Kamalani Academy parents sue charter school commission

Four parents with children attending Kamalani Academy have filed a civil suit against the State Public Charter School Commission — the latest chapter in a nearly half-year dispute over a commission decision that cut $1.4 million from the charter school’s budget.

The suit filed Thursday in state Circuit Court alleges that the commission’s November decision to cut Kamalani’s per-student funding for all of its 183 virtual students plus six in-person students was “capricious and arbitrary,” and reduces the funding for all of the school’s 341 students without due process.

In response to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser request for an interview, Yvonne Lau, interim executive director of the charter school commission, said she had no comment.

The school itself in December filed an appeal in circuit court of the commission’s action, but the court dismissed it on the grounds that a state agency cannot sue another state agency, Kamalani principal Amanda Fung said in an interview on Friday.

The new suit was filed by Kamalani parents Jessica Geller, Crystal Lawson, Tiffany Reynolds and Antonio Reynolds. Fung said the parents came together on their own and were not organized by the school. “Many of our parents are really upset,” she said.

Kamalani Academy, a charter school in Wahiawa that serves kindergarten through eighth grade, has been offering full or partial online learning in various forms since early in the pandemic, after the charter school commission in March 2020 first temporarily authorized all of the state’s 37 charter schools to offer alternative means of instruction, such as virtual learning.

The commission in June 2020 extended its temporary authorization for the charter schools to offer alternative learning for the 2020-21 school year, and again in May 2021 for the current 2021-22 school year, the suit said.

Kamalani last summer opted to contract with Utah-based Harmony Educational Services to provide online instruction in addition to the school’s in-person classes.

During the surge of the delta variant, school enrollment nearly doubled to 350, with 191 students signing up at the time for the virtual learning program.

But in October the commission issued a “notice of concern” regarding “enrollment irregularities” and potential violations to Kamalani’s charter school contract.

In November the commission unanimously decided that Kamalani did not have the authority to open a new virtual, blended or alternate program without changing its charter. The commission voted unanimously to reduce Kamalani’s final enrollment count to 152 from 341 after deeming the school’s online program permanent and in violation of its contract.

In their suit, the parents say that the school was never told that altering its charter was a requirement.

They argue that the $1.4 million should be restored to the school’s budget because it already was allocated to the school for the year, and right now the remaining budget for 152 students is being used to cover all 341 students, harming their right to a free and appropriate public education.

Fung said that a request by the school to be allowed to fix the problem by amending its charter, and her inquiries into where the cut funding is being held or used, have not been answered.