Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
By COLIN M. STEWART
Tribune-Herald staff writer
The Board of Education’s Tuesday decision to overrule the Charter School Review Panel in favor of a July opening for the Laupahoehoe charter school has precipitated the resignation of three of the panel’s members.
The members, including Chairman Carl Takamura, Ruth Tschumy and Pualani Akaka, announced their resignations at the panel’s Thursday morning meeting.
Among the reasons given for their decision were the BOE’s alleged “disregard for the hard work and long hours that the (review panel) put into investigating and deliberating on this complex situation,” Takamura wrote in his resignation letter. “I am also disappointed that the voices of the people who are most directly affected by this decision — the students, parents, teachers and staff of Laupahoehoe School — were not permitted to be heard during the appeals process.”
Four-and-a-half-year member and former Chairwoman Ruth Tschumy added that she found the BOE’s decision “inexplicable.”
“With respect to Laupahoehoe, the Board of Education has once again reversed the Panel’s decision, disregarding over thirty hours of work by the Panel in trying to help both sides come together on behalf of the children at the school,” she said in her resignation letter. “Charter Schools are community schools, and community consensus is critical to their success. Yet, the Board has ordered that the school be allowed to open in 2012-13 without a local school board in place, and with its community in turmoil.”
In a Friday afternoon phone interview, Takamura added that he had enjoyed his time on the panel and felt he and his fellow members had accomplished much, but he would not be able to continue without the support of the Board of Education.
“They undermined our authority and our credibility,” he said. “… I just found the situation to be untenable.”
Each of the three members’ terms were set to expire in June, Big Isle BOE member Brian DeLima said, and the BOE will begin work to fill those vacancies. Including a previous vacancy, the 12-member panel will be left with only eight members. A minimum of seven votes is needed for any action by the panel.
In response to their resignations, DeLima said that while he respected the review panel members and their work, they were ultimately wrong in the case of Laupahoehoe, and they would have to move forward.
“These members have served for some time. They dedicated their time and effort to do the best job they could. They’re doing public service and good work, but on this issue there was a disagreement,” DeLima said. “We just think they were wrong, and unfortunately, they felt compelled to resign.”
DeLima maintained that the Laupahoehoe community members were indeed given a voice in the process, and BOE members had voted to follow the state’s charter school law, as well as to provide the community what it has asked for.
“The matter is that the decision to become a charter school was decided by the February 2010 vote of the community,” he said. “What information is different now than it was back then?”
The charter school’s opponents, including teachers and staff at the existing Laupahoehoe High and Elementary School, maintain that the community was duped into voting to convert the school to a charter. They have threatened to try to win election to the Local School Board and then return the charter to the state in an attempt to remain under the purview of the Department of Education. However, they claim the charter’s interim board delayed holding the elections to prevent such a tactic.
On Tuesday, the BOE issued a decision in support of a pair of appeals by the charter’s interim board to launch the school this July and hold elections for the permanent board sometime after the start of the academic year. The interim board maintained that holding elections beforehand would be illegal, by drawing from pools of teachers, parents, staff, and others who do not plan to attend or work at the school. The BOE’s decision overturned earlier rulings by the Charter School Review Panel that required the school to postpone opening until the 2013-14 academic year, and to hold school board elections drawing from the current school’s stakeholders. Previously, the BOE had also overridden a decision by the review panel to deny Laupahoehoe’s application for a charter.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.