Wednesday Is All-Important Student Count Day For MI Schools
DETROIT (WWJ) — Perhaps no school day of the year is as important as Wednesday, the first student count day of the 2012/13 school year.
Count day is used to determine 90 percent of per-pupil funding, with a winter count day in February making up the other 10 percent.
That makes it a critical day for Michigan schools, none more so than Detroit, which is struggling with shrinking enrollment, unsatisfactory test scores and ongoing budget woes.
To get as many kids in class as possible, Detroit schools handed out 19,000 netbooks to students in eighth through 12th grade.
Some parents talking to WWJ this morning were generally in favor of the idea ... but also skeptical.
"I think they're doing a nice job with the netbook thing, it helps the kids out," one parent said.
Another weighed in, saying, "I don't think it's necessary, they don't even have enough schoolbooks."
The schools' Emergency Financial Manager Roy Roberts said the district is starting the year with attendance above the 90 percent mark, the best in a decade. Schools have recorded more than 51,000 kids for the new academic year, about 1,000 more than expected.
"That's come about because the ministers are working with us, the ministers' wives, the teachers, the principals, the administration, they're all working to make sure the school are safe, the schools are clean," Roberts said.
Roberts says they're still "climbing the mountain" as he put it, but he likes the direction the district is now going.
Detroit Public Schools senior Stephanie Johnson, agrees.
"We need Title 1 money, we need to be all here so we can do all the extra things we need to do ... We need smaller class sizes," Johnson said.
