On June 30, 2014, the then governing board of Hālau Lōkahi Charter School entered into a new charter contract with the State Public Charter School Commission effective July 1, 2014. This contract allowed Hālau Lōkahi to continue to exist legally as a public charter school, but it required the governing board members and the person who was serving as school director to resign and consent to the Commission’s appointment, after consultation with the school community, of the new governing board for the school. It also required the board to amend its bylaws to eliminate any restrictions on whom the Commission could appoint as new governing board members.

Commissioners Peter Hanohano and Kalehua Krug and three members of the school community formed an advisory group to propose names to the Commission for three of the five new governing board members. At its July 10, 2014 general business meeting, the Commission appointed the new governing board for the school. The members appointed were:

  1. Joseph Evans;
  2. Kama Hopkins;
  3. Keone Nunes;
  4. Andre Perez; and
  5. Fay Uyeda.


Upon these appointments, the resignations of the previous governing board and of the school director became effective.

Mr. Evans unexpectedly has had to decline his appointment because of personal commitments, and the Commission will be appointing the board’s fifth member at an upcoming meeting. The governing board will be meeting with the school community this coming Monday, July 21, 2014, 10 a.m. at the school.

In addition to appointing the governing board, the Commission took two other actions to support the board’s governance of the school.

First, the Commission voted to direct Hālau Lōkahi to refrain from taking any actions that would obligate the school and/or the State of Hawaii. At this point the school can only take actions that have been authorized by the new governing board. This restriction includes, but is not limited to, refraining from making any offers or assurances of employment or statements about staffing the school in the coming school year until such time as the governing board has had the opportunity to make these determinations. This action will help preserve the governing board’s options for addressing the school’s financial situation.

Second, the Commission announced that it will release Hālau Lōkahi’s first allocation of state per pupil funding for the 2014-15 school year once the new governing board has, to the satisfaction of the Commission:

  1. Completed its assessment of the school’s financial viability;
  2. Determined the school will open this school year;
  3. Provided an acceptable plan for completing the 2014-15 school year; and
  4. Verified the number of students that will be attending the school.


This action will enable the Commission to set the funding aside for Hālau Lōkahi for now while the governing board has time to act and make the determination that the school will open, since the deadline otherwise would have been this week. In the meantime, however, if the governing board requires some funds in order to fulfill these tasks it may request that the Commission release specific amounts of funds and provide the details on their proposed use.