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Chairperson 2008-2009: Karen Kulikowski
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The Scholarship Committee is comprised of representatives from all schools in the SPF district. Usually, one of the representatives serves as chairperson of the committee. The time-consuming portion of being on a school scholarship committee is serving on the Scotch Plains - Fanwood Scholarship Foundation Screening Committee. The Scholarship Foundation is a group of community members from various backgrounds, including people from the Service League. They manage money, sometimes given to them from a family after someone's death, etc., that they would like to be put into a scholarship for a local student. Ellie Kramps is currently the chair of this committee and phones the school chair- persons in late February. The reasons the PTA is involved are that our PTA scholarships are included within their booklet which lists available scholarships, and that we are asked to help them screen the applicants, in an effort to get a well-rounded opinion and "fairly" distribute the money.
The first meeting is usually held in early March to go over procedures and various instructions, especially beneficial for new screeners. There is an evaluation sheet/ grid handed out with examples to demonstrate how an applicant is rated. During the months of March/ April the reading and rating of all applicants (high school and college) is done. This can be an extremely rigorous process and quite time consuming, as one is dealing with a lot of details. Once the deadline date arrives and all folders have been read by all of the screeners, there are two additional meetings to discuss the ratings given. The Screening Committee Chairperson and the Foundation President compile the ratings and average them out. The screeners meet to see the results and are given the opportunity to change their rating if necessary. At the second meeting, the screeners are told who the recipients for the Foundation scholarships are. The PTA scholarships are the last to be decided. Therefore, before the last meeting (and during the entire process) the school screeners should be highlighting possible recipients of their individual school's scholarship. The last night the group should arrive with several choices. The Foundation does like to "spread the wealth" as much as possible. So the PTA recipient may be a deserving candidate that would have otherwise received nothing. This plays out differently each year, depending on who the applicants are etc. By this point in time, the school chairperson should also ensure that their school Treasurer has mailed the appropriate scholarship monies to the Foundation and that, in addition, they have sent their contribution towards the PTA Council Scholarship.
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