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Controversy over Francis Family scholarships is rekindled
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN – The board of selectmen has been asked to step into the fray that developed last week over the John Anderson Francis Family Scholarship awards.
The debate over who should be awarded the scholarships, which totaled approximately $37,000 this year and were given to 18 graduating Provincetown High School students, flared up again on Monday when Phil Gaudiano, a member of the JAFF scholarship committee, sent a letter to selectmen asking them to change the wording of the program’s “statement of purpose” to limit future scholarships to students who live in either Provincetown or Truro. Gaudiano said he is attempting to clarify and reinstate a residency requirement as it applies to next year’s scholarship awards and his proposal would not change any of the JAFF scholarships awarded last week at the PHS graduation.
If selectmen agree with Gaudiano, the ruling would overturn a JAFF committee vote last week that opened scholarship eligibility to any graduating senior at PHS regardless of where they live. Gaudiano, who was the single dissenting JAFF committee member in the 4-1 vote last week, has taken his case directly to the selectmen, submitting his proposal as a private citizen to change the eligibility rules for scholarships.
It’s a contentious issue pitting those who want to stick to the letter of the will left by Cecilia Francis, who endowed the scholarship fund in the mid-1980s, against those who want to broaden the scholarship eligibility rules to accommodate school choice students who live out of town but opt to attend PHS. The scholarship monies are an enticement Provincetown school officials use when recruiting out-of-town students to the Provincetown school system, whose small graduating class ensures that almost every student who applies for the scholarship and has the required grade point average receives some funding.
“For every dollar you’re giving to a school choice student, you’re taking it away from the pool that would be distributed to Provincetown and Truro students. I don’t think [Francis’s] intent was to cover Cape Cod in terms of scholarships but, rather, Provincetown or Truro residents,” Gaudiano said.
The issue first arose a year ago when Gaudiano was chairman of the JAFF scholarship committee. At that time, after reviewing past records, Gaudiano said he found a report stating that when the board of selectmen agreed to accept Francis’s bequest in 1985, they stipulated the recipients must be Provincetown or Truro residents, as they thought was specified in Francis’s will. As a result of Gaudiano’s research, the committee voted in May 2006 to limit last year’s scholarships to graduating students who lived in one of the two specified towns.
However, that decision left out an Eastham student who was graduating from PHS last year. The student’s family had been long-time residents of Provincetown before moving to Eastham and several members of the JAFF committee felt the student was unfairly eliminated.
At that same time, Gaudiano resigned from the committee for personal reasons and Gail Browne was elected chairman. Browne took the committee’s concerns to town counsel twice over the next several months, which resulted in town counsel’s asserting that even though there were several Francis Family scholarships previously awarded to school choice students, that did not create a precedent that would allow the committee to broaden their interpretation of the wording in Francis’s will.
However, the committee decided to ignore town counsel’s opinion last week and voted to award scholarships to four school choice graduates, in addition to 14 other Provincetown or Truro residents.
“I found that 100 percent of the school choice kids who went to college had applied for and received [JAFF] scholarships,” Browne said of her research into several years of past practice. “Denying school choice scholarships to these kids might be discriminatory.”
There is a legal process whereby the committee can propose to change the wording of the statement of purpose – which Gaudiano as a private citizen is attempting to convince selectmen to do. That process would require a public hearing. Browne said she does not want to open the issue up to a public debate because any change might expand scholarship eligibility to include local residents who chose to attend Nauset Regional High School.
“We don’t want to change it. I think it’s legible the way it is. The conflict came when we stepped out of protocol [last year],” Browne said.
Gaudiano is requesting that selectmen — who legally oversee the scholarship gift fund — do exactly what Browne fears: change eligibility requirements to include students attending any accredited high school or vocational/technical school in Massachusetts as long as they have lived in Provincetown or Truro for at least four years. At least one selectman, Michele Couture, agrees with Gaudiano.
“I think that makes complete sense. If they are a resident, it shouldn’t matter what school they go to. We should be happy they’re going on to higher education,” she said.
psowers@provincetownbanner.com
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Jun 7th, 2007