In an unprecedented court-style hearing Thursday, the state Board of Education reversed a decision by the state Public Charter School Commission to close the Wahiawa charter school Kamalani Academy. The reversal put a button on years of legal conflicts and removed at least immediate fears that the school would be forced to close.

The hearing was on Kamalani’s appeal of the commission’s February decision to deny the school a five-year contract renewal. The commission at the time had cited “multiple material and substantive violations of the charter contract,” including the school’s offering a virtual learning program without a commission- approved change to its charter.

So once the BOE announced Thursday to the full house in the moot-court classroom at the University of Hawaii that it would reverse the contract denial, leaving Kamalani open, many of the more than 40 Kamalani students, educators, parents and supporters in attendance burst into happy tears, hugs and courtroom-appropriate hushed cheers.

Principal Amanda Fung said the takeaway for all Hawaii charter schools is that “they can stand up for what’s right. … I think a lot of schools are afraid to speak, to ask questions or to say something’s wrong. So this gives them hope of a system that’s willing to support them.” Fung wept in relief as supporters congratulated her. Her children Lizzy and Liam, who are Kamalani students, clung to her before joining their celebrating classmates.

Kamalani and the commission are now directed to execute a renewed charter contract, of a length and terms that they agree on, said Board of Education Chair Bruce Voss, one of five BOE members who presided over the hearing. If negotiations take beyond the June 30 expiration of the current contract, it would be assumed to be renewed in the interim for one year, Voss said.

The board would have preferred to remand the commission’s decision, but time is of the essence with so many students and families waiting on Kamalani’s fate to make plans for next school year, Voss said.

Hearing open to public

It was the first time that the BOE took on reviewing the appeal of a nonrenewal case involving a public charter school, and the first time the board opted to hear arguments for an administrative decision in a public forum in a format that mirrored elements of a court proceeding.

The five members of the BOE — Voss, Christine “Kili” Namau‘u, Makana McClellan, Lynn Fallin and Lauren Moriarty — listened in the moot courtroom at the William S. Richardson Law School to approximately an hour and a half of oral arguments by separate state deputy attorneys general representing the school and the commission, then went into a private room to deliberate.

Normally, such administrative proceedings would not be in public, but Voss said the open format was used because “the board wanted everyone, public schools, the students, to understand what the issues were, and the basis for both parties’ positions, and the board’s rules. And we wanted to do it in a timely manner” so that students and families were not kept waiting further on the fate of their school.

The board also wanted the proceeding to be a learning experience for the students. While the board deliberated behind closed doors, students and members of the public were allowed a question-and- answer session about the board, commission and related laws and rules.

When the panel emerged, Voss, who is an attorney, announced that the BOE panel concluded that the commission had made several errors in its dealings with Kamalani, including basing its nonrenewal decision on problems that had not been raised in a prior performance evaluation, and failing to properly and specifically describe the violations. “The commission’s decision was based on errors of statute and also unlawful procedure,” he said.

Lengthy battle over

The reversal of the nonrenewal brought an apparent end to years of dramatic disagreements and confusion between Kamalani and the commission that began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kamalani, which has served students in kindergarten through eighth grade at 1403 California Ave. since the 2017-2018 year, began in 2020 to offer full or partial online learning in various forms, and contracted with Utah-based Harmony Educational Services to provide online instruction in addition to the school’s in-person classes. School enrollment, normally at about 150, at one point spiked to 350.

But the commission in 2021 said the school did not have authority to open a new virtual, blended or alternate program without amending its charter, and voted to reduce the school’s final enrollment count, causing the school to lose about $1.4 million.

The school in 2021 filed an appeal in Circuit Court, but it was dismissed on the grounds that a state agency cannot sue another state agency. In February 2022 a group of four Kamalani parents filed a civil suit against the commission, alleging the funding cut was without due process.

Meanwhile, in February this year the commission denied Kamalani a contract renewal over that and other issues, including the school’s refusal to release some students to other schools unless they returned their laptops; a teacher whose license was alleged to not cover all the grades she taught; failure to follow “commission-approved admission policy”; and alleged inaccuracies in student records. Dozens of Kamalani community members demonstrated before a BOE meeting to protest the closure.

In his arguments Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Kevin M. Richardson argued on behalf of the school that the “punishment did not fit the crime.”

After the hearing, Voss called the reversal a “fresh start” for Kamalani and the commission, which he said had both made errors over the years. “It’s the board’s hope that this has been a teaching moment, both for the commission as well as for charter schools, about the importance of complying with proper procedure,” he said.

Voss also said he expects that the BOE, which is charged with reviewing the Public Charter School Commission’s annual report, and performing an evaluation of the commission every five years, will encourage improvements in communication and the processes it uses to evaluate and manage Hawaii’s 37 charter schools.

Public Charter Schools Commission interim Executive Director PJ Foehr, who assumed the post only two weeks ago but has served on the commission staff for years, said he believes the commission has made “a very concerted effort” to build communication and understanding with the charter schools, and will continue to improve.

“Our mission is to make sure we authorize high- quality charter schools. … We will continue to work with the schools to accomplish that,” Foehr said. ”I don’t think it’s a one-person or one-entity thing. We have to keep working with both parties to figure out how to do it, and just keep working at it.”