Toward the end of Tuesday’s long Decatur school board meeting, board member Lewis Jones suggested it was time to revisit the years-long dilemma of students illegally attending City Schools Decatur. Jones said he hoped the board would begin addressing the problem during its next meeting in July.
Under former Superintendent Phyllis Edwards, the current board approved a full-time staff position in October to monitor out-of-district students in the system. At the time Chief Operating Officer Noel Maloof said CSD usually investigates 120 to 160 students per year, with about 30 getting asked to leave.
But he added then his conviction that “a lot more” are illegally enrolled, and CSD’s staff didn’t have time to peruse every case.
In March, new Superintendent David Dude decided, without consulting the board, he wasn’t going to create the new position. There has been no public discussion of the issue since last fall.
“I’m a data-driven guy and I need a better understanding of the scope of the problem,” Dude said Tuesday. “I know the perception, but I need to understand what kind of dollars [the school system loses with illegal enrollment]. It’s a complicated problem and we need to figure out our options about what we can legally do to prove and enforce a case.”
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