Ex-schoolteacher sentenced to prison for raping student
A state judge sentenced former Hawaiian Mission Academy teacher Bryan Lindberg on Wednesday to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a student over a five-month period beginning in October 2008 when the girl was 14.
Circuit Judge Richard Perkins also ordered Lindberg to pay $727 in restitution and $1,680 into a state fund for crime victims.
Lindberg pleaded guilty in November to 11 counts of felony sexual assault and five counts of misdemeanor sexual assault.
Police said Lindberg sexually assaulted the girl on a couch in his classroom at the Pensacola Street campus.
They said Lindberg, of Mililani, picked up the girl at her home at 5 or 6 every morning and drove her to school. The two would go to Lindberg’s classroom, where he would assault her and "teach" the girl about sex, police said.
State has $100,000 to pay for removal of marine debris
Hawaii is offering $100,000 in grants to people with proposals for removing ocean trash, particularly debris generated by a tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.
The state Department of Health said Thursday it is seeking proposals from individuals, community groups, nonprofit organizations and others. It says the proposals should focus on geographic areas of Hawaii that typically have the most marine debris.
March 8 is the deadline for proposals.
The grants are funded by $50,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and matching money from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
NOAA last year gave Hawaii and four other states a total of $250,000 to help with tsunami debris removal.
A blue plastic bin, a small boat and other debris from the tsunami have shown up in Hawaii.
GRANTS
Castle Foundation provides grant to new recruitment program at WCC
The Harold K.L. Castle Foundation last month awarded a matching grant of $922,815 for Paipai o Ko‘olau, a new initiative at Windward Community College to increase access to college for students and boost graduation rates.
"We have so many community members who could thrive in higher education, building the educational capital of our community," said Ardis Eschenberg, the college’s vice chancellor of student affairs. "However, for many, college is not a part of their daily reality and may seem unattainable."
Paipai o Ko‘olau is a four-year pilot project that will identify 200 potential students who might not have been likely to attend college.
Other grants:
» The Matson Foundation last month gave $50,000 to Saint Louis School to support its infrastructure and campus improvement projects. The school said it plans to use the money for a Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Center.
Saint Louis School is an all-boys Catholic School in Kaimuki created in the Marianist Catholic tradition for boys in grades 6-12. The school was founded in 1846.
» The Wahiawa branch of Central Pacific Bank gave $500 to Hospice Hawaii as part of the bank’s employee rewards program. Roxanne Ai, customer service manager at CPB’s Wahiawa branch, earned the right to select the recipient by being one of three branch employees with the most volunteer-service hours.
» The Kualapuu Public Charter School on Molokai received a $5,000 student achievement grant from the National Education Association Foundation to teach its fourth-grade students about the history of Polynesian voyaging. Students of Diane Abraham and Marshall Joy built scale models of the canoes, studied astronomy and re-created the voyagers’ journeys using tools similar to those available at the time.
