Principal James Dumaguin was placed on paid administrative leave in March while the Department of Education investigated that allegation as well as other complaints that Dumaguin disciplined kids too harshly.
Department rules prohibit corporal punishment.
On May 23, the parents of one boy filed a misdemeanor assault complaint with Kona police, claiming Dumaguin hit their son in October 1994.
Police are investigating. No one has been arrested or charged in the case, Capt. John Dawrs said yesterday.
Dawrs refused to release the names of the boy, who is now 14, or his parents. There is a three-year statute of limitations on assault cases, he said.
Calls to Dumaguin's home yesterday were not answered.
Robert Turnbull, his lawyer, declined to discuss the accusations in detail, citing the separate, pending Education Department and police investigations. "I can say that the allegations don't seem enough even to warrant him being put on administrative leave, much less something criminal," Turnbull said. "A lot of it seems like a tempest in a teapot."
Turnbull speculated that a May 22 West Hawaii Today article on the internal probe prompted the filing of the police report the next day. The article noted that Kona police had no record of complaints against Dumaguin.
Meanwhile, Patricia Bergin, Big Island education superintendent, said yesterday that the department's investigation is nearly complete. A report detailing the accusations has been shared with Dumaguin, and after hearing his side the department will decide whether to discipline him, Bergin said.
She refused to discuss the report's contents, saying the case is a confidential personnel matter.
Board of Education member Robert Fox, who lives on the Big Island, criticized the pace of the department investigation.
"In my opinion the length of time this has taken is unfair to everybody. The school community is understandably on edge waiting for the results, and the principal is understandably in limbo waiting for the results," Fox said.
Honaunau Elementary has about 425 students in grades kindergarten through eight.