Legislators are considering a bill to require licensing or accreditation of all private schools in Hawaii because of fears unlicensed operations may be falling short of basic safety and other standards.

The Hawaii Council of Private Schools, which licenses private schools under an agreement with the state, is pushing to tighten oversight rather than leave licensing as optional. The council is a subsidiary of the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools.

“Making licensing optional sends a message that the state does not really care if the schools that provide K-12 education for almost 40,000 students are safe, healthy, educationally sound and financially viable learning environments,” Philip Bossert, executive director of the association, said in testimony to the Legislature.

The state Department of Education used to license private schools but in 1996 transferred that responsibility to the council. At that point licensing became optional, although Senate Education Chairwoman Michelle Kidani said that was not the intent.

“I did not realize that some private schools are not being so-called ‘licensed’ or regulated as they were before 1997,” said Kidani (D, Mililani-­Waikele-Kunia), who introduced legislation to address the situation. “The issue is to make sure there is some kind of annual reporting that shows compliance with health and safety laws, including enrollment, that faculty are credentialed and so on.”

To be licensed, a school must meet a variety of requirements covering such aspects as safety, health, facilities, governance, faculty, admissions, finances and a viable educational program. The items are on a checklist the state used and passed on to the council when it transferred duties, Bossert said.

Senate Bill 980, which would require all private schools to be either licensed or accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, is headed to the full Senate after passing the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. But the companion bill in the House has stalled.

Catholic Schools Superintendent Mike Rockers strongly opposes the legislation, saying it might violate the constitutional separation of church and state. He also objects to having a “third party” such as the council determine the fate of parochial schools.

House Bill 409 was deferred by the Committee on Lower and Higher Education, headed by bill co-sponsor and committee Chairman Justin Woodson (D, Kahului-Wailuku-Puunene) after Rockers’ testimony Feb. 12.

All 33 of Hawaii’s Catholic schools are accredited by WASC, a higher standard that includes licensing. So the proposed legislation would not affect them at this point, but Rockers said he feared it could lead to trouble.

“We certainly as a Catholic organization want to be able to hire Catholic teachers, and there’s other parts of our identity that we want to remain focused on,” he said. “Right now those things are not affected by the accreditation or that licensing checklist. But 10 years down the road, when an organization has the authority to license, if they change some wording related to curriculum or pedagogy or hiring practices, then it may put us in a bind.”

Rockers said of WASC and the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools that “choosing to have them as part of our support and our collaboration with them is one thing, but mandating that it should happen is a different thing, I think.”

In Hawaii, businesses including private schools must register with the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. But after that the agency does not track private school operations.

“To be clear, the DCCA has no oversight of K-12 private schools,” Catherine Awakuni Colón, the department’s director, testified.

A U.S. Department of Education report, “State Regulations for Private Schools,” published in 2009, showed that no state required licensing of all private schools at that time, although some had registration and other requirements. Pennsylvania mandated licensing of private schools except those owned or operated under the authority of a bona fide religious institution.

Kidani said the issue is regulatory approval, whether it is called licensing or not.

The Hawaii Council of Private Schools currently licenses 92 schools in the state and estimates that about 20 other schools are neither licensed nor accredited, Bossert said.

“The majority are very small schools,” Kidani said. “When some of these schools finally decide to be licensed, we find that they didn’t even know that they need a fire safety inspection, did not know they need a certificate of occupancy, which makes sure the facility is correct for educating students, did not know that if they’re serving food they need Health Department approval.”

Edna Hussey, board chairwoman of the Hawaii Council of Private Schools, cited a Senate concurrent resolution in 1999 noting that the Department of Education had formally recognized the council as “the agency responsible for the licensing of all private schools.”

“What is worrisome in our state is that there are no laws that hold unlicensed private schools to our industry standards,” Hussey testified.