The Salvation Army says the former director of its Kroc Keiki Learning Center preschool near Kapolei received a report that a teacher may have been mistreating students as early as March 2017 but never told supervisors or police.

Church officials said they fired the director, Margot M. Mesinas, and the teacher this past February after a private lawyer investigated allegations of abuse involving the teacher. A report from another employee in December prompted officials to hire the lawyer.

The Salvation Army Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Divisional Leader Maj. John Chamness said in a written statement that the investigation “has concluded and found that a preschool teacher did not comply with our high standards for treatment of children in her classroom.”

Church officials say in state court records that they fired Mesinas for failing to comply with Salvation Army policy that requires personnel to “report any suspected child abuse or neglect of a minor or vulnerable adult whether on or off Salvation Army property, whether perpetrated by (church) personnel or others, to the government authorities.”

The policy echos state law that requires employees or officers of public and private schools to immediately report to police or the state Department of Human Services if they have reason to believe that child abuse has occurred or might occur in the reasonably foreseeable future.

In addition to conducting its own investigation, Chamness said church officials reported the abuse allegations to appropriate state authorities.

State Department of Human Services spokeswoman Keopu Reelitz says the department’s Child Licensing Program is investigating allegations of licensing violations.

Salvation Army officials learned in their own investigation that a teacher’s assistant had already told Mesinas in March 2017 that the teacher may be abusing children and using inappropriate disciplinary techniques.

After she was fired, Mesinas applied for but was denied unemployment benefits, according to state court records. She appealed and following a June 18 hearing, a state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations hearing officer found her eligible because the employer’s representative who attended the hearing couldn’t say Mesinas was fired for misconduct connected with work.

The Salvation Army filed its own appeal in state court on Friday. Church officials say their human resources manager attended the June 18 hearing because the representative who knows of the investigation and reason for Mesinas’s firing could not attend “due to unexpected personal reasons and did not make adequate arrangements for her replacement to attend the hearing.”

A state judge will hear the Salvation Army’s appeal.