By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Levy County public schools opened Monday and provided a hint of how many students will attend classes this year.
School district officials said they won’t have any solid numbers on school attendance for a few days.
“I’ve heard things from principals that aren’t real numbers. For example Williston Elementary thought they had 20 more kids than they thought they would have,” said Assistant Superintendent John Lott. “Williston Middle High School said they had a good crowd over there. I don’t have exact numbers yet.”
Lott said the school district won’t have a clear idea of how many students will attend classes until everybody shows up and school staff takes attendance using Skyward, the electronic student information system. It may take a few days to get an accurate number.
Lott and others in the Levy County School District developed a survey a couple of months ago to find out how many students would attend traditional Levy County brick and mortar schools, how many would attend virtual schools at home and how many would use a blend of virtual, and traditionally known as innovative.
The district was unable to reach 20 percent of the parents in the school district to find out which option they preferred or if they would be sending their kids to public schools at all. District officials are most concerned about parents who haven’t contacted them.
All things considered, Lott said the first day of school turned out well.
“No major issues today, knock on wood, nobody, as far as I know, got left,” he said. “Our biggest concern on the first day of school is that everybody that was supposed to get picked up got picked up on a bus and everyone was safely delivered home and where this really comes into play is the young elementary kids on the side of the road. We need to have parents there or an older sibling authorized to accept the kid. Those are things we worry most about and make sure everybody gets fed – those basic needs. Opening day is making sure everybody arrives safely and gets back home safely and is fed along the way.”
School Superintendent Jeff Edison said it’s not easy to get a good handle on how many kids attended classes on the first-day school, but it’s more challenging this year.
“It’s really very hard for us because we do things with staggered start and we’re running three different schools with virtual, blended, and regular school,” he said. “Until we get the numbers to settle down a little bit and get them in our database it will be kind of tough. We’ve asked that and I don’t have that information yet, but I’m going to try to get it as soon as I can.”
State funding for the school district depends on how many students attend classes. Each full-time student generates a set amount of state funding. State funds account for much of the district’s operating revenue. Fewer students would mean less state funding.
“It’ll be a little while before the heads stop wiggling so much that we can actually count them. Right now the heads are wiggling too much. It’s kind of like counting a herd,” Edison said. “There are always kids you don’t hear from. You don’t know where they went and so you have to chase them all down. That’s the law.”
Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt August 17, 2020; Posted August 17, 2020
