Legal Law

Loss of students in Michigan schools means millions lost in state funding

September 27 was a pivotal day for many Michigan schools across the state as they enticed children with incentives to attend school for Michigan Schools Statewide School Count Day. With many parents sending their children to private schools and families moving out of metropolitan areas, many schools are praying that their enrollment drives will work. Failure to do so could cost them millions of dollars in state funds, leading to teacher layoffs and school closures.

Enrollment drives were developed for enrolled students to attend the classroom on count day, offering incentives such as giveaways, ice cream and pizza parties, games, permission to wear normal clothing instead of uniforms for that day, dances, and trips free on city buses that day. .

According to spokeswoman Mattie Majors, the Detroit school district received about $60,000 in incentive donations and added an additional $40,000 from its $500,000 enrollment drive. Kellogg donated ice cream, cookies, movie tickets and bowls of cereal; Pinnacle Sportswear, Footlocker and Best Buy donated gift cards; and every high school in the metro area gave away a Dell laptop.

The Detroit school district was missing about 25,000 students at the start of school. They risk losing $7,459 in state funds for every student who doesn’t show up on count day. The district expected to lose between 7,300 and 9,300 students. If they lose more, they may be forced to close 30 of their 225 schools, lay off many of their employees and teachers, and leave themselves at the mercy of politicians who want to debate the operations of the school district in their active campaigns.

Detroit’s Chadsey High School gave each student a sheet of paper, called “Floating A.” If they had each of their teachers sign the paper, they would get credit for an “A” on their first report card. Chadsey had 790 students enrolled at the beginning of the school year; however, 146 had not reported to school, according to Principal Shirley Hightower.

The Eastpointe School District expects its count to drop by 229 students, leaving 5,221 students remaining. This means a difference of $1.8 million in state funds, when they are already looking for places and ways to cut the budget. Superintendent Bruce Kefgen said staffing is his biggest budget expense: 75 to 80 percent of the budget. That means a lot of layoffs. Make count day incentives a priority for your schools.

Some Michigan schools, like Oak Park, may benefit from the exodus of families from metropolitan areas, who want suburban or smaller-city lifestyles. Oak Park typically enrolls 200 Detroit Michigan Schools students each year. This year, they have 500 students from Michigan schools in Detroit.

Student counts are recalculated and sent to Michigan schools multiple times, first on September 27 and then multiple times throughout October. Michigan schools spokeswoman Jan Ellis said it’s a long process. The September counts are combined with numbers from the previous February to calculate per-pupil state funding for Michigan schools. Confirmation of counts from Michigan schools is expected in mid-November.

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