The Hawaii Government Employees Association is asking the Legislature to summon officials from the state Department of Education and the Attorney General’s Office for an informational briefing to explain controversial plans to sever the Oahu Interscholastic Association and other public high school athletic leagues from the DOE.

Two months ago the OIA, which represents 30 public schools on Oahu, filed for incorporation, the first step toward all four public leagues in the state eventually achieving autonomy in management and oversight.

“A dramatic change like this, while perhaps, a worthy idea, should be discussed and considered openly with full public input …” HGEA executive director Randy Perreira wrote in a letter to Sen. Rosalyn Baker (D, Maui), who chairs the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Health.

In addition the HGEA, Hawaii’s largest public worker union with nearly 41,000 members, including high school principals, assistant principals and athletic directors, says, “… school administrators, who currently oversee these programs, should not be discouraged from asking questions and seeking transparency in how these changes will affect the DOE, individual schools and the communities they serve.”

Perreira said, “There is a clear effort by the Superintendent and her management team to suppress employee reaction, question and comment and prevent transparency of this proposed change.”

In a letter sent to DOE Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, “I had raised many of the same questions that are raised in Randy Perreira’s communication about where was the discussion, the public input and the meetings?” said Senate President Ron Kouchi (D, Kauai, Niihau).

Based upon concerns raised by his constituents and others, Kouchi introduced Senate Bill 3086, which is intended to open discussion over providing funds to support interscholastic athletic associations for each county.

In a statement, the DOE said, “The Department was engaged in OIA-lead discussions to determine the best course of action regarding the governance of high school athletics. We support the association’s decision as it promotes autonomy, flexibility and optimizes opportunities to enhance competitive athletics. No disruptions to the day-to-day operations are expected to take place.”

When the DOE filed for incorporation in December, a spokesman said “The goal is to strengthen consistency and clarity related to the governance of competitive high school athletics between the two entities (OIA and DOE). This promotes autonomy, flexibility and optimal opportunities politically and financially to enhance opportunities for Hawaii students.”

In December Kishimoto had said, “It is our collective goal to establish a formalized agreement that will help clarify the structure and roles of this long-standing partnership between the (DOE) and the OIA.”

Overall, there are approximately 25,000 participants from public and charter schools in athletics in grades 9 through 12 in the state.

Perreira said he wrote the letter to Baker after receiving a request for assistance from 19 HGEA members, a combination of principals and ADs. In their letter to Perreira, the members wrote, “The superintendent has assured us that funding will continue although we have no idea what the funding will look like.”

Perreira said, “One question asked of me on the Big Island a couple of weeks ago was, ‘Does this mean that we now have to pay fees to use the (school) fields?’ Simple questions but just simple things like that don’t seem to be well thought out.”

Although issues of governance and separation have been periodically discussed off and on for decades, they have been underlined by some recent court cases that have revived questions about where DOE responsibility ends and league authority begins. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of parents of Campbell High female athletes alleging discrimination based upon gender names both the DOE and OIA and asserts, “The DOE is pervasively entwined in the management and control of the OIA.”

Perreira said, “Anecdotally, people believe it (separation) was an effort to somehow dodge liability (on the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act and injury issues), which I find hard to understand because if you have competing high school students that are clearly associated with the school (and are) competing on fields or courts that are operated by the DOE and owned by the state, the state will forever be the deep pockets.”

This story was updated to include a response from the Department of Education.