Big Island charter school gets temporary reprieve

By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Board of Education last night postponed a vote on whether to recommend that a Big Island charter school be placed on probation because of alleged overspending by the school.

Board member Donna Ikeda, head of the committee on charter schools, said the vote was delayed to give the parties time to work out an agreement. The school board will take up the issue again May 2.

Waters of Life opened at the beginning of the 2000-01 school year and has since overspent $241,645, the Board of Education said.

The school's monthly personnel costs are about $36,000 and the school is expected to accumulate an additional deficit of $144,000 for the current school year, the board said.

Ikeda said state money allotted to schools is based on a per-pupil formula, which averages out to about $3,666 per pupil.

Waters of Life avoided closure by the state in February when Big Island Judge Riki May Amano sided with the school and said that education officials mishandled the charter school program. She also said that state law entitles the schools to a two-year period to fix any problems once they are noted.

Charter schools, authorized by the Legislature in 1999, use public money and are part of the Department of Education, but operate largely independent of local school bureaucracies, which advocates say makes them more efficient, responsive to parents and creative in their curriculum.

The Board of Education said placing the school on probation may help the school to improve its fiscal accountability, and may enable the school to repay the Department of Education for money the department has spent to cover the school's deficits.

Waters of Life has cut its faculty and staff from 24 to 15, and in January moved its operations from the Hawaii Naniloa Hotel to the Boys and Girls Club in Hilo, reducing rental costs from $3,500 to $1,500 a month, said school director Truitt White.

In a matter of months, enrollment dropped from 100 to 75 students and the school has stopped its fine arts and agricultural programs and is using more parent volunteers to cut costs, White said.

Following Amano's ruling in February, school board members tightened the financial reins on the state's charter schools.