A new scholarship will soon be offered to seniors of the Amarillo Independent School District.
On Thursday night, the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees voted 5-1 to approve participation in the new Thrive Scholarship program. Trustee John Ben Blanchard was the lone vote against the proposal.
The new scholarship is meant to be a replacement for the ACE Scholarship, which was discontinued earlier this year. The Thrive scholarship will pay for the first two years of college education for qualifying Amarillo ISD graduates at Amarillo College. The scholarship is a "last money in" scholarship, meaning that it will pay the remainder of the education balance for students, once the student has applied for federal financial aid through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The scholarship will be available for students who complete eligibility requirements and who attend any Amarillo ISD high school, with the exception of the North Heights Alternative School.
While Amarillo College Board of Regents chairman Paul Proffer and others urged the board to approve the agreement to participate in the program, at least two trustees were hesitant about joining the scholarship program.
Blanchard, an attorney and incumbent trustee, said that he disagreed with joining the scholarship program, calling it a "entitlement program," and saying that the scholarship would likely only benefit the wealthiest families in Amarillo, due to it being a "last in" scholarship. Blanchard also said that he disagreed with funding tuition for students who had already graduated from Amarillo ISD schools.
John Betancourt, another trustee, also expressed hesitation on voting for approval, citing statistics provided by Potter County Commissioner Mercy Murguia on the qualifications students must obtain to receive the scholarship, particularly the requirement that students achieve adequate scores on the Texas State Initiative test. However, Dr. Dana West, president of Amarillo ISD, said that the TSI requirement would not go into effect until 2021, and that students would have other ways to qualify.
According to the Amarillo Independent School District, the scholarship will be funded through an agreement between Amarillo ISD, Amarillo College, the Amarillo Area Foundation and the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. Students who are currently ACE program graduates or who will graduate in 2019 or 2020 through the ACE program will be eligible to keep their ACE scholarship, according to AISD.
For information on the Thrive Scholarship, please visit https://thriveamarillo.org/.
Photo by Thrive