Laupahoehoe High and Elementary School on Hawaii island will become a charter school in a year’s time after the Board of Education voted unanimously last week to approve the conversion despite resistance from school staff.

As a charter school, it will report to its own school board rather than the state Board of Education. The campus, which has 231 students, will remain a public school open to all children in its area.

"We are a small community and we’re kind of isolated," said Loida Navalta, executive assistant to the interim local school board that sought conversion to charter status. "It’s a perfect school for the community to take into their own hands."

Founded in 1883, the rural school is midway between Hilo and Honokaa on the Hamakua Coast. The effort to turn it into a charter school picked up steam in part because of concern that the Department of Education might shut it down along with other small schools. In October 2009 the Laupahoehoe Alumni/ Community Association received a $455,100 federal grant to plan and implement the conversion.

But some teachers fear they will have to resign as Department of Education teachers to work at the charter school, and worry about whether it will be adequately funded. In April the Charter School Review Panel denied the charter application, noting that "a significant portion of the faculty opposes conversion to charter status" and "a divided community is a threat to success of a charter school." It also questioned the charter’s financial plan.

The Board of Education overruled the panel last week, saying its concerns were not substantiated. The board said the law does not require the approval of a majority of the staff to convert a school to a charter. Instead, the board said, the law requires a majority vote of school personnel and parents of students, taken as a whole.

In a vote conducted in February 2010 by the League of Women Voters, 81 percent of the 180 participants — including teachers, employees and parents — voted in favor of converting to a charter. But last February a strong majority of staff and teachers surveyed in an informal election voted against conversion, according to testimony submitted to the panel. Parents were not part of that survey.

Principal James Denight, who had opposed converting the school to a charter, said Tuesday, "The decision has been made. We will continue what we’ve always done, which is to focus on our kids and raising academic achievement."

Laupahoehoe Community Public Charter School is scheduled to open in August 2012, following elections for a local school board in November.

"We, as a Laupahoehoe school community, have been awarded a wonderful opportunity as well as a great responsibility," said Lucille Chung, a 1958 graduate of the school who advocated converting it into a charter. "We are going to create a great school that lives aloha, and we invite everyone to help us accomplish this."