Our second child graduated from Dublin High School in 2001. He was the STAR Student (highest SAT score) for his school that year and received the Governor’s scholarship.
He is a biomedical engineer from Georgia Tech (Summa Cum Laude) now doing his PhD in neuroscience at Emory University.
As you can see, we are very proud of our older two sons who not only excelled in academics but also helped us by securing some scholarships during the college years.
Felipe Andrés, our third child, who is eight years younger than our second son, wanted to be like his brothers, both by applying himself to be at the top of his class and to set a goal to help us with the economic burden of college; at a very early age, he started doing his best in school. Since sixth grade, he had the highest GPA in his class, and he continued to do so until graduation, thus achieving his goal of being valedictorian of Dublin High School in 2008.
He also pursued to be the STAR Student of his class, and he knew that the only way to be the STAR Student was to study a lot, something that he started to prepare for a year before his graduation. He ended up achieving this goal and was the (Continued from Page 4A)
STAR Student for Dublin High School. We felt VERY proud! And like Felipe put it “I am just like my brothers!!!”
When we visited the Governor’s mansion back in June 2008, we found out that Felipe cannot have TWO scholarships from the Governor. ONLY ONE! We do not understand that. If the budget is for two (the same student is not always the STAR Student and Valedictorian), if one student makes the effort to be both, like Felipe did, why does he get only one scholarship?
After several letters to the Governor’s office, we were told: “So next week our board will amend this rule so that beginning with the 2008-2009 school year, if a single student qualifies as both the Val and the Star for a school, they will get two $900 scholarships instead of one. I recognize that this will not completely satisfy Ms. Archila since the rule change will go into effect this year and would not, therefore, benefit her son, but hopefully she will take some satisfaction from the fact that she raised a good common sense question and we are changing the rules to reflect this.
Timothy A. Connell,
Georgia
Student Finance Commission President”
I called the Governor’s office to make an appointment with him and his secretary told me that I have to wait more than a year to see the Governor, as he was a very busy person.
In our household EDUCATION has always been VERY important! Through my work I see everyday people getting in trouble and going to jail. Our jails are full of people who did not graduate from high school.
Since our children were little, we told them that the key to success was EDUCATION. It’s very obvious that for our Governor it is NOT important when in his budget cuts he always includes EDUCATION.
Felipe ended up going to Georgia Tech majoring in Computer Science, and he received ONLY the Valedictorian scholarship from the Governor’s office (It’s a 4 year scholarship, $900 per year) and at the end of his first year he received the following letter from the Georgia Student Finance Commission (GSFC):
“April 10, 2009
Re: Elimination of the Governor’s Scholarship Award for Academic Year 2009-2010
Dear Governor’s Scholar:
The Georgia Student Finance Commission (GSFC) is the agency responsible for
administering the Governor’s Scholarship Program. We are writing to inform you that the State Budget Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010, recently passed by the General Assembly, does not include funds for the Governor’s Scholarship Program.
This lack of funding for the program means there will be no Governor’s Scholarship Program awards made for the 2009-2010 academic year.
Tracy A. Ireland
Vice President, Financial Aid Operations”
I believe that once you give a scholarship to a student, you should keep your word, especially after a commitment you made. If the Governor, in his budget, did not include the scholarship for STAR Students and Valedictorians, he should start from 2009 and not cut ALL previous scholarships earned.
We need to be careful when voting for our next Governor. We need to vote for a person that understands how important EDUCATION is, and through EDUCATION, we can solve MANY problems in our community and our state!
Pilar Archila
