Remember the tardy bell? When you were a few seconds late for class, or a few minutes late for school?
Well, in Memphis there’s a different definition of tardy. Apparently, according to Memphis City Schools officials, tens of thousands of students are tardy by a few weeks. They don’t start coming to class under well after Labor Day.
Their presence is crucial this year. For the first time in memory, the Memphis City Council, which has to fund the schools, is taking a hard look at enrollment in MCS. The early estimates have ranged from 92,000 to 120,000. In other words, as many as 28,000 students could be “tardy.” If they are, instead, not really there at all, it’s a difference of about $300 million in state and local funding, at the going rate of $10,300 per student.
Watch for the biggest, most intensive round-up of school kids ever in the month of September. The survival of several underenrolled schools could be at stake.
