Oct 1, 2008 6:14 am US/Mountain
School Count Day: Kissing Frogs, Free iPods
Written By Brian Maass
DENVER (CBS4) ―
One elementary school principal will kiss a frog. Twice. Another school will dish out free ice cream. Still another will hand out tickets to a Broncos versus Raiders game and a big screen TV worth $800.
Those are just some of the enticements being dangled in front of Colorado public school students to get them to class on Wednesday, the most critical day for students to show up so their schools and districts can maximize state funding.
"So we try to encourage kids to be here on that day because it's very important," said Dominic DeFelice, superintendent of the New America Charter School in Northglenn.
He says the school gets about $7,000 in state funding for each student, so it's crucial as many enrolled students as possible are in their seats Oct. 1 for "count day." As incentives, the school will raffle off football tickets, computers, gift cards and free gasoline. All of the items were purchased with private donations, not public dollars, school administrators said.
"If maximizing our count on that day is what we need to do then we'll be creative in how to do that," said DiFelice.
He says achieving a maximum "count" on Wednesday is even more important to New America than to other public schools. In larger districts, with dozens of schools, a shortage of students in one school on count day might be balanced out by a high number of students showing up in another school. But New America only has four charter schools, so filling each seat on count day is critical, thus the creative stunts to get students to show up. Beyond that, DeFelice says about a third of students enroll after Oct. 1, so the school has to do everything it can to maximize its body count and state funding on count day.
New America may be more generous than other schools, but is hardly alone when it comes to staging gimmicks to get children in class Wednesday.
The principal of Holly Ridge and Holly Hills schools in the Cherry Creek School District will kiss a frog at each of the schools. Denver Public Schools Emily Griffith High School will give away pizza, gift cards to Target and three iPods. A Denver Charter school will hand out free ice cream. And the Jefferson County School district created a letter in English and Spanish for principals to send to tens of thousands of parents, urging them to have their students in class so they are "accurately counted."
"Its true," said DiFelice. "In every school they maximize their enrollment on this particular day."
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