By Elizabeth Ufi, Reporter, Pacific Business News
Assets School received its largest single donation for tuition assistance, the Honolulu-based K-12 private school announced on Aug. 30.
The donation of $1.25 million creates The Anne Kirkwood Dick Campbell and H. Benjamin Campbell Scholarship Fund, which will support students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
The donation was made possible by the California-based family of retired schoolteacher Anne Kirkwood Dick Campbell and her “expressed desire to create a scholarship fund to support families in need whose children had language-based learning differences,” the announcement noted.
The scholarship fund was named by Anne’s grandson in honor of his grandmother and his father, H. Benjamin “Ben” Campbell.
According to the announcement, teaching primary grades was Anne’s life’s work before she retired from being a schoolteacher. Ben worked for Wells Fargo from 1956 to 1968 until he became an Assistant Purser on the SS Monterey, a passenger liner owned by Matson Lines, during the Vietnam War. Before he retired, he finished his career working as a construction estimator and was working for Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.
According to a spokesperson from Assets School, in previous years the school received several $1 million donations to support its Donald C. Brace Library, Harry and Jeanette Weinberg K-4 Village and an endowment from a former trustee. Tuition assistance funds are typically raised by the school’s annual Illumination Gala fundraiser, which brings in about $250,000 to $350,000.
“Many families never expect to fund a private school education that provides an 8-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio and a curriculum that meets their child’s strengths and weaknesses,” Assets School’s Head of School Ryan Masa said in a statement. “The Tuition Assistance Fund is our top priority to ensure a child can receive our life-changing Assets education.”
The school has increased its tuition rates, according to the most recent information from the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools. Assets’ overall tuition rates rose from $27,415 to $28,613 in the 2023-2024 school year to $28,515 to $29,813 for the current school year.
According to the announcement, Assets is the only K-12 school in Hawaii that specializes in educating students who have language-based learning differences.