Kamaile seeking charter status
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By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
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Faced with overwhelming challenges at the center of the Wai'anae Coast's homeless crisis, Kamaile Elementary School has filed an application to convert to a charter school in the hope that the money and flexibility that would bring could spell educational improvements as soon as the next school year.
Approval of the application by the Board of Education would make the school eligible for almost $1 million in extra funding annually through the Ho'okako'o Corporation. The nonprofit organization is financed by Kamehameha Schools and intended to help educate children with significant socioeconomic needs.
The extra money would allow the school to reduce class size to a maximum of about 20 students per class served by both a teacher and a teacher's aide.
That would result in more individualized attention for each child, an important change in a school struggling with a growing student population, student test scores that lag far behind state averages, and high poverty. Ninety percent of Kamaile's students come from economically disadvantaged homes and many from the tents and shelters of the area's homeless.
We have "been searching for a way to meet the challenges facing our school, including increased enrollment due to migration of homeless and houseless families to the Wai'anae Coast," principal Glen Kila said in a statement.
MORE FLEXIBILITY
The flexibility and autonomy charter schools enjoy would allow his staff the extra time to develop relationships with families, which he sees as a crucial part of creating the support system to help students achieve.
"The charter school will provide us more classroom support and more time and flexibility to meet with the parents," Kila said.
The school also is under state sanction for its inability to raise student test scores adequately, and the switch from a regular public school to a public charter school is intended to help bring change faster.
"With the additional money it will allow us to expand our horizons more quickly," said vice principal Dale Arakaki. He said the extra funding would help the school reduce class size for grades 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Under a new statewide funding formula, the school was able to reduce class size for grades K through 2, but not for the other grades.
Before the weighted student formula kicked in this year, the school was receiving about $5,041 per student, or a budget of $3.27 million per year. It increased slightly under the weighted student formula.
APPROVAL EXPECTED
Kamaile hopes to win approval from the BOE and open in the 2007-08 school year as a conversion charter. Arakaki said the school community, including about 50 percent of the families, voted for conversion charter status.
BOE chairwoman Karen Knudsen said the application will go first to the board's charter school committee, which will bring a recommendation for action to the full board.
"I can't imagine we would be turning it down," Knudsen said.
With the extra money, Kamaile has ambitious plans under conversion charter school status, including:
Lynn Fallin, executive director of the Ho'okako'o Corporation, said state officials predict that enrollment at Kamaile could increase by 200 students in the next year or two, based on early estimates of the number of children expected to be housed at the shelters being planned and built in the area.
The additional resources provided by Kamehameha Schools through the corporation would boost the school's ability to handle the increases.
"I think Kamaile has reached a point that it has to make a choice," Fallin said. "All conversion charter schools have the opportunity for more flexibility to implement things they'd like to see at the local school level. They have more control over the strategies they want to try."
LAGGING BEHIND
Kamaile has already been in restructuring, the most serious sanction under the mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and has begun working with an outside consultant. If conversion charter status is approved, the school will continue to work with that consultant, Arakaki said, but also will work under the guidance of the nonprofit corporation.
Fallin said Kamehameha is particularly interested in communities that have the neediest children and a large Native Hawaiian population.
KAMEHAMEHA BOOST
Kamehameha Schools provides $1 for every $4 in state money — up to $1,500 per student — to the 12 Hawaiian-focus start-up charter schools in the system and two conversion charters with large Native Hawaiian populations. There currently are 27 charter schools statewide.
Kamaile would be the third conversion charter supported by Kamehameha through the Ho'okako'o Corporation. Kamaile's current population of about 630 students is 60 percent to 70 percent Native Hawaiian.
At Waimea Middle School on the Big Island, which chose conversion charter school status under the same corporation, there's been tremendous growth, Fallin said, noting: "The parental involvement has increased by leaps and bounds, and so have the community partnerships."
Patti Cook, director of community development for Waimea Middle School, said that while the school has not yet achieved state benchmarks, or made "adequate yearly progress," there have been major gains.
"We see kids and families more engaged and families involved," Cook said. "We're still struggling with our scores, but a lot of that has to do with kids coming in way behind."
Cook said the additional resources provided by the corporation greatly influenced Waimea's decision to become a conversion charter.
The other conversion charter operated by Ho'okako'o is Kualapu'u on Moloka'i.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.
