With the newly ratified teachers contract approved by Gov. Neil Abercrombie and expected to be funded by lawmakers, work now begins on creating a new evaluation system that negotiators have agreed will be used to reward and dismiss teachers.

The State Public Charter School Commission announced today the appointment of its Executive Director, Tom Hutton. Mr. Hutton is a national authority on education law and policy and was a co-founder of a noted Washington D.C. charter school, Thurgood Marshall Academy. He, his wife and two children recently returned to Hawaii after living away from the islands for a number of years. Mr. Hutton has served as in-house counsel for the National School Boards Association and as a school attorney in private practice.

Windward Planning Commission members opted Thursday to prolong the debate over the proposed Kaumana campus for Connections Public Charter School.

Saying that they hated to do so after an already long and laborious process, commissioners withdrew a motion made in January to reject a special permit for the $30 million Connections project and instead set the stage for a contested case hearing.

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The Hawaii State Public Charter School Commission has approved a new charter contract with accountability measures for financial and organizational performance for all charter schools in the state.
The contract also clarifies the charter schools’ participation in the state’s academic accountability system for all public schools.

ANAHOLA — When the Kanuikapono Charter School first opened 11 years ago, classrooms where wherever director Ipo Torio-Kauhane could arrange for them, under tents with students sitting on lauhala mats or in the gymnasium of a Kapa‘a church.

So it was an especially joyful occasion recently when the school’s teachers, 150 students and their parents held a blessing for three like-new portable classrooms at Kanuikapono’s now-permanent Anahola campus.