Posted on 05/03/2006 5:13:43 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Schools shouldn't see a major financial hit because of Monday's immigration rallies because the state quit counting students for funding purposes two weeks ago.
Several districts reported up to a threefold jump in absences Monday, so there was potential for a serious loss of funding.
Students who missed class won't face any unusual punishments beyond the normal steps for unexcused absences, school officials said.
Schools are paid by the state based on the number of students in attendance. If a student has an unexcused absence, the district doesn't get paid for that student on that day.
Funding is "based on attendance from the beginning of the year through April 15," said Hilary McLean, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Education.
There are some special programs and federal funding sources for which counts are still taken until the end of the school year, but those should not make up a huge number, officials said.
And the state will not give districts a break for any money that is lost because of the demonstrations and rallies, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced last week.
Individual districts are still compiling tallies and determining if there will be any financial losses.
"There will be some impact, but not like it would have been before April 15," McLean said.
Some districts were more affected than others.
The Colton Joint Unified School District had 4,335 students absent out of 22,791 who should have been in school Monday.
By comparison, on April 26, a more typical school day, the district had 1,084 students out of class.
Ontario-Montclair School District reported similar numbers, though it's a kindergarten-through-eighth grade district.
On Monday there were 3,772 students out, meaning 16.5 percent were absent, compared to about 1,004 the previous Monday, when only 4.4 percent were out. There should have been roughly 23,000 students in school, officials said.
"There won't be a huge impact," said Luke Ontiveros, coordinator of attendance and records for the Ontario-Montclair district.
Most districts said they would not impose any unusual punishments on students who missed school to attend one of the demonstrations.
The regular rules for unexcused absences will apply. A single unexcused absence generally means a letter home warning that the student was truant, officials said. It's only after three or four unexcused absences that more serious action is taken.
Some officials were far more upset about the educational implications of missing a day of school.
Fontana Unified School District normally has about 95 percent attendance, but attendance Monday was about 85 percent, Superintendent Charles Milligan estimated.
He was angry, he said, that many top elected officials were so cavalier about kids missing school.
"You got some kids out there 7, 9 years old. The most powerful thing in the world is an education. I just don't get it," Milligan said.
Other districts saw little effect Monday.
Upland had a completely typical day with minimal additional absences, Superintendent Gary Rutherford said.
Rialto Unified had some extra absences, but it didn't appear to be far above normal, district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri said.
"We were not as interested in (funding) as we were about student safety," she said. "We were just glad students weren't running around truant."
makes ya wonder who's getting the education these days.
Well, isn't this a coincidence? Sounds like complicity to me.
That is not the way of leftists who storm and occupy in the name of protest.
They will demand no punishment - a complete waiver of the normal rules. So that if you were out helping your sick mother- then you will be punished, but if you were out celebrating Commie Day, then certain teachers will give you extra credit toward the D's and F's you've been earning all year.
I don't care if all the illegal alien kids were absent. I just wish the condition was permanent.
How convenient...
Since this is CA, they probably delivered the lunches on school buses to the sites of the protests.
Data that might lead to any reduction in their "gimme" will be mysteriously vague, or even lost. That much is clear.
"Maybe now that they've been identified, we can intervene in the process and break the cycle. (girlyman voice/off)(A little Liberal lingo there.)
Don't just wish, fax Washington let your voice be heard.
Are we all going to skip cinco de mayo????~!!
No corona
No tacos
No taco bell
No "ole!"
Anyone in education administration able to answer?
I'd be interested.
Prop 87 already attempted to deny public schooling to illegals. The courts struck down 87 because of that provision. This gave Grey Davis the opportunity to choose not to appeal, especially the other provisions of 87. Arnold Schwartzenegger has chosen, along with the State AG, to follow Davis's policy and not fight for what the citizens of CA voted for in overwhelming numbers.
The only chance of getting illegals out of the public schools is for the SCOTUS to overrule the 9th Circuit, which cannot happen unless the State appeals the ruling. With the influence that the teacher's union has in CA, that's never going to happen.
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