The Detroit Public School Community District is counting on parents and students to have seats filled when school doors open on Wednesday, February 12th which is its annual Spring “Count Day” initiative. Count Days operate from the same premise as The United States Census; both exist to determine state funding for schools, road repairs and more. The State Aid is responsible for allocating $11 billion to public schools in Michigan. Without an accurate count, funding isn’t received in high-priority areas.
A student can still be counted if the student has an excused absence and attends within 30 calendar days (following count day) or if the student has an unexcused absence and attends within ten school days (following count day).
Here’s a list of facts regarding attendance from DPSCD’s website www.detroitk12.org:
- Being late to school leads to poor attendance.
- Too many absences can cause children to fall behind in school.
- Students can be chronically absent even if they miss only one or two days every month.
- Attendance is an important life skill. It will help your child graduate from college and keep a job.
- Absences can be a sign that a student is losing interest in school, struggling with schoolwork, dealing with a bully, or facing some other potentially serious difficulty.
Ways you can help your child strive for excellent attendance include reworking important health appointments during the day, emphasizing the importance of regular attendance and making sure they stay home only if they’re truly sick.
“In the fall, we increased enrollment by another 700 students, we now have 51,000,” said Dr. Nikolai Vitti, Superintendent of DPSCD. “This increase is a key indicator that the education reform is working, and families are seeing the value once again in Detroit’s traditional public education system. In Michigan, the disbursement of funds to districts from the state school aid fund is calculated using a formula based on enrollment counts taken from two count days. The District receives 90-percent of the state aid on the first count day, which was October 2nd and the other 10-percent is received on the second count day, February 12th.”
For more information on count day, please visit the Every School Day Counts Detroit www.everyschooldaycountsdetroit.org and the Attendance Works www.attendanceworks.org.
About Post Author
