Important student count day for schools coming next week

Press File PhotoGrand Rapids Superintendent Bernard Taylor, left, was part of the district's streetside effort to get the word out last fall about student count day.

The day once called "Fourth Friday" is important to schools, but so is "Second Wednesday" -- and it's coming next week.

Those are days districts count the number of students to come up with an enrollment number used to determine how much state aid lands in a district's coffers.

That number is actually a blend of the fall count and the winter count, a compromise left over from the Engler days.

The fall tally is 75 percent of the figure, and the previous winter's count is 25 percent.

Everything used to depend on the fall date, but lawmakers argued that wasn't entirely fair because urban districts steadily lose students as they drop out or move away.

And suburban districts also complained, saying they added students throughout the year and were never given the proper resources to educate them until the next fall.

The count was a 50-50 split at one time, since scaled back to 75-25.

Grand Rapids Public Schools went all-out last fall, with employees and Board of Education members taking to the streets, waving signs and encouraging parents to make sure children got to school on that particular day.

District spokesman John Helmholdt thinks the plan was a success. The district still lost students, but were down about 600 instead of the 900 they projected.

Those students translated into about $4 million more in state aid than administrators expected.

Now, you can expect to see employees and board members out there again -- though more warmly dressed -- on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, urging motorists to make sure their children are in school.

Superintendent Bernard Taylor is expected to once again be at the corner of Michigan Street and Fuller Avenue NE. He was pretty animated in the fall, knocking on car windows.

Helmholdt said the event serves several purposes.

"Our awareness campaign in the fall was the buzz of the city," he said. "We're sending the message that we're not going to let the economic problems and the other challenges facing us slow us down. We want to retain students, but attract new ones, too."