Matayoshi said the Farrington auditorium, with its gravel-tar roof and reinforced steel trusses, was built to industry standards, and up for inspection in two years.

She said roofs on school buildings are typically up for inspection every 12-15 years, which is a standard time frame that now needs to be reassessed.

"Now what we are going to do is reprioritize the listing of the buildings to be inspected to look at buildings that are similar to this in age and construction to make sure we do those buildings first, she said.

The auditorium was part of Phase Two of Farrington's 10-year renovation project, but only minor repairs were expected.

Carganilla said two weeks ago, the vice principal and a consultant went up on the roof for a visual inspection, but didn't notice anything that might indicate a major problem.

Carganilla said other buildings on campus were sorely in need of repair.

Phase one in the school's L-shaped A-Building included fixing leaking roofs, renovating ceilings, floors and replacing windows.

In a press conference on Monday, Governor Neil Abercrombie said the state will spend an extra one million dollars to hire outside inspectors to assess some of Hawaii's aging school buildings.

"How long can you put fixes on a particular structure at different points in time and not have some structural or stress factors that come into picture," said the governor.

"In terms of inspections, that's already an ongoing concern. The backlog used to be something like $800 million plus. Now it's down to under $300 million so we are making progress," said Matayoshi.