The state Public Charter School Commission is not fully meeting its statutory duties, in part because it lacks a strategic vision, a recently completed investigation by the Board of Education has found.

The months-long investigation was sparked by complaints from charter schools against the agency that regulates them.

The Board of Education, which is responsible for overseeing the commission’s performance and effectiveness, launched a probe in September after receiving complaints that a “negative and counterproductive relationship” exists between the commission and some charter schools. The board appoints volunteers to the nine-member commission, which was established by a 2012 law to reform the state’s chartering system.

Under that law “a pattern of well-founded complaints” against the commission can trigger a special review by the Board of Education.

The board assembled a three-member investigative committee, which concluded its review last month using information gathered from commission staff; a survey of school governing boards, school directors, commissioners and commission staff and other interested parties; a public hearing; and interviews.

“The objectives of this special review were to review the past and current performance of the commission in relation to all applicable statutory requirements, including the objective of ‘ensuring a long-term strategic vision for Hawaii’s charter schools,’” the BOE committee said in its final report, which will be presented Tuesday to the full board.

The report concluded overall that the Public Charter School Commission only “partially meets” its requirements — the midpoint of five possible ratings between “meets” and “does not meet.” As a result, the report recommends the BOE require the commission to provide corrective action plans to address the identified weak points and report to the board quarterly on its progress.

The committee said it found five key areas of deficiency “from which most of the commission’s other weaknesses derive”: lack of a strategic vision or organizational goals; lack of a system for regular self-evaluation; poor communication; unclear standards and conditions for charter contract renewal; and not protecting school autonomy.

The committee added, “However, the report also highlights that the Commission also has some well-developed processes and qualified personnel who should be able to develop solutions to address many of the identified weaknesses.”

The commission declined to provide a formal response, according to the report.

Sione Thompson, who was hired in August as the commission’s executive director, said the agency is not challenging or validating the investigative committee’s findings. It plans to use the feedback in its strategic planning, which is underway.

“We’re utilizing this report as one of the pieces of a foundation in moving towards our strategic planning process,” Thompson said in an interview. “We’re absolutely going to look at the opportunities for strengthening the areas where the ratings may not have been, according to this report, meeting. We see it as an opportunity to get better.”

Catherine Payne, a retired principal who has been chairwoman of the Public Charter School Commission for the past four years, maintains the commission is fulfilling its requirements.

Unlike its predecessor, the charter school administrative office, which provided support services for schools, the commission was established with a statutory mission to authorize high-quality public charter schools throughout the state.

Payne said that in an effort to maintain a collaborative and positive relationship with the Board of Education, the panel chose not to provide a point-by-point response to the board’s report.

“We’d like to stop the conflict. We don’t want to keep this issue going,” Payne said in an interview. “We’re going to take it constructively and try to make the adjustments that we can.”

Payne said there were concerns from commissioners that the BOE’s investigation was launched without vetting allegations that arose during an informal listening tour with some charter schools a year ago.

She said an initial report issued on the tour’s findings indicated that the board “wasn’t that interested in whether things were factual or not; they were dealing with the feelings side of things. Feelings are important but facts are important, too.”

Payne added, “We want to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard on all sides if there’s a conflict, and we want to make sure that we have helped the board to understand what the law requires us to do.”

Designed to be laboratories for innovation in public education, the state’s 34 charter schools use mostly public funds to offer a free education but are independently run by governing boards under contracts with the commission.

The 2012 law that established the commission tightened oversight after reports at a few campuses of questionable use of public money, possible favoritism in the hiring of relatives, and poor academic performance.

But some schools have complained about the level of oversight imposed by the commission and its staff, arguing that the agency is too heavy-handed. The state auditor, however, faulted the commission in a 2015 study for not acting forcefully enough to shut down a campus for financial insolvency.

Payne acknowledged there have been growing pains since the reform law passed.

“In the beginning, because it was such a massive change, it was more of an effort to get this law in place and meet the timelines of the law, and the inevitability of fractured relationships actually happened,” she said. “The expectation has to be that our charter schools are as good as or better than our public schools. We’re definitely working really hard toward that.”