The state Ethics Commission’s investigation into wrongdoing at the Myron B. Thompson Academy is now focused on the school’s principal, Diana Oshiro, and its elementary division vice principal, Kurumi Kaapana-Aki, Oshiro’s sister.
After issuing a new series of charges against the school and the two women, the commission Friday set a March 17 hearing date.
Any charges levied by the Ethics Commission do not become public until a hearing date is published, so the panel’s action triggered the release of documents tied to the investigation for the first time.
At the center of the civil investigation are allegations that Kaapana-Aki was working as a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant on days when she reported herself to be at her job at the school, and that Oshiro allowed her to do so.
Each woman is accused of 162 violations, with each count carrying a maximum penalty of $500. Each woman could be fined as much as $81,000 if found in violation of all counts.
Commission documents say that Kaapana-Aki was absent for all or part of 144 regular school days between March 2007 and April 2012.
The commission staff used Hawaiian Airlines personnel records to verify the absences, said commission Executive Director Les Kondo.
Kaapana-Aki said the absences were legitimate because she was taking compensatory time earned from working "non-school hours" and "unofficial work days."
But commission staff said those hours were undocumented, Kondo said. Also, Kaapana-Aki is a member of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, which has agreements that do not allow for comp time, he said.
Both women are also accused of 18 counts for allegedly "backdating" leave-of-absence forms in an attempt to create an after-the-fact record that Kaapana-Aki had requested times off and that Oshiro approved them.
But the women said that filing leave forms after the fact is a common practice.
"It was not an attempt to deceive anyone, but a correction for the record," Kaapana-Aki said in a written response to the commission regarding the charges.
Oshiro, in her written response, said the charter school operates in a nontraditional manner in which students work largely at home and online, requiring faculty and staff to interact with them and their parents at all hours.
"The working schedules of all instructional and administrative personnel must be flexible and geared to the individual and collective needs of our students," Oshiro wrote. "Courses, instruction and administrative supervision of staff and programs are not subject to a school bell that dictates movement into the next class and period" as in traditional school settings.
Like other Hawaii public charter schools, the academy gets most of its funding from the state and is considered a state agency. But unlike traditional public schools that report to the state Board of Education, charter schools report to their own boards.
Investigators from the state attorney general’s office seized computers and more than 50 boxes of documents from the public charter school’s downtown offices last week.
That criminal investigation is completely independent of what the commission is doing, Kondo said.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser first reported on allegations of nepotism at the charter school in 2010, raising questions about accountability at charter schools. The newspaper reported that Oshiro had hired her sister for the vice principal post and that Kaapana-Aki was also working full time as a flight attendant.
In 2011 members of the Charter School Review Panel initiated probation and revocation proceedings after the school failed to answer questions about hiring practices.
In addition, Oshiro hired three nephews. She put two of Kaapana-Aki’s sons on staff even though they had no college degrees or teaching licenses. One was the athletic director, though the school had no sports teams. The other was the school’s film teacher. A third Kaapana-Aki son worked as a part-time clerk.
New questions arose after an audit showed Kaapana-Aki received a $35,000 bonus in addition to her salary and that the school made a $175,000 donation to a nonprofit foundation set up to support the school.
