The Wiscasset School Committee still won’t help pay a student’s way into a June conference. But committee member Glen Craig on Jan. 28 said the panel should have, as it did for the teen’s brother last year.

The committee’s spring 2015 decision set a precedent for tapping the Seth Wingren Fund for a lone student, Craig argued Thursday night. The fact the new request was coming from the same family was not cause to reject it, he said.

Chairman Steve Smith disagreed. The fund only has about $16,000 in it, he said.

“That should be used for multiple kids. I think it would be difficult to concentrate the funds on one family,” Smith said.

On Dec. 17, Gregg Wood asked for $985 in tuition for son Grant Hefler, a Wiscasset Middle High School junior, to attend the Future Science and Technology Leaders conference at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. The committee listened, then moved on without voting on the request.

Thursday night, before Craig began making the case for funding, Smith said: “It’s very bad practice to bring back old business that’s already been decided.”

To Craig, it hadn’t been decided, however. There should have been a vote, he said.

Member Michael Dunn, noting he missed the December meeting, backed Craig’s motion to talk about the funding request.

Craig noted the panel freed up funds for Hefler’s brother Daren Wood, now a WMHS senior, to go to the same conference last June. Craig continued to question Smith’s stance on the request for Hefler’s tuition.

Smith responded that he had already explained his position.

“You’re repeating yourself,” Vice Chairman Eugene Stover told Craig at one point.

Craig proposed granting the tuition, but no one seconded the motion. Craig thanked the committee for having the discussion.

Hefler will be going to the conference, Gregg Wood said in a telephone interview later Thursday night. The family will make sure somehow, Wood said. Father and son weren’t at the meeting in the school library. They were in the gym for Hefler’s basketball game.

Wood didn’t know Craig was going to bring up the funding request, but he appreciated it, he said.