JARED MILLER Star-Tribune capital bureau | Posted: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - State lawmakers resolved the sometimes-contentious debate over Hathaway Scholarship eligibility requirements during a series of amicable discussions this week.
Both sides of a House-Senate conference committee made concessions during three one-hour talks that concluded Tuesday, but the committee agreed to disburse the scholarships based largely on student achievement.
"Clearly there was give and take on both sides, and that's how the process works," said Sen. Hank Coe, chairman of the Senate Education Committee and a conference committee member.
Despite squabbles early in the legislative session, both House and Senate versions of the Hathaway eligibility requirements were largely the same.
Both bills required students to meet state high school graduation requirements and certain grade-point averages and scores on the ACT college aptitude test to qualify for scholarships. Both bills also included four "tiers" of scholarship funding, from $800 to $1,600 per semester.
The bills differed largely on the number of math and science courses and the amount of foreign language classes students would be required to take.
House members on the conference committee agreed to endorse fairly stringent requirement that students seeking the $1,600 and $1,200 scholarships take two years of foreign language. The House earlier agreed to only a single year of foreign language for students seeking the $1,600 scholarships.
The Senate members, meanwhile, agreed to lift foreign language requirements from the $800 scholarships as long as students meet statewide proficiency requirements in the area of foreign language and culture.
Mary Kay Hill, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, said the easiest way for students to meet that requirement is to take a foreign language class, but it's not required under the standards.
In the end, the foreign language requirement was the biggest sticking point in the conference committee, with House members arguing that not all students should be required to take the courses to earn scholarships.
"I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone who is going to Eastern Wyoming College, for example, to take foreign language when they are going to study welding," said Rep. Matt Teeters, R-Lingle.
House members of the committee agreed to a Senate amendment allowing Wyoming's Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone languages to count toward the foreign language requirement. They also agreed to a Senate amendment designed to assure that students with certain disabilities will have access to special instruction to meet Hathaway eligibility standards.
The committee limited the state superintendent of public instruction's ability to grant schoolwide exemptions to Hathaway eligibility requirements.
The Senate version of the bill made schools with 105 students or less eligible for exemptions. The conference committee on Monday removed that portion of the bill and left the decision up to the superintendent of public instruction.
Sen. Mike Massie, D-Laramie, later raised concern about the possibility of politics influencing the decision, and the committee voted to limit the superintendent's ability to exempt schools based on specific criteria in the bill.