100 missing students

What do you do when they don’t register?

When I first came to Irving School, my predecessor, Carol S., told me that getting students registered was very difficult. She told me that she had hired students to take flyers to homes and apartments announcing the need to register before school started. She had paid her helpers with pizza. The flyers in the doors didn’t help. My buddy, Don, said they show up when the swimming pools close,  but he usually knew who was coming back.

Decisions about the number of teachers needed are based on enrollment. This works nicely at the secondary level. The high school begins student signup in December for the following year. By the end of spring, staff are hired based on these numbers. Students enrolling later either overcrowd classes or are forced to take another course. The same is true at the junior high level.

That is not how it works at the elementary level. When a vacancy in the staff occurs, the frequent answer from the central administration is wait until registration is complete. That is, staff are often hired at the elementary level in August, after the principals return. For those seeking an elementary teaching position, this is the best time to be available. Unfortunately many candidates have stopped looking and taken jobs at the mall.

Registration is actually not delayed until then. The principals do a good job of trying to find students. Kindergarten “Roundup” begins in February after much publicity. By the end of school year, principals have assembled class lists based on teacher recommendations. Staffing is planned as classes move up. Efforts are made to ensure reasonable class sizes at all levels.

Then summer happens. The west side of Bloomington is served by three elementary schools. Generally  these schools serve students from lower income working class families. Such families tend to move when money gets too tight to pay rent, families break up, or other job opportunities occur. The movement is cyclical and happens about every three(3) months. I know this because I tracked it for years.

This movement occurs throughout the school year, but the schools maintain contact as students always enroll somewhere else. It forms a  triangle as they often locate at another school on the west side. In the summer, we lose contact for three(3 )months. Basically we miss an entire cycle of movement. Lost contact creates unknowns as addresses and phone numbers change.(Remember this was before everyone had a cell phone)

Nowhere was this worse than in the Irving area. In August of each year, I was missing about 100 students. They  had failed to respond to registration materials which were mailed home. This was almost 20% of my enrollment. Publicity in public housing, social agencies, and posting at laundromats failed to find the missing students. I made a call to the local radio station and they made an appeal to find the missing 100. It didn't work. I was told people in my neighborhood didn't listen that station.

The solution I was sure would work wasn’t allowed. I would place a keg of beer on the front playground, and offer a free beer to anyone registering a student.😎😎

You might think failure to register was not a problem because the students would eventually show up. However, all principals were trying to make August staffing decisions. On the east side, with more stable families, all students were registered by mid-August. Some classes were usually overcrowded, causing the principals to request more staff. The central administration needed to determine if staff would be transferred or if new hires were to be made. The default was to transfer and save money. Central adminstration required daily counts from every school . 

My counts were always low. The superintendent wanted to transfer some of my staff to help with overcrowding. I would argue that the students would show up once school started. The superintendent started labeling my students as “phantoms.” It became an ongoing joke.

It wasn’t amusing to me. If one of my staff members was transferred, and the “phantoms” showed up, my classes would be overcrowded. I lobbied hard using enrollment trends over multiple years to make my point. I tracked how many students registered every day before school started and how many appeared on the first day or later.

My lobbying paid off every year, except one. The “phantoms” did not show and I was left with small classes and an angry superintendent. Fortunately, he retired the following summer.

As a result of his retirement, a new superintendent was hired. He asked me to be  an assistant superintendent at the central office. I was in charge of deciding the number of staff assigned to each school. Some might call that poetic justice.