The public charter school Kamalani Academy in Wahiawa could shut down in June after the state Public Charter School Commission this week denied its bid for a five-year renewal of its contract, but school leaders say they will appeal the decision.
The school remains open for now, but the commission has slated it to close after the school year ends and its contract expires June 30. The campus at 1403 California Ave. has operated since the 2017-2018 school year and serves about 150 students in kindergarten through grade 8. It bills itself as the only charter school in Central Oahu.
The commission, which oversees contracts with the state’s 37 public charter schools, held a special proceeding Wednesday and voted 5-1 to not grant Kamalani a contract renewal to continue operating “due to multiple material and substantive violations of the charter contract,” said a commission news release.
Kamalani officials plan to file an appeal with the state Board of Education once the commission issues a letter with its findings within 15 days of its decision. “Let us not lose hope, because we feel there are many options available,” Kamalani Academy Board Chair Ku‘uipo Murray wrote in a letter to parents.
The school’s website still declares, “The school year 2023-2024 Enrollment Application is now open.”
Amanda Fung, the school’s principal, contends the school has no major academic, financial or safety problems and that the commission could have worked more collaboratively with Kamalani’s board to improve decision making and management instead of opting to end it.
“I don’t think that the commissioners thought about the kids when they made that (closure) decision,” she said. “We offer great programs for our kids. … So this is why I think it was so shocking for everybody.”
The school and commission have been divided for nearly a year and a half over whether Kamalani violated terms of its charter contract, beginning with when it offered virtual learning and “blended” or combination online and in-person learning in portions of 2020 and 2021 as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Oct. 28, 2021, the commission issued a “notice of concern” to the school’s governing board. “If a charter school … does not have an authorized online virtual or blended program, but wants to start such a program, it must apply for a contract amendment with the Commission prior to beginning such a program,” the commission’s news release said.
On Nov. 15, 2021, the commission determined that Kamalani did not have the authority to open a new virtual, blended or alternate program without going through a contract amendment process, so it declared that Kamalani’s enrollment for that school year was actually 152 students and not the 335 the school claimed including online students.
At the commission’s general business meeting May 26, as Kamalani was requesting to add a virtual program, two dozen complaints from parents were received, alleging that the school had refused to release their children to attend other schools.
Following a June 14 commission staff visit to investigate the complaints, another “notice of concern” was issued to the school June 20 “regarding inaccuracies with the school’s projected student enrollment, the state of the student records, governance of the school, and release and withdrawal of students,” the commission statement said.
That action was escalated to a “notice of deficiency” on Oct. 13 “due to the school’s continued failure to completely address the issues” identified in June.
The deficiency notice was considered in the decision not to grant a contact renewal, the commission statement said. Details are contained in the commission’s 231-page submittal, which can be found at 808ne.ws/3ksrwJS.
A spokesperson for the commission said Chair Cathy Ikeda was not available Friday for comment. Questions emailed to Executive Director Yvonne Lau did not receive a response.
The school has argued that it was prioritizing student needs when it offered full or partial online learning, and was working under temporary authorizations by the commission to offer alternative means of instruction in response to the pandemic.
“The Kamalani Governing Board made decisions during the pandemic to continue educating students virtually without receiving state funding,” Murray wrote. “We stand by these decisions because we believed they were in the best interest of our students and Hawaii’s community. Had we not made these decisions, we would not be in the situation we are in today.”
In an interview Friday, Fung said she believes the issue should be moot since the school stopped offering virtual learning at the end of last school year. She added that the parent complaints were over the school’s refusing to release the children’s enrollment because they had not returned laptops and iPads to the school. She said once state counsel had advised the school that it could not conduct such holds over financial obligations, the school released the students.
