Nominees To Charter School Commission Named
Four out of the nine seats are up for grabs on the besiegedHawaii State Public Charter School Commission.
The head of the and an insurance company executiveare among five nominees being considered for positionson the.
There are two empty seatson the commission and twocommissioners whoseterms end in June. The commission, created by lawmakers in 2012 toimprovefinancial and academic oversight of charter schools, has comeunder increasing firerecently from charter school leaderswho complainthey are being over-regulated.Lawmakers former the commission to hold charter schools accountable in the wake of several scandals.
The , which oversees the commission, formed an investigative committee earlier this year to look into complaints from school leaders and decide if a special review of the commission’s performance is warranted.
Although the boardhas yet to decide whether to conducta special review, it isexpected to vote next week — at the same meeting where it will name the new charter commissioners —on the process for conducting such a review, if it is needed.
New Nomination Process
In the past, it has been up to the boardchair to nominate commissioners for confirmation by the full board. This year, after complaints that the commission is too inaccessible to charter leaders, the boardvoted to allow anyone to submit an application.
Inan effort tosolicit more applicants, Board of Education Chair Lance Mizumoto wrote anew policy keepingthe names of thenominees privateuntil theybecome finalists and agree to have their name become public.
In order to discuss the nominations at public meetings, the boarddecided to usenumbers for thenominees in place oftheirnames — a process thatBrian Black, executive director of theCivil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest,told Civil Beat wasunusual.
“They are not required to keep that information private; and they certainly could have spoken to the applicants beforehand and gotten permission to use their names, rather than having a process that says theinformation has to be private,” Black said last month.
The Board discussed the five nominees by numberat the April 19 meeting, and thenposted the names of the finalistsin the agenda for the upcoming May 5 meeting.
Charter Commission Chair Catherine Payne nominated current commissioners Kalehua Krug and Mitchell D’Olier to serve second termswhen their current appointmentsexpire at the end of June.
Three other people submitted applications on their own:
- , executive director of the Native Hawaiian Education Council and a former vice president of administration at Kamehameha Schools.
- Nolan Kawano, presidentof the insurance company IC International, and president of the .
- John Kim, a former teacher and school administrator and currentgoverning board chair of the Hawaii Technology Academy charter school.
Read the resumes and bios of all five nominees .
