The Southwest Independent School District Scholarship Committee presented recommended changes to the district's scholarship bylaws, proposing to remove a residency requirement, base attendance calculations on the senior year only, and reduce the minimum postsecondary enrollment from 12 semester hours to nine.

The committee submitted the recommendations during the board meeting and asked the board to approve updates to the scholarship application and distribution guidelines for the 2024–25 school year. "So right now, we have actually 4 bullets that, under the eligibility... that third one... the committee recommended that we do remove that," a committee member said, referring to the residency clause. The committee member added that the attendance standard would be changed to a 95% attendance rate for the senior year and that the college-enrollment minimum would be lowered to nine hours to accommodate students working or with family responsibilities.

According to the presentation, existing criteria that remain unchanged include the requirement that applicants be graduating seniors and hold at least a 2.5 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale. Other application components identifying the district's three high schools were not altered by the committee's suggested amendments.

Board members asked procedural questions during the discussion, including whether partial residency or out-of-district employee status would be retained; the committee member said that the committee debated those points and could bring the item back for further refinement if the board requested it. The transcript does not record a formal motion or vote to adopt the committee's recommendations in the excerpt provided.

If approved, the amendments would change which students qualify for district scholarship awards and the method for calculating attendance and initial college enrollment, with the stated goal of increasing student participation in the scholarship program.

The district's scholarship committee said it will reconvene to set timeline steps after any board direction.