Parkland advisory board outlines scholarship plan, donors fund six $2,500 awards; applications due Jan. 29

City staff told the Community Advisory Board that donor commitments combined with Community Advisory Board funds currently support up to six $2,500 scholarships for Parkland students and set a Jan. 29 application deadline for donations and applicant materials.

"We have, combined with the city, CAB funds and, David Silver, we've got $5,000, so that will provide for 2 scholarships there," staff said, and additional donations from the Kennedy Law team and families (Eaton, Mesa Taylor) brought the total pledged opportunities to six scholarships at $2,500 each. Staff said Marcela will compile application packets and schools will receive materials once the board finalizes the rubric and interview questions.

Board members agreed to keep interview questions confidential while applications are solicited so candidates would not have an unfair advantage; staff asked for feedback on rubric points and suggested a wider point spread to reduce clustering of similar scores. Members also raised concerns about AI-generated essays: "There was a lot of AI essays," one member said, and the board discussed using interview performance and personalized questions to help identify essays that were not the applicant's own work. Staff encouraged board members to submit rubric and interview feedback by the next meeting so scoring and questions can be finalized.