The state stopped funding Halau Lokahi Public Charter School at the end of January, but nearly 60 students keep coming every day, and so do seven teachers.
"We’re here for the children," said Kristen Kalilikane-Lau, a social studies teacher. "It’s a struggle to not get paid but still show up. I’m in awe of my colleagues who come with a smile on their face every day. I’m hopeful that we will prevail through the appeal process."
The Charter School Commission voted Jan. 8 to issue a "notice of prospect of revocation" — the first step toward revoking the school’s charter — on grounds that Halau Lokahi was insolvent and had failed to meet the terms of its contract.
Last week it sent a strongly worded letter by certified mail to the school board declaring that Halau Lokahi is no longer a functioning public school and that all employees were de facto laid off Jan. 31 when state funding ended.
The school’s new governing board is challenging the decision and hopes to keep the Hawaiian-culture-based school alive in a new incarnation. It contends the commission is violating its own procedures by trying to shut the campus before holding a hearing, causing turmoil for children midway through the academic year.
"Our overall objective is based on the nondisruption of our keikis’ education," said Peter L. Terry, who stepped up to chair the school board in January in hopes of keeping the school going. "Why do the students have to suffer for the misdeeds and malfeasance of adults?"
Terry, a veteran of other nonprofit boards, added, "We have restructured this to the best of our ability, even though our hands are tied — the budget, the payroll, rent. We can survive this if they just guide us instead of just saying shut down."
A hearing on the board’s appeal is set for March 30. In the meantime the commission is taking a firm stand.
"The commission has been advised by the Department of the Attorney General that students who still are reporting to Halau Lokahi at this point are not attending public school," Tom Hutton, commission executive director, wrote in its March 2 letter. "As we have indicated before, while Halau Lokahi continues to exist as a legal entity for purposes of the revocation hearing, this is not the same thing as continuing to operate as a public school under these circumstances.
"We urge you again in the strongest terms to ensure that all students are either enrolled in other schools where they hopefully still will be able to earn academic credit for this semester, or that they are registered as home-schooled."
Roughly half of the student body shifted to other campuses over winter break amid uncertainty over the future of the debt-ridden school. In a painful restructuring, payroll was also cut by more than half, along with the space the school rents in a commercial building in Kalihi.
The school has cut all ties to the previous administration, led by founding director Laara Allbrett, who was ousted in June. All five of her relatives who were employed at the school were laid off or left in December, including her daughter, the business manager. The state attorney general is investigating alleged misuse of public funds during their tenure.
"It’s a new day," said Randy Shiraishi, the new vice chairman of the board and a former manager at Hawaii Job Corps. He and other board members feel the school should have due process and a chance to prove itself.
"We have been making every effort to be fiscally responsible and contractually compliant to the charter, to the law and the administrative rules," said Shiraishi, whose son is a fourth-grader. "It seems like they have no intention of allowing us to make the changes necessary to make the school succeed, no matter what we do."
Charter schools are largely funded with taxpayer dollars through per-pupil allotments but are independently run under contracts, or charters, with the state. They are supposed to bring innovation to public education, and report to their own governing boards, with oversight by the commission.
Halau Lokahi was one of Hawaii’s first charter schools, launched by Allbrett and her family members in 2001, when there was little monitoring of charters. An overhaul of the charter law in 2012 tightened oversight, and they now must meet academic, financial and operational goals.
Elizabeth Blake, Halau Lokahi’s acting director, said its students are being taught online by Hawaii-certified teachers employed by curriculum provider K12 Inc., which is donating its services. That is in addition to about seven teachers who come to the campus daily even though their paychecks have stopped, she said.
The school serves children in kindergarten through grade 12. Clad in bright blue uniform T-shirts, they do much of their learning via computer these days, punctuated by breaks for hula and chant.
"It’s a good family feel here, where you can concentrate on getting where you want to go in future," said sophomore Kaohu Book, 16, who credits Halau Lokahi with turning his life around after he fell in with the wrong crowd at his old school.
"Here you have that one-on-one communication with the teacher," he said. "In (regular) public school you have to find your own way."
Meali‘i Prieto, a board member who has a master’s in counseling, contends the school fills an important niche, offering a haven to kids who don’t fit in traditional schools. She said her two grandchildren were struggling academically, socially and emotionally at their public school but are doing well at Halau Lokahi.
The Halau Lokahi case marks the first time the state commission has moved to revoke a charter, so both sides are feeling their way forward.
The lengthy, multistep process is geared toward schools that fall short academically — not those that run out of money, according to commission Chairwoman Catherine Payne. The commission is supporting House Bill 831 to clearly authorize closure of insolvent schools, citing the Halau Lokahi case.
"We didn’t anticipate that a school would try to stay open even when they had no money," Payne said. "I think that’s the huge issue here. They have run out of funds. They are not able to maintain the kind of school they were chartered to provide."
In January, commissioners turned down a proposed rescue of the school by K12 Inc. of Herndon, Va., which offered to put up $150,000 to cover the school’s costs through the end of academic year. In turn the corporation would receive a percentage of school income in future years.
Commissioners said the plan was too risky and would stray from the school’s original charter and essence, which centered on traditional Hawaiian values and a project-based approach to learning.
"It appears to me that K12, which is a for-profit corporation, is trying to get into the Hawaii school system without having to go through the procedures that are required by us to start a school," Payne said.
Halau Lokahi board’s Shiraishi argues that the law gives the governing board, not the commission, the independent authority to determine the curriculum and that Halau Lokahi’s charter includes a virtual learning component.
The school faced the threat of closure in June after ending the last academic year $500,000 in debt. But the commission gave it another chance on the condition that Allbrett was removed and a new board installed. By December most of that board had resigned.
The new board believes the school could finish out the school year on budget if the state released its second-semester funds.
"If given the opportunity," it wrote in its appeal, "we believe that the new leadership will institute a new era of accountability and growth for Halau Lokahi."
