Question 1:
Do teachers have to be "accepted", after an application process, in the first transition year of the charter school? Or, do they just continue teaching, simply by applying by February 15th, followed by a review based decision at the end of the first year, as to whether they are invited to stay with the charter or not?
Answer:
There has been no legal support found, for the proposition that current DOE employees already have positions at Laupahoehoe Community Public Charter School for school year 2012-2013. The Public Charter School is an autonomous entity.
Attempts to schedule meetings with the employee unions about this issue have received no official response. The DOE also has yet to officially respond.
For teachers worried about the February 15 charter application deadline arriving prior to hearing from the DOE about transfer positions. Keep in mind that this is the APPLICATION deadline, not the date at which you would have to accept or decline a charter position. Get your applications in by the fifteenth if you MIGHT want to work at the charter school! You can decide later, after hearing from the DOE, if you plan to accept or reject a charter position offer.
Also note that the DOE does not share any teacher information with the charter school. Therefore the charter must get copies of things like resumes (hence the application deadline) for their teachers-to-be.
Question 2:
Why are we not stakeholders of our school? And why were Local School Board elections postponed?
Answer:
Firstly, we ARE all stake holders of the current Laupahoehoe Public School. Therefore all parents and teachers of children registered in the school had a chance to vote in February 2010, for or against, the current school becoming a charter school.
However, we are not all automatically stakeholders of the upcoming charter school. The stakeholders of the CHARTER school will be the the parents, students, teachers and staff, and community of the charter school when it opens. Since the charter school has not actually opened yet, and teachers have not been hired yet, and students are not enrolled yet, and we do not yet know who will be living in the community, who move in, and who will move out, we cannot possibly expect there to be a complete list of stakeholders of the charter school at this point.
Secondly, the Local School Board elections were postponed due to the above stakeholder issue. Without charter specific stakeholders, how can there be a charter specific vote? This was affirmed by the Board Of Education.
What exactly is the Local School Board?
ReplyDeleteHey Daniel, thanks for reading. Excellent question! The Local School Board will be:
DeleteAs provided by §302B-7(c), HRS, the LSB will be the autonomous governing body of
LCPCS and will be responsible for the financial and academic viability of the charter
school, implementation of the charter, and the independent authority to determine the
organization and management of the school, the curriculum, virtual education, and
compliance with applicable federal and state laws. The LSB will have the power to
negotiate supplemental collective bargaining agreements with the exclusive
representatives of their employees.
At the moment the planning of the charter school is handled by an Interim LSB.
As a "conversion" school, isn't there an implication that the school already exists, and therefore all who currently attend are necessarily stakeholders of their local school, regardless of what it is called, if they are in the geographic catchment area? After all, DOE won't bus any students elsewhere, so if they go to another school, they must first get a geographic exception (which is something that Pa'auilo has consistently rejected) and then must provide their own transportation. So to say that the current students are not stakeholders is somewhat ridiculous. This means that a non-elected board that represents the non-profit LACA, not the community, is making all the curriculum decisions, hiring decisions, and every other pertinent decision, effectively cutting the community, students, and parents out of the governance process. The BOE may have "affirmed" this decision, but the CSRP, which allegedly oversees the Hawaii Charter Schools, was so upset by the BOE decision overturning their ruling that three of them, including the chairman, quit in protest.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it would be nice to be able to get things sorted out immediately by calling all current attendees of the school stakeholders. But I think that the main problem with assuming that the current attendees of the school will be the stakeholders is the possibility that there still may be a lot of switching around of people happening before the school starts.
DeleteSome people will undoubtedly leave, and others will probably come from elsewhere to be a part of the new school. If the charter school were to assume that the stakeholders were already present and accounted for, and proceed with a LSB election, this would allow people who were leaving to have a say, and would deny a say to people who had yet to join the school. This goes for students, teachers, and community.
In my opinion, this would contradict part of the purpose of a charter school - having the local community who are involved with the school, be allowed to take part in the decision making of the school, and how it functions. By waiting, the school is insuring that everyone who will be involved with the new school will be allowed to take part in the process of shaping it.
To address the concern as to why it might be a problem for people who end up leaving to have a say in the initial decision making for the new school. It really should not be a problem. However, I myself have heard a few very disturbing stories of a few anti-charter supporters, who had plans to seat themselves on a newly elected LSB simply to make a fuss, and hinder the efforts of the rest of the board, and therefore the school itself. This is absolutely ridiculous, and completely goes against what any board should stand for. After all the whole point of a board is to represent and support the body for which they stand for. It is not a place to debate whether the entity itself should, or should not exist.
I hope this helps to portray the need to wait. Thanks for contributing!