Embattled Leader of Charter School Oversight Agency To Resign
The relationship between the commission聽and charter school leaders has become聽increasingly contentious in the last year.
The head of a聽state agency tasked with implementing sweeping legislative changes to Hawaii’s charter school system is resigning in the midst of pushback from school leaders who say they are being over-regulated.
Tom Hutton聽was hired three years ago to聽serve as the first-ever director of the .聽Lawmakers created the commission in 2012 as part of a broad overhaul of charter school regulations in the state.
“Part of the art of leadership is being able to recognize when the interests of your organization require a change of leaders,” Hutton wrote in a letter to the commission聽that was shared with charter schools Wednesday.聽聽“In other professional settings, the turnaround specialist frequently is not best positioned to lead the organization after some of the more painful turnaround tasks have been completed.”
Hutton’s task was never going聽to be easy, said Rep. Roy Takumi, who chairs the House Education Committee, adding that a certain amount of frustration is expected when lawmakers mandate changes in how a longstanding entity operates.
Charter school leaders say聽the聽commission has been overburdening schools with reporting requirements, not doing enough to support聽the schools, and聽failing to clearly communicate. Many also expressed frustration with the聽new school聽contracts, which they felt were too one-size-fits-all and should be negotiated more individually with schools.
Charter School Commission Chair Catherine Payne praised Hutton’s work and said she was sad that to see him leave.
“He has done a very good job of putting together a completely different organization with a different charge than existed before (Act 130) 聽in a very short time,” Payne said.
Hutton has been “under siege” for some time, Payne said.
Charter school employees curse at Hutton and commission staff on the phone, she said. During a meeting leading up to the closure of Halau Lokahi Charter School, Payne said an employee of the now-shuttered school threw salt on Hutton as a “sign of disgust.”
“滨听don鈥檛 think of educators as behaving in this way,” Payne said. “I鈥檝e never experienced anything this terrible in the kind of treatment people聽(are) receiving.”聽
In his letter to the commission announcing his plans to leave, Hutton聽highlighted a number of commission achievements including the “establishment of real performance contracts with renewal criteria, so many years after the establishment of chartering in Hawaii,” a more聽rigorous聽application process for new charter schools, and garnering a $14.8 million federal grant for pre-kindergarten programs.
“That said, much remains to be done in a charter system and a group charter culture that are a legacy of a unique and problematic evolution, coupled with years of benign neglect,” Hutton said.
The Board of Education, meanwhile, has been listening carefully to complaints from charter school leaders.
The BOE, which oversees the Charter School Commission, formed an investigative committee in January to look at whether a聽special review of the commission’s performance聽is聽warranted.
The decision followed a charter school listening tour that highlighted the increasingly contentious relationship between charter school leaders and the commission.
The tour raised a significant number of concerns, BOE Member Jim Williams said during a聽board meeting last month.聽Several charter school leaders called for Hutton’s ouster during the listening tour.
“It is time for him to leave,” Connections Public Charter School Principal聽John Thatcher said Wednesday. “I think he鈥檇 done more damage than good to the charter school聽(movement) in Hawaii.”
The Charter School Commission was not invited to participate in the tour and was not asked聽to respond to the complaints before the BOE published its report on the events.
The BOE is also聽in the midst of creating rules that would allow additional agencies to apply to become charter school authorizers. The Charter School Commission is currently the only agency in Hawaii that can approve new charter schools.
Hawaii聽聽County and the聽聽have both expressed interest in becoming charter school authorizers.
Hutton said he would be discussing a timeline for his departure with the commission.
“When I accepted this position three years ago, I said that the urgency of the long overdue work before us required us to move quickly and that I would not set our pace based on concern for my own longevity but based on the interests of children, the public, and Hawaii鈥檚 charter movement,” Hutton wrote. “This meant that it was entirely possible that I would outrun my capital at some point, and I was OK with that.”
