed King Kamehameha III Elementary School, damaged three other campuses and damaged or destroyed more than 2,200 homes and buildings.
Getting kids back in school poses numerous challenges: hundreds have already enrolled in schools in areas outside the burn zone. Some will be too traumatized to come when their schools in Lahaina reopen. Some parents will opt to move rather than rebuild.
Wherever they attend, school can be a step toward normalcy for survivors in a community grappling with how to pick up lives while carrying a load of mourning.
The fire swept through Lahaina on the very day that many students, including freshmen at Lahainaluna High School where Landes works and children at the elementary campus where his wife teaches were scheduled to return from summer vacation. But classes were canceled due to the high winds that propelled the blaze.
Landes's own two children were scheduled to be in school in Lahaina that day.
«Social and emotional well-being, care for people who are traumatized — I think it would be fair to say that's what would need to come first,» said Landes, who heads the Maui chapter of the Hawaii
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