Even someone accustomed to the twists and turns of government surely would be tied up in knots following the battle over the conversion of Laupahoehoe High and Elementary School to a public charter school, a roller-coaster ride now in its third year.

Without rehashing the entire process, what’s clear is that the final result — an approved but controversial charter, as well as the resignation of three yeoman members of the Charter Schools Review Panel — signals that something went seriously awry here.

In the final analysis, this story very well may end just fine with a functioning, even thriving, charter school — but the prolonged fight obscures a long view.

And the current turbulence makes it difficult for the Hawaii island community to do what needs doing now: pulling together in time for the 2012-13 academic year.

The birthing of a charter school should not cause such sharp divisions among residents who should await its opening with anticipation instead of rancor.

What went wrong?

To start with, there were two different interpretations of the law governing how decisions to convert to a charter school should be made. One was held by the state Board of Education and the other by the panel.

Last week the BOE overrode the panel’s decision to revoke the school’s charter, leaving many in the community feeling that their voice wasn’t heard and the three panel members — Chairman Carl Takamura, his predecessor in the post Ruth Tschumy and Pualani Akaka — believing their service to be superfluous.

This kind of painful churn is an outcome that should be avoided at all costs, as Hawaii’s charter schools system continues to evolve.

The dispute largely centered on process questions.

Did the original vote for converting, overwhelmingly in favor, represent a majority of each constituent interest group — teachers, staff and parents?

Did it need to, under the law?

Should the permanent local school board have been chosen before school starts, or after?

The fact that there’s such disagreement on these points shows, as BOE Chairman Don Horner observed, that there are ambiguities in the language of the law that should be cleared up.

And that should happen during the consideration of bills to reform governance of the state’s charter schools system.

The first hearings are set: Senate Bill 2115 comes up at 1:15 p.m. Wednesday in room 225, with the House taking testimony on its companion, House Bill 2010, at 2 p.m. in room 309.

These measures were drafted in response to recommendations by a charter schools task force that met last year, and they would restructure the entire governance system to make lines of authority clearer and more efficient, which will be an improvement.

The review panel itself will be among the casualties, to be replaced by the State Public Charter School Commission, which combines functions of the panel as well as the Charter Schools Administrative Office, with some tasks being taken over by individual schools.

The BOE would still hear appeals of the new commission’s decisions, and here’s where lawmakers should not leave the door open too wide. The commission should not end up being second-guessed for every ruling; that would defeat one of the primary purposes for having charter schools as educational laboratories with some independence from the Department of Education and BOE. It’s the Charter Schools Review Panel that has had its ear closer to the ground on individual school matters, and the successor commission should have the reins firmly in hand as well.

Brian De Lima, vice chairman of the BOE, acknowledged that the Laupahoehoe case was troubling, but he said he believed the best thing to do in sorry circumstances was to put the issue to rest and move on. A K-12 school with only about 220 students does not have a long lease on life as a regular DOE campus, he said, so chartering may be best in the long run.

To hasten that outcome, as De Lima correctly observed, "everyone needs to pull together and work for the good of those kids."