After Hawaii declared 17 "Furlough Fridays" to help balance the state budget, a lawsuit was filed today in federal court alleging that there are too few instructional days to qualify graduates for college admission.
The Lingle administration may just have flushed Hawaii's high-tech future down the drain.
The lawsuit filed this afternoon in federal court by attorney Eric Seitz includes a claim that should concern all parents of Hawaii public school students—as a consequence of terms of the contract agreement hammered out by the Lingle administration with the Hawaii State Teachers Association, high school graduates may be disqualified for admission to colleges or universities.
The suit mentions that the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accrediting Commission for Schools requires a minimum of 175 class days in a school year, but that under the furlough arrangement, there will be only 163 instructional school days in Hawaii.
From the text of the lawsuit:
(c) In addition, ANOLANI COON is in the eleventh grade and intends to apply to postsecondary schools and continue her education at colleges or universities in Hawai' i or California. Kauai High School, the school at which ANOLANI is enrolled, is accredited through 2010 with a visit year scheduled by the WASC Commission in 2010. Because the number of instructional school days falls well below the WASC Commission's requirement that schools have a minimum of 175 class days, the acceptance of ANOLANI's transcripts for admission into a college or university is jeopardized by the DOE's furlough program.
Had parents known of this, they might have placed their children in private schools, for example, to assure that they could get into college.
This is one of two suits filed yesterday and today that seek to block Hawaii from shutting the schools on Furlough Fridays. The first day off is set to be this Friday, October 13.
Both lawsuits also allege discrimination against special needs students, whose IEPs (Individual Educational Plans) have been violated by the state's unilateral changes as a result of the furloughs.