Counting city students is more than one, two, three ...
Many factors included
By Bobbi Mlynar
Originally published 02:13 p.m., September 25, 2007
Updated 02:13 p.m., September 25, 2007
It’s not enough that school district employees had to enroll almost 5,000 students this year, they have to count them, too. And, under state and federal requirements, the counting is far more complex and convoluted than “new math” ever was.
“This is a stressful time for the school district, because everything hinges on this,” said Nancy Horst, community relations director for the district.
The data takes weeks to assemble, enter information at each building, double-check, sort, merge and produce an accurate set of figures, not just for the state, but for the district’s own budgeting process. Board clerk Norma Stinnett then will spend several weeks compiling a full, infinitely detailed report for submission to the state by Oct. 12. Power School software is used to manage the data.
“It has become so much more complicated, No. 1, because of No Child Left Behind, and because of accounting,” said Horst. “That’s all well and good, but it makes the system so much more complex and harder to understand, and it’s a lot more work.”
Horst said that the state collects 45 pieces of information about each student in the district. Each student also is assigned a number when entering school, and that number follows the student no matter where he or she goes in the state. Horst said that the numbering system prevents one student from being counted in more than one school; the Kids Individual Data on Students program automatically questions districts when a student number is submitted by two or more districts.
A student also must attend school in his or her home district the day before and the day after the official count. Youngsters who enroll in the Emporia district the day after the count are not included in state funding.
To reach the school district’s official, “weighted” full-time equivalency student count, district employees have been counting children who fall into special categories, and are literally counting minutes that children spend in designated weighted classes, as well. Teachers help with the estimating by keeping daily logs on their students throughout the school year.
“Counting isn’t just numbers of students,” Horst said. “We get extra weighting for at-risk students. Those are defined; they have to be receiving services.”
Four-year-olds at-risk recently became another factor to be counted.
Bilingual and disabled students and those enrolled in business, technical education and family consumer sciences are among those whose presence carries extra “weight,” which translates into additional state funds for the school district.
“And the number of minutes they’re in those courses goes into the count,” Horst said. “We’re also getting weighting for transportation, so part of the count is kids who are eligible to ride the bus. A lot of care is taken to make sure they’re right.”
The district also will receive weighted funding for the new fitness and weight rooms at Emporia High School. Again, minutes count, and those estimates were being made earlier this month. The extra money the district will receive has been earmarked to equip the rooms.
Highway construction projects could have damaged the transportation budget if the district and Kansas Department of Transportation had not worked together prior to the projects’ onset. Detours caused by the projects’ road closings around schools had a trickle-down effect, making more students eligible to ride school buses. Planning ahead for the detours — with the added student load and increased numbers of buses and drivers to transport them — helped the district set a transportation budget that anticipated the extra cost and simultaneously qualified the district for more state money for transportation.
Horst expected the district’s FTE to drop, when compared to the actual-student number, because of counting methods used by the state.
“Kindergarten is only half-time, even though we have all-day kindergarten,” she explained, adding that parents do have the option of sending their kindergartners only half-time.
The same type of decrease will be seen at Emporia High School and at Flint Hills Learning Center, the alternative high school. Some of those students, particularly at The Learning Center, do not attend school full-time, but take only the classes they need for graduation.
“So few, if any, of those are going to be 1.0,” Horst said. “They’re going to be part-time.”
The district will be able to count children enrolled at Turning Point virtual school, which has students enrolled online across the state.
“No matter where they live, if they’re a virtual student enrolled at Turning Point, they’re counted,” she said.
An unfortunate quirk in the counting system has the potential to upset a school district’s funding. Districts must have their budgets for the year submitted to the state in August; however, since the official counting and weighting is done in late September, it is essential that estimates be as close as possible to the final figures.
Responsibility for estimating student numbers, and all of the weighting and minutes-counting that goes with many of them, falls ultimately to Susan Hernandez, Associate Superintendent of Business, who submits the proposed budget to the board of education.
When the state conducted its annual audit of the Emporia district in June of this year, Hernandez’s estimates for the 2006-07 school year were only three students off the state’s final figures. That accuracy in estimating saved the district time and money.
“If it’s way low, you have to republish the budget,” Horst said, “and if it’s way high, then you lose spending authority.”