Kona Pacific Public Charter School

Such an awesome set up for a school! Students are very gifted.
Sep 5th, 2018

Everything about this school is very awful. I went to this school and I can tell you now, don't enroll your kids... The teachers are sloppy, carefree and half of them smoke weed before or during work. As a fourth grader, an impressionable, fragile kid, my teacher made tea in a glass pitcher and had boiling water in said glass pitcher and it broke by a classmate and I gave him severe third and second degree burns all over his feet and she blamed me. For years we had to learn and sit for about 8 hours a day in tents infested with spider and there was mold everywhere. Oh, then we "upgraded" to a 2 story building with electricity despite the fact we didn't have an electrician ever on campus. The point is, dont come to this school.
Apr 8th, 2018

I'm sorry to say but despite all of our patience and efforts, we have come to the conclusion that this school is a failure. The fact that they call this a Waldorf inspired school is laughable. I believe they have all but one or two Waldorf trained teachers in their entire staff and not one formally trained administrator. In fact, from what I've heard, the reputation Kona Pacific has amongst the Waldorf school community is so poor that recruiting decent teachers with a Waldorf background (let alone a teaching license) seems to be next to impossible. The Waldorfish curriculum and presentations at Kona Pacific are just for show and lack any real substance or depth. The teacher turnover rate here is astounding! This mainly has to do with the school's lack of administrative leadership. The last decent principal this school had (S.M.) was fired mid year because she was actually making steps to keep this school honest. (Kona Pacific is currently under investigation for contract violations.) Her firing seems to us like it was most likely out of revenge for her terminating the contract of a superfluous founding "staff member" who lives on the mainland and whose huge salary and travel expenses were putting a tremendous drain on the school's budget. Plus, the alleged acts that led to her (S.M's.) dismissal were basically the same acts the former administration had committed but had, at that time, been "overlooked" or deemed unimportant. This is typical of the double standards held by the administrative staff where rules are only important if it fits their agenda. This is not the only time Kona Pacific had potentially/allegedly broken the law or committed a contract violation. For example, they knowingly kept an unlicensed teacher (friend of admin) on staff for six years without making him get his license. The legal maximum for one to teach in Hawai'i without a license is three years and during that time, he/she needs to be working toward obtaining such a license. They also allowed someone to serve as their board president for almost four years, while their charter states that the term limit is one or two years. This woman (who actually pulled her child from the school several years ago) is still serving on the board as "note taker" even though she had already served her maximum legal term as a board member in general. When admin was questioned about her position on the board, their response was that she is just the note taker and not actually a board member. Nonetheless, all of the information concerning what transpires at board meetings goes through the "note taker", and it is her edited interpretation that gets to be viewed by the public and made official. When I called to ask about this person's role in the school I was told by the office lady that she "wasn't comfortable disclosing that information". Weird?!? Further, most of the funds that the students, the class parents and I had lovingy raised for my child's class field trips, etc. were glommed by admin to pay for other "undisclosed expenses" not directly connected to my child's class. How frustrating! To this day we have not been given a straight answer about the reallocation of those funds. To top it off, the schoolyard itself is a mess and probably not up to code and the staff do not seem to have a clue about how to handle discipline issues. In sum, Kona Pacific is not what they advertise themselves to be. The administration and many of the teachers lack training. There is a high turnover rate. "Transparency" seems more like a catch phrase than their actual way of life as they claim. Multiple dishonest practices and double standards seem to have occurred within the administrative ranks. However, most importantly, my son seemed anxious here and he fell behind compared to his peers in other charter schools despite all of our extra efforts. As a result, we pulled our child from this school. He is now thriving at another charter school here on the Big Island and has been for the past couple of years. I hope this review helps.
Oct 2nd, 2018

Mar 23rd, 2018

this school is one one of the worst places for education. They don't teach there, they just talk about different things like art. Instead of spelling they teach you how to sew, instead of teaching spelling. Also there are a lot of problems with stealing and there is not disciple. Please this school is not good if you want your child to learn about anything that would help them in life, unless they want to be an artist. Then it might work. But then it is not even up to code. There are building there that students learn that have not been seen by actual contractors
Feb 16th, 2018