Memphis-Shelby County Schools is taking issues with comments from Mayor Jim Strickland about enrollment and truancy.

Strickland said two weeks ago in a weekly email update that MSCS enrollment has declined for several years while the number of truancies has increased.

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MSCS said Strickland’s data was inaccurate, and some of his claims were simply wrong. 

Strickland, who said he got his numbers from “two senior leaders” at MSCS, said the district has lost about 8,600 students since at least the 2019-2020 school year.

He included a projection that the district has an estimated number of 79,000 students this year.

While acknowledging much of the drop could be attributed to students attending schools outside the district, he said anecdotal evidence suggests some of the decline could be attributed to students dropping out of school.

“Recently, I have begun meeting with MSCS about this issue. Additionally, I have offered to assist in reaching out to these families to see if we can get their children back in school or connected to some of the many opportunities we have for job training and employment,” Strickland wrote in the update, which was shared by email.

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The district responded by saying that not only were Strickland’s enrollment numbers off, but the district has actually seen an increase in student enrollment.

Shawn Page, the district’s chief of academic operations and school support, said MSCS this year projected enrollment of about 71,600 students but that the real number is about 81,000.

That’s about 2,000 more students than Strickland said were estimated for this year.

Page clarified that looking at enrollment for MSCS can be tricky because it’s a portfolio district, meaning it includes not only district-managed schools but charter schools, optional schools and a virtual school as well.

Overall, Page said the district this year has seen an enrollment increase of 1,500 students at district-managed schools.

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“Large districts are still seeing a decline from COVID. We’re seeing the reverse of that,” he said.

Strickland also included figures on the number of truant students in the district.

According to his data, the number of students with 10 or more unexcused absences increased significantly between the 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 school years.

There was a significant jump between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years when the number of students rose by 3,458 students, according to Strickland’s data.

Page said that although Strickland alleged there were 6,529 students during the 2019-2020 school year who had 10 or more unexcused absences, the number was closer to 4,100.

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Strickland also said at the same time the jump occurred, the district stopped referring truancy cases to juvenile court and terminated its relationship with the district attorney’s office to address truancy.

This is all true, but there is more to the story, MSCS said.

“The whole goal of the truancy law is to not criminalize parents,” Page said.

Under former District Attorney General Amy Weirich, the district had a memorandum of understanding to hold interventions with parents and pair students with mentors and offer them incentives for attending school.

The program started in 2007 and included 30 schools.

Part of the problem, however, was that Weirich’s office was meeting with parents at 201 Poplar, which Page said was not in line with the state truancy law.

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The district chose not to renew the MOU in 2020.

“It was not criminal — I want to make that clear — but it wasn’t in line with best practices and state law,” Page said.

Page also refuted Strickland’s claim that MSCS stopped referring cases to juvenile court when truancy numbers went up.

Page said juvenile court was not taking referrals in 2020, so they couldn’t send them.

They’ve since resumed doing so, and Page said the district sent 400 referrals last year and have sent 300 this year, even though the school year just started last month.

Ultimately, Page said referrals for truancy to juvenile court are a last resort after MSCS tries intervention and support for parents and students to correct the issues.

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Strickland responded to MSCS’ claims that his data was wrong by saying he believes he and the district agree there are issues with enrollment and truancy even if there is some dispute over the exact numbers.

“I think some of this dispute is minimal,” he said.

He reiterated a point he made in the update last week, saying in the 2021-2022 school year, 28% of the district’s students missed 10% or more of all school days.

In an email sent to Strickland Sept. 8, MSCS interim Superintendent Toni Williams appeared to agree with Strickland that although progress has been made on the issue, more work does need to be done.

Strickland said he plans to meet with Williams to talk about how to address the problems in the next week to 10 days.

“I’m optimistic that we can get something done,” he said.