The troubled Kalihi charter school facing closure by the Public Charter School Commission says it will challenge the decision to revoke its charter contract amid financial and operational problems.
The commission last week voted to issue a notice of revocation to Halau Lokahi Charter School — the first step toward shutting down the campus — and withhold further funding due to insolvency and a proposed financial sustainability plan deemed too risky.
The school’s reconstituted governing board voted unanimously Monday night to appeal the decision in an effort to keep the Hawaiian culture-based school open.
"We’re not giving up the fight yet," said board member Randy Shiraishi, whose son attends the fourth grade at Halau Lokahi.
Charter schools are largely funded with taxpayer dollars via per-pupil funding but are independently run under contracts with the Public Charter School Commission and report to their own governing board rather than the state Board of Education.
Seventy students showed up for school at Halau Lokahi on Tuesday, the first day back from winter break — down from the 114 students enrolled in grades kindergarten through 12 before the break.
Tom Hutton, the commission’s executive director, said his staff has been encouraging Halau Lokahi’s families to find alternative schools as soon as possible. The agency is hosting an event Wednesday night in Farrington High School’s library to provide families information on transferring to other schools.
"We’ve been pleading with parents: Move your kids now, start them off fresh for the new semester and worry about the hearing later," he said, referring to the appeals process. "We’re really in uncharted territory and have to do what’s best for the kids, and what’s best is that they make the transition."
Some families were outraged at the suggestion.
"As a parent, I feel betrayed by the Charter School Commission," Shiraishi said. "They want us to disrupt our children’s lives and pull them out of school, all while we still have an avenue to appeal."
Although this would be the first time a Hawaii charter has been revoked, the appeals process is expected to take up to six months. Hutton said the process wasn’t designed for insolvent schools.
"The statute was never written with the idea that you’d have to revoke a charter because a school is broke. It was written to allow a functioning school to keep running if we had to revoke because of some other reason," he said.
Under state statute and administrative rules, the school’s governing board has 30 days, or until Feb. 10, to request a commission hearing on the revocation. The commission then has 15 days to schedule the hearing, with another 15 days’ advance notice.
After the hearing, the commission would have up to 30 days to issue a final decision, and another 15 days to issue a written report. If the final decision were still to revoke the school’s contract, the school could appeal the decision to the BOE.
In the meantime, the commission has agreed to release only that funding necessary for dissolving the school and transitioning students.
"The premise isn’t that we’re just going to fund the school to operate indefinitely," Hutton said. "What we have to be careful about is that people don’t get the impression that it’s business as usual, because that’s not what we authorized."
At a legislative briefing earlier Tuesday, Hutton told lawmakers that if the approximately $250,000 in per-pupil funding withheld from the school last month is applied to its outstanding debts, the state would still need to come up with about $88,000 to pay off the rest.
Halau Lokahi’s money troubles came to light at the end of last school year, when it ran out of money and stopped paying its staff and rent. It ended that year with a $502,000 deficit.
Last summer the commission required the school to replace its governing board and longtime director and founder, Laara Allbrett, and develop a financial plan to carry it through this school year, before allowing it to reopen. But the campus again faced a shortfall as enrollment fell below projections.
The attorney general’s office has since launched an investigation into suspected theft and money laundering over more than $102,000 in suspicious expenses under Allbrett’s leadership.
Elizabeth Blake, a school improvement consultant who was named acting director of Halau Lokahi, said the school initiated a restructuring plan over winter break that cut its faculty and staff count to 10 from 18 after nonessential employees were laid off.
She also helped craft a plan to have a mainland contractor deliver instruction online for the school’s secondary students, to be taught by certified teachers supplied by the contractor. The company also had agreed to provide $150,000 to help fund operations through the end of the school year in exchange for a deal to receive a percentage of future income.
Commissioners rejected the plan as too risky and too big a shift from the existing academic plan.
Blake and board President Peter Terry say the school is committed to moving forward.
"We’re not responsible for the past. We can only look to the future," Blake said in an interview Tuesday at the school. "We’d like the opportunity to turn this school around. We’d like that chance. We understand the hesitation by the commission. We understand that we have a ton of improvements to make. What we don’t understand is why we’re not being given the chance to even just end this school year."
Terry, whose nephew is a high school student at Halau Lokahi, said that with Allbrett and the old board gone, the school can succeed.
"If it was justifiable, honestly, I’d say good riddance," he said. "But a lot of people don’t see the good things Halau Lokahi is doing."
He added, "There’s been tremendous changes to improve accountability and transparency. We got rid of the founder, the troublemakers, but the commission’s still not satisfied. What more these guys like? It’s like nothing’s good enough for them because they’ve already made up their minds."
