Some parents at a Kapolei private school are ringing alarm bells over what they see as high turnover rates for administrators and faculty after the school’s fourth secondary school principal in eight years departed late last month.

Umi Akana, whose son is in the eighth grade at Island Pacific Academy, said the departure of secondary school principal Gail Vannatta on March 25 “sparked action” among a group of parents, teachers and alumni who were concerned about the school’s consistently high levels of turnover.

“No matter who you talk to, what you’ll hear is that turnover is prevalent everywhere, and people kind of justify that as the case. Our message is that this kind of turnover creates instability in any system,” Akana said. “Turnover has been a long- standing issue, almost so much so that it’s almost just par for the course.”

But Head of School Gerald Teramae said the school has a 92% teacher retention rate — of its 83 faculty positions, the school has 76 returning teachers.

Teramae said that IPA hires teachers both locally and from the mainland, and that the school has lost some teachers from outside Hawaii who have returned home, as well as others to larger independent schools for financial reasons. The K-12 independent school was founded in 2004 and has a total enrollment of 547 students, according to its website.

In terms of administrators, Teramae said that IPA has “lost a few administrators in the last couple of years” — with the departing staffers either receiving promotions externally or leaving Hawaii.

“I would love for our administrators to stay, but I’m not going to stand in the way of professional growth, professional advancement, or in any way or form, if family is a pull to go back to the mainland, that’s going to take priority, and they need to go back and be with family,” Teramae told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Upon learning of Vannatta’s departure from his son less than a week before her last day, Akana said he called a meeting with his son’s counselor and Vannatta, who was still working at the time, where the information was confirmed. The next day, Akana met with Teramae; he said Teramae “acknowledged all of our concerns and assured me that there was change coming.”

Akana said he told Teramae that if there were any more staff changes this year, he would “personally lead an inquiry into what’s going on at the school.”

After the school community was notified of Vannatta’s departure, Akana said parents, teachers and alumni began reaching out to him, leading to a small protest in front of the school Tuesday morning. Several participants held signs that read, “Why do my teachers keep leaving me?” and “‘Where values matter.’ Whose values?”

Later that morning, Akana said, Teramae talked with protesters and “opened his door for discussion.” Akana also met with IPA’s Parent-Teacher Association president Brandie Martin to discuss how to move forward.

But Akana said his takeaway from his conversations with Teramae and Martin was more acknowledgment, rather than action.

“There’s a sense of urgency here for me,” he said. “Every day that these kids aren’t feeling like they’re being challenged or parents are feeling like they’re not getting their value for what they pay for over there, every day that goes by like that is just wasted. We’ll never get that back, so we’re hoping for a more immediate call to action and change.”

Teramae said he was “really taken aback” by Tuesday’s protest. He said he had previously met with parents and families through his open-door policy to discuss their concerns or issues, and he thought there was “a really common understanding of the situation.”

“What I’ve conveyed to our families and to our parents is that I would like to have conversations and discussions in regards to their concerns or issues, and we have had those meetings or conversations in smaller groups,” Teramae said.

Akana said that he wants to see a “town hall- style meeting” to discuss the turnover rates that also brings the school’s Board of Trustees together to “hear all these concerns and really hold them accountable.”

“I think that’s how we’re going to get to a place where we can institute change,” he said.

Teramae said that he’s already met with IPA’s Parent-Teacher Association board executives, and they have come to a consensus that the school will host a townhall meeting this month to address the issues.

“We’ll do our best job — ‘we’ being school personnel and Board of Trustees members — to answer to the best of our ability, and we can answer some of the questions they may have in preparing data,” Teramae said. “If it’s a concern of attrition of faculty, 90% is, I think, a really great number of retaining faculty and staff, and I’m gonna go back maybe two or three years previous to this year to share those numbers with our families as well.”

But finding a way to actually lower turnover rates isn’t an easy challenge to overcome, given the multitude of reasons why employees leave and the lack of a single solution. Teramae said improving workplace morale and culture is a “constant challenge that (the school) puts a lot of importance around.”

“I don’t know if there’s a solution. I think we just create a culture and we create a climate of the school where people feel that they are respected, that they have a sense of dignity and commitment to what we do as educators, and hopefully, we can hold on to them as long as we can,” Teramae said.

Despite the issue Akana has with IPA, he said pulling his son out of the school is “not even on (his) radar.” He said that he and his family have invested in IPA — the only private school on Oahu’s West side — as their best schooling option. His eighth grade son has attended the school since third grade, and his daughter graduated from the secondary school last year. A third child will begin kindergarten at IPA next year.

“We’d love to get them into a Punahou or ‘Iolani situation, but I could not physically get them there everyday. We’d have to move to do that, so we’re not going anywhere,” he said. “This is our school. This is our community. We believe in the school so much that we’ve already made that decision.”

He said that he and his family are grateful for what the school has done for them, and that they want to bring awareness to the issue so the high turnover rates don’t continue.

“We’re here to identify that there’s a problem, as a family that’s invested,” Akana said. “Many other families with us are also invested in the school. We have families who have been here from kindergarten, who have graduated people, and they’re here to help too. We don’t want to see our school fail.”

Teramae said IPA will continue to do its best moving forward, with the interests of their school community at the forefront.

“We go by this common belief at IPA where we do what’s best for the students and families of our school community, and that’s what we stand by,” Teramae said. “We do our best in the best interests of our students, our families, our faculty, staff, administrators.”