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Photo Mary Ann Bragg
Provincetown resident Sam Trumbo, at home with the family cat, will graduate from Nauset Regional High School this weekend.
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Photo Mary Ann Bragg
John Anderson Francis Family Scholarship Committee members Gail Browne and Bill Schneider at a meeting in Provincetown Town Hall last Thursday. |
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Debate intensifies over Francis scholarship funds
By Mary Ann Bragg
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — A conversation with the woman herself could prove helpful right now.
In the coming weeks, the bequest of retired attorney Cecilia C. Francis, who died in 1983 and left what is now a $1.1 million scholarship fund for graduating seniors, will be re-examined in the face of a new reality: school choice.
The town committee that distributes the scholarships voted last week to keep its old rules in place for 2006, awarding $38,000 to 15 Provincetown High School students who are also Provincetown and Truro residents.
A public hearing is planned later this year, however, to consider expanding the scholarship’s eligibility requirements in 2007 and beyond, and the implications are wide-ranging — for deserving Provincetown residents who choose to attend the larger Nauset Regional High School in North Eastham; for residents up-Cape, in Wellfleet, Eastham and beyond, who attend the smaller Provincetown High School; for townspeople and parents who believe Francis meant the money only for local students and the local high school; and for the Provincetown School Committee, which may want to use the scholarships to increase enrollment at PHS.
“Absolutely,” School Committee chair Terese Nelson said this week of the idea of explicitly using the Francis scholarships to attract students to PHS. “I think the [money] should be for kids who have been in the school system for two or more years. The idea is to support Provincetown High School. That’s what it’s for. It’s not for Nauset. It encourages kids to stay. If they want to participate, then come [here.]”
As worded in her will, Francis created the John Anderson Francis Family Scholarship Fund as “a scholarship fund at the high school for deserving students having financial need and scholastic abilities, to further their education.”
Since creation of the fund in the early 1980s, the phrase “the high school” has been interpreted to mean the Provincetown High School and the Cape Cod Technical Regional High School in Harwich. And that interpretation should remain, Nelson said, adding that Cape Tech is a specialized school offering a technical education not available at PHS. By contrast, “Nauset is a standard public school,” Nelson said. “If they choose another public school then they should come up with the money.”
Questions about the Francis bequest began last fall. The concern has been the status of two 2006 PHS seniors (one from Eastham and one from Wellfleet) with good grades and two years in the school district. Both students deserved Francis scholarships, some committee members felt, despite their out-of-town addresses.
Last week that discussion expanded, at the behest of committee member Bill Schneider and a letter from resident Heidi Jon Schmidt, to introduce the idea of allowing Provincetown residents who attend Nauset to apply for Francis scholarships as well.
The mothers of two Nauset students who live in Provincetown, Sam Trumbo and Orion Haunstrup, supported that notion this week, saying students like their two sons fall into a no-man’s land for scholarships — outside the boundaries of many Nauset awards with residency requirements and outside the boundaries of local scholarships like the Francis Fund, despite local ties.
All of which, the two women said, is out-of-sync with reality.
mabragg@provincetownbanner.com
To read the entire text of this article see this week’s Banner.
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Selectmen mull over fate of Court Street firehouse
In the News
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Jun 8th, 2006