Lahainaluna High School Foundation seeks volunteers

The Lahainaluna High School Foundation is a beneficiary of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. This prestigious event will be held January 6 through January 9 at Kapalua’s Plantation Golf Course. The tournament has been a big part of the success of the foundation for many years. The funds received from the tournament go toward the financial support for nearly every club, sports team and major project at Lahainaluna.

This year, we are looking for community members for help. If you have some time from Dec. 31 to Jan. 11, you can join other student and adult volunteers in performing the set-up, break-down and other tasks that go with putting on an event of this magnitude.

You don’t need to be a student, or an LHS alumni, to help — just know that volunteering your time will help support the students and staff at our historic school.

If you can help support our efforts, please e-mail Jeff at lhsfoundation@hawaiiantel.net or call 214-2839.

BLAINE BERNADES, Vice President, Lahainaluna High School Foundation

Homeschooling will boom long after COVID-19

Student enrollment in public schools has nosedived as parent disgust with school COVID-19 policies, student learning losses and controversial education policies has gone through the roof. In the wake of this enrollment implosion, homeschooling has boomed across the country.

At the beginning of the current school year, the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 1.5 million students had left the public schools since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

If students are not enrolling in public schools, where are they going? The numbers show that many former public school students are now being homeschooled.

The U.S. Census Bureau found that the percentage of homeschooling households more than doubled in 2020 from 5 percent in spring to 11 percent in the fall.

The increase in homeschoolers does not come from just a narrow segment of the American population. A University of Washington Bothell analysis found: “The diversity of homeschoolers in the U.S. mirrors the diversity of all students nationally,” including all racial, religious, political and income groups.

In addition to the racial diversity of homeschoolers, in 2021, the school-choice organization EdChoice found: “Many parents of children with autism, ADHD and other neuro-developmental disorders report that public schools cannot effectively address their child’s specialized learning needs.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed all the flaws in the one-size-fits-all public schools, which is why the homeschool boom is shaking up American education.

LANCE IZUMI, Senior Director, Center for Education, Pacific Research Institute

Holiday season brings out Elder Fraud scammers

Tis the season to be jolly and for seniors to beware of fraudsters who target the elderly this time of the year. What makes older folk more susceptible to becoming targets for scammers during the holiday season? The consensus is that the older we get, the more charitable we become, says the Association of Mature American Citizens.

The National Institutes of Health calls it “positivity bias.” It’s a condition that makes “older adults draw more positive affect from both the planning and outcome of monetary donations and hence benefit more from engaging in monetary charity than their younger counterparts.”

According to the FBI, scammers target seniors “because they tend to be trusting and polite. They also usually have financial savings, own a home, and have good credit — all of which make them attractive to scammers … Additionally, seniors may be less inclined to report fraud because they don’t know how, or they may be too ashamed at having been scammed.”

The phone rings and the caller identifies himself or herself as representing a charitable organization that helps needy kids or disadvantaged families. He or she asks for an over the phone credit card donation. There are variations of this particular scam. For example, the caller may say that a relative is in trouble and needs money and gets an elderly “mark” to wire funds.

And then there are the con artists who prefer the person-to-person approach. They’ll hand around the mall looking for gray hair and when they spot a likely victim, they will simply approach him or her, recite a well-rehearsed spiel tale of need and ask for a handout. A variant of this approach is a bit more theatrical.

For example, they will dress for the occasion and represent themselves as an authorized solicitor working for the Salvation Army or a relief organization collecting funds for families displaced by a recent disaster such as a fire, flood or storm, for example.

The Internet has facilitated these types of rip-offs. With more and more seniors becoming tech-savvy and learning how to use a computer, swindlers have yet another way to separate kind seniors from their money. E-mail solicitations are growing in popularity among these seasonal thieves.

The holidays allow them to stalk the World Wide Web with seemingly personal messages from organizations and companies that seem very honest. They can make e-mail messages look very real by mimicking the actual logos of legitimate charities and retailers.

This technique allows them to get your money via a phony charitable contribution or get you to make a fake holiday purchase online.

Advocates have joined forces to create an Elder Fraud Initiative to aid in development of an instructional approach to help seniors protect themselves.

JOHN GRIMALDI, Association of Mature American Citizens, www.amac.us