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Most of the Hawaii State Board of Education‘s nine new appointees have visited at least one public school since they took office two months ago.

The board members say they haven’t visited more mostly because it’s summertime and most schools are out of session. But two said they have strategic reasons for putting off school visits.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie hand-picked the inaugural nine on the appointed Board of Education, which by constitutional amendment replaced the elected board this year. He nominated the nine on March 30, and they were confirmed and sworn in on April 14.

The previous board was criticized for getting too involved in day-to-day school operations and ignoring bigger systemic issues.

The former board also held many of its meetings at schools throughout the state, but the new board seems to be taking the opposite tack. There are no immediate plans to incorporate school visits into the new board’s official order of business.

Although it can distract from larger issues, visiting schools can also help board members get a sense of how their policies affect students, faculty and administrators. They can also observe problems on the ground that they might not otherwise hear about.

The new board members offered a variety of explanations for why they haven’t visited many schools yet.

One is deliberately deferring school visits until she has first become familiar with the education jargon and the big-picture issues. Another has been out of the country for a month. A third member said she spends a significant amount of time in schools already.

Chairman Don Horner has been to at least three that Civil Beat is aware of, but he and Charlene Cuaresma did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls requesting an account of their school visits.

Five said they are talking about education issues with constituents everywhere they go.

Many of the members appeared defensive about their involvement at the school level, after a former elected Board of Education member recently accused the appointed board of being “out of touch” and “unavailable.”

“We are all in touch with the public schools to varying degrees, but people need to keep in mind that our role is primarily as a policymaking and oversight body,” Keith Amemiya, who formerly served as director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association, told Civil Beat.

Amemiya said he had countless meetings in public schools during his 12-year tenure as director of the athletic association. His job took him to every one of the state’s 63 public high schools, he said, and dozens of middle and elementary schools. Even his office was based out of Stevenson Middle School.

Since his appointment, Amemiya said he has visited six schools: Kailua, Kaimuki, Roosevelt, Farrington and McKinley high schools, along with Stevenson Middle School. But he added that school visits don’t really say much about a board member’s ability to develop meaningful and helpful education policies.

“The number of schools visited doesn’t necessarily make someone an effective board member,” he said. “It’s just one of several factors in judging a board member’s effectiveness, because our primary focus is on the big picture.”

For the sake of seeing that big picture, Cheryl Kauhane Lupenui said she has deliberately deferred many invitations to visit schools.

“I expect to (visit schools), and I look forward to it,” she said. “But because I’m new to the board, I wanted to use these initial few months to get a strategic view of the school system and get a handle on the issues. I wanted to do my due diligence so that when I do visit the schools, I’m contributing to the discussion.”

Lupenui said part of her focus has been on learning basic educational jargon, “out of respect and honor to the professionals in the field.”

Jim Williams, also vice-chairman of Voyager Public Charter School, said he has only visited Ka Waihona O Ka Naauao New Century Public Charter School in Nanakuli since his appointment. He spent four weeks out of the country, though, and pointed out that the board took office right around the end of the school year.

“People need to be patient,” he said. “First, all the members are committed to doing a good job. Second, while it’s important to see what’s going on at the schools, it’s important to keep that in perspective. I don’t think it’s a Board of Education member’s job to do troubleshooting at each particular school.”

Maui representative Wesley Lo said that although he attended every high school graduation he could, he has found his numerous discussions with complex area superintendents more helpful for getting a big-picture view of issues in the school system and guiding him to visit schools in an orderly fashion. He also said that discussions about education are not restricted to school campuses. People are constantly talking about education with him no matter where he is, he said.

Big Island lawyer Brian DeLima said he has visited four schools, but has talked to teachers and administrators all over the island and is scheduling meetings so constituents can come share their ideas with him. He, like Lo, said education comes up in many a conversation as he goes about his daily life.

Kim Gennaula said she managed to visit three different schools before the end of the academic year, along with a town hall meeting on education.

“We are very active and very involved and are getting feedback on education on a daily basis, even if we are not physically on campus at the time,” Gennaula said of the board, adding that campus visits would probably increase once school is back in session.

Kauai representative Nancy Budd declined to provide a specific number, but said she is “in schools all the time” as a tutor (one of those schools is Wilcox Elementary, where her daughter is an educational assistant).

Horner has been to at least three schools since his February appointment to an unfinished elected term on the former Board of Education. Two of those three were for meetings with the old board: Waiakea High School in Hilo and Waihona O Ka Naauao New Century Public Charter School in Nanakuli. The third visit was to speak at Moanalua High School’s annual professional development conference for teachers in April.

Has The Board of Education Been to School?

Amemiya said counting school visits is one metric for determining board members’ involvement, but focusing too much on them also misses the point: “Although it certainly doesn’t hurt the board to visit as many schools as possible, we need to be careful about our role and function and not overstep our bounds in terms of trying to run the day to day operations of each school.”