 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003 (XXXXI 1) |
As part of the larger process of strengthening the partnership between Yearly Meeting, Monthly Meetings, families and Friends schools in the PYM region, the Education Granting Group has developed a new set of guidelines for the distribution of financial aid to Friends children attending PYM Friends schools in grades K-12, beginning with the 2003-04 school year. These new guidelines bring all PYM tuition aid funds, including those contributed by the Friends Education Fund (FEF), into compliance with the stipulations developed by the late Jonathan Rhoads in setting up the Jonathan E. Rhoads Endowment Fund for Friends Children in Friends Schools.
This new spirit of collaboration is captured in the “Working Assumptions and Affirmations for Quaker Families, Meetings & Schools,” which are included in the 2003-04 Tuition Aid Guidelines that went to Meetings in late November. Friends wishing further information are encouraged to contact the PYM Education Programs Office at 215-241-7223 or elkem@pym.org, or the admissions office of their local Friends school.
Working Assumptions and Affirmations for Quaker Families, Meetings & Schools
Tom Hoopes
- Ensuring access to Friends education requires a partnership of mutual trust by school, family, monthly meeting and yearly meeting. These partners must have a shared commitment, and close communication. PYM expects Meetings to make an effort to support their young people at Friends schools, mindful that such support must be balanced with other priorities, given limited resources.
- PYM affirms that Friends schools value the presence and active participation of their Quaker families, and that Quaker families likewise value the institutional missions and commitments of their schools. Quaker families strengthen both our Meeting communities and our school communities. This relationship is mutually challenging and beneficial.
- Families choosing a Friends education must make difficult choices, placing tuition payment high on their list of financial priorities. PYM views the decision by Quaker families to enroll their child(ren) in a Friends school as a leading of the spirit. Understood in this way, the financial sacrifice made by Quaker families is part of a larger vision of a “rightly-ordered” life.
- Each family is unique, and each Friends school is uniquely situated. Financial aid must be considered by the school on a case-by-case basis.
- Quaker families affirm that they are requesting tuition aid to help make Friends schooling more affordable, i.e., that they have “financial need.”
- PYM affirms the authority of each Friends school to use its own methodology (including the “Princeton Form” of the School and Family Scholarship Service, “SSS”) to ascertain and quantify “financial need” for its families. PYM further entrusts the Friends schools with the final responsibility for determining the overall financial aid package for each of their Quaker families.
- Friends schools affirm that they will handle tuition aid grants from Quaker sources in the overall aid packages for their Quaker families in such a way as to enhance affordability for those families.
Central Philadelphia Meeting
PYM Education Coordinator
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM