Attendance Drops at Memphis Schools
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – After the first week of school, Memphis City Schools were missing about 12,000 students expected to enroll this year. Not only does this effect attendance, but could impact funding as well. Memphis City Schools historically has had issues getting parents to enroll their children before Labor Day but one city council member said a deviation of 12,000 students is just too much.
Memphis City School students went back to class last Monday. Superintendent Kriner Cash said all went smoothly, except one issue.
Kids just aren’t showing up.
“When I’m out in the community people are asking me, have you started school yet? When does school start?” said Cash. Cash said so far about 95,000 students have shown up for the first week of class. The estimate for final population, based on last year’s population, is almost 108,000 students. That’s a difference of about 12 thousand students.
“It’s either not being there for the first week or us having some kind of discrepancy in the figures. That’s a pretty big chunk,” said Councilman Shea Flinn. Flinn said student population is important to the city because funding this year is based of an estimate of about 108,000 students. With local funding at about $4,000 per student, a variance like this equals millions for the city.
“It matters and we need to know this. Not just for local funding, but for state and federal dollars. For allocation of resources on the board level,” said Flinn. That’s why Flinn said he initiated an audit into the way MCS calculates the student population. He said it should be complete in a few weeks. Flinn said he understands student population will rise as we get deeper into the school year. Cash agrees, although numbers are trending downward.
“That number will continue to increase but it is down,” said Cash.
Memphis City Schools will not begin submitting attendance numbers to the state until after 40 days and encourages parents to enroll students.
Similar Posts:
- School Leaders on First Day of Class
- Shelby Co. Schools Sue Over New Board
- Chumney on Consolidation Crossroads
- School Expected to Start On Time
- MCS Board Considers City Proposal
