Hawaii Charter Schools: What They Are, and New Laws That Will Take Effect This Year.

This month's feature article is about Charter Schools in Hawaii.
Earlier in June, new legislation passed that will give charter schools in Hawaii a way of applying for long awaited funds for facilities.

Hawaii law provides funding on a per capita basis, and charters are funded by the Legislature through a single budget category apart from DOE funding categories.

The Legislature's 2008 budget reduced charter schools' "per student" allotment by more than 12% to about $7000 per child, down from the 2007 budget allotment of $8149 per child. This is partly due to a 15% jump in projected enrollments. Charter enrollment has grown by over 400% since 2001, and the schools are in some ways victims of their own success.

To make matters more difficult, charters have not received facilities funds, even though charter schools are public schools, and therefore constitutionally entitled to such support; they must pay lease and utility fees out of instructional monies.

But on June 3rd, Governor Lingle signed into law Act 86, which allows the Charter School Review Panel to allocate funds as seen fit for facilities.

For those of you who don't know that much about Charter Schools lets look at what a charter school is.

Hawaii's 31 Public Charter Schools are:

Public Schools

* Serving over 7600 K-12 students

* Employing more than 1000 public employees

* Paid for with tax dollars

* Open to all who wish to attend

* Subject to state and federal performance standards

Providing Innovative Alternatives

* Small class size

* Multiple-grade learning teams

* Mainstreaming SPED students

* Schools that focus on Hawaiian culture and language

Delivering Results

* Hawai'i's charter school students, as a group, outperformed traditional public school students on the 2003-04 Hawai'i State Assessment and SAT tests

* 67% of charter schools met the 2005-06 SAT honor roll criteria, up from 40% in 2003-04

So now that you have an idea of what a Charter Schools is lets look at some of the schools on the Big Island.

All told there are 13 on the Big Island, and here are links to the websites of some of the more prominent charter schools on the Big Island: Innovations, Connections, Kona Pacific, Waters of Life, and West Hawai'i Explorations Academy(WHEA).

The Big Island's Charter schools are some of the best on the island, providing unique and often advanced learning opportunities to our children. It gives me a good feeling to know that these schools will be receiving their fair share of our tax dollars.