When the Mālama Honua Public Charter School in Waimānalo opened in 2014, students were learning in the back of a church.
About 10 years later, the Hawaiian learning-based school has expanded to three campuses offering grades K-8.
But the goal was to find one permanent building that's safe and adequate for students to learn.
The school recently received a coterminous sublease with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and Hui Mālama O Ke Kai, a nonprofit offering culture-based youth, family, and community development programs. It's on land the charter school has been using through the nonprofit as its third campus, which stretches about 11 acres.
The school now has to come up with about $15 million to build its permanent home, according to School Director Denise Espania.
"That's super exciting, but it also means that we need to fundraise," she said. "Because as a state public charter school, even though we have the same expectation as everyone else, as far as providing a curriculum where you're watching students grow over time, we also have to pay for our facilities above and beyond."
A growing need for facilities
Advocates are urging state lawmakers to introduce a resolution to address the facilities issue as charter schools have long grappled with the problem, even decades after the state passed its first public charter school law.
Hawaiʻi has 37 charter schools serving over 12,000 students statewide. Each school has a governing board and operates under more autonomy than the state Department of Education schools.
The schools receive state funding per pupil, which goes toward utilities, rent, and other operational costs. The 2019-2020 school year showed that charter schools received $9,697 per pupil from the state, while DOE-run schools received $17,475 per pupil.
However, since charter schools don't get funding for capital improvement projects, they must find creative ways to build campuses or maintain infrastructure.
So, the schools must fundraise, apply for grants, and advocate for themselves at the Legislature.
Buffy Cushman-Patz, the founder of the School for Examining Essential Questions of Sustainability charter school, said the school is still looking for a permanent building. She said the school works with its nonprofit arm, SEEQS Foundation, to raise money.
The funds also supplement the schools' per pupil funding from the state every year to pay for school expenses such as curriculum and teacher salaries, except for facilities.
"We definitely have to put work into fundraising," Cushman-Patz said. "We realize that one of the ways that we may end up needing to solve these challenges is by buying or building something. In order to do that, you need a lot of money."
David Sun Miyashiro, an executive director of HawaiiKidsCAN, said the nonprofit is pushing for a resolution requesting the state Board of Education and the State Public Charter School Commission to produce a report on increasing access to stable, affordable facilities for public charter schools.
The resolution would ask that the list of public facilities be made available to the charter schools. Additionally, it would request that the BOE and commission work with the School Facilities Authority to include public charter schools in its building plans.
Sun-Miyashiro said the resolution would also request the BOE to consider other financing opportunities, like revolving funds that charter schools could tap into for new facilities.
"The idea behind that kind of program is that it's both a win-win for the schools and for the state," he said. "For the schools, it provides great funding opportunities at low interest rates and opens up the potential that can be used to match that loan. And for the state, it's a little bit less risk than having dedicated funding every single year that needs to be appropriated."
The resolution has until March 8 to be introduced.
The facilities issue in Hawaiʻi isn't unique. Nationwide, charter schools face similar challenges with securing a space for students.
But some states have implemented policies to help charter schools with funding facilities, according to Todd Ziebarth, the vice president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
He said some states have provided charter schools with underused public spaces such as school district offices or government buildings. He added that the other states had created per pupil allotment or a grant program for charter schools to pay for facilities and maintenance.
"Then the third thing that states have done is they've tried to reduce the cost of borrowing for charter schools, for their facility costs, and through credit enhancement and other types of programs," he said. "It's really made a difference to schools, so they're paying less in interest … being able to repurpose that money to pay staff salaries and pay for educational programs."
He noted that places like Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C., have implemented such policies.
Getting creative
The joke among some Hawaiʻi public charter schools is how fast they can pitch and take down a tent, according to Espania.
That's how some charter schools start if they don't have a facility.
When charter schools first open, sometimes they need to be creative with the space they provide students, according to Ziebarth. He said there have been charter schools taught out of former bowling allies and shopping centers.
"They will take whatever they can find that will do the job for that money, but as they expand as they add grade levels, in some cases, these challenges remain and become more complicated," he said.
Some children learn from a renovated, air-conditioned barn at Mālama Honua's third campus, where they will build their new facility. In the building next door, children are learning ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. In the back of the classroom, a curtain divides the cramped quarters of an administrative office.
Espania said taking phone calls or Zoom meetings is difficult, so she often has to go to her car or on long walks in the neighborhood.
It took them about a decade, but the charter school has found its forever home.
"To get us to this point, our families that have had to come together, they've testified at neighborhood board meetings, they've written letters, stood up at different events to just say, we believe in our school," Espania said.
