Laupahoehoe charter school board violating letter and spirit of law

Recently, the Interim Local School Board (ILSB) behind the charter conversion effort at Laupahoehoe High and Elementary School appealed to the state Board of Education in an attempt to circumvent the authority of the Charter School Review Panel (CSRP).

It is the review panel’s job to oversee existing charter schools, as well as ensure that new and conversion charter schools are abiding by the detailed implementation plans that guide their charters.

The reason for the appeal is somewhat difficult to understand — after all, the CSRP has made no undue and unusual requests of the ILSB. It has simply told the interim board that before it is to open the school, it must abide by its plan and have free and fair local school board elections — elections that are so important that the beginning of the document states that "community governance is a fundamental tenet … it is central to the mission of a community charter school … the group believes so fervently in this principle that, if the proposed school is awarded a charter, by September 2011 … the ILSB will transition … to a local school board composed of … elected representatives of school participant groups."

Apparently, this was only a "fundamental tenet" until the public stopped believing in the charter effort. Now, to the ILSB, it is merely a "minor" detail that can be changed on a whim. Obviously, by reading the paragraph above, the LSB elections are actually intended to be a central part of its proposal. This is no small change: Without these elections, there is no community governance, only a dictatorship.

Currently, the unelected interim board, which represents the nonprofit Laupahoehoe Alumni/Community Association (LACA), is attempting to do everything that the elected Local School Board (LSB) is legally supposed to do. That would be fine — if the ILSB and LACA were willing to contribute $1 for every $4 in government funding, as required by a LSB that represents only the nonprofit. Unfortunately, since it doesn’t seem to be able to afford that, its only legal recourse is to elect a legitimate board composed of stakeholder representatives. Due to this unassailable legal point, it attempts to cling to the illusion that there are "no" stakeholder groups, and that the existing students, staff, parents, teachers and community do not count — a viewpoint that is untenable at best and at worst, a deception.

The end result is this: If the interim board truly believed it had community support, it would have nothing to lose from having elections. If interim board members truly believed in the philosophy behind their charter application, they would have arranged elections between September and November of 2011. They not only show no signs of starting election procedures, they have actually flat-out said that they will not, and nobody can make them. The interim board is clinging to power it should rightfully have ceded months ago.

I believe that the state Board of Education thought it was making the best decision when it overturned the review panel’s denial of the charter. However, that decision has mistakenly allowed this non-elected interim board the presumptuous belief that it now has no oversight at all, and that the decision was a sign that it could be above the regulations imposed on the other charter schools. We have already had newspaper articles detailing the financial abuse at other charter schools due to lack of regulation. Do we really need precedent for no regulation at all?

I can only hope the BOE supports the Charter School Review Panel, and informs the interim board that it is not above the law and that it must allow current students, staff, parents and teachers a chance to elect representatives in order to have a say in their own future — and then let the legitimately elected Local School Board do what it chooses to do.

Is that not the very foundation of charter philosophy?