For public school students in Leelanau County and around the state, it’s the single most important day of the year to shoot for perfect attendance. Today, Wednesday, October 6, marks the first of two “count days” for the Michigan 2021-22 school year — a day that, for many school districts, will determine how much funding they get from the state. It’s a date of particular interest this year, given that parents in some districts — including Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) — are reportedly considering mass “protests,” where they keep their kids home on count day to “punish” school districts for controversial mask mandates. The Leelanau Ticker touched base with Leelanau school districts to find out if there’s any fear that the spirit of the TCAPS protests could spill over across county lines.

The basics: All public school districts in the state are required to observe two “count days” each school year. School funding is decided on a per-pupil basis, which means that even one student missing from a school’s count can have a significant impact on how much money a school district receives for a given school year. A district’s student tally for a school year is determined by blending the numbers from one count day in the fall (90 percent) and one in the winter (the other 10 percent). And under a new state budget signed last week by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the minimum funding for each school district in Michigan is $8,700 per pupil.

Count day is also widely misunderstood — including by some parents in districts like TCAPS, who might seek to use the high-stakes nature of the day as leverage for political protest. “Parents don’t realize [count day] is more than just a day,” explains Neil Wetherbee, superintendent for Northport Public School. “You have to miss at least 10 consecutive days [to not be counted].”

Indeed, Michigan law puts multiple protections in place to protect a school count from being skewed by the random absences. For instance, a student with an excused absence on count day who “attends within 30 calendar days following count day” can still be counted. The same is true for a student who “has an unexcused absence and attends within 10 school days following count day.” Even a student who is suspended during count day can be counted, so long as they come back to school within 45 days.

Even if the protest plan wasn’t flawed, Leelanau County’s superintendents wouldn’t be worried: As they tell the Leelanau Ticker, they’re not expecting any trouble — or even anything out-of-the-ordinary — on count day. While a firestorm of controversy has ignited in Traverse City over the TCAPS masking policy, as it has at Benzie Central Schools, things have been mostly quiet on the Leelanau front.

“I’ve had no pushback,” Wetherbee says of Northport’s universal masking policy, which the district announced on August 9, even before the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department (BLDHD) issued an order calling for universal masking in all schools within its jurisdiction. “In fact, I've had several parents thanking me for our current stance [on masking]. So, the story is probably the opposite of TCAPS here.”

Suttons Bay Public Schools Superintendent Casey Petz concurs with Wetherbee. Unlike Northport, Suttons Bay had initially announced plans to start the school year with a mask-optional policy. Those plans changed on August 27, when the BLDHD announced its masking mandate for schools. That from-the-top order, Petz thinks, is one factor that may be preventing anti-mask parents in Suttons Bay from casting blame on the school district itself.

“We don't have anything going on up here like what they have going on at TCAPS, that’s for sure,” Petz says. “We have heard nothing at all about protest of mask mandates, or skipping count day, or anything like that. But I think, in general, their situation is bit different. Our mandate is through the county, through the BLDHD, not school-imposed.”

The TCAPS masking policy, on the other hand, was put in place by the district’s Board of Education, rather than being ordered by the Grand Traverse County Health Department.

But if Leelanau parents were seeking to use count day as a mechanism for protesting masks in schools, that plan wouldn’t work for most of the local districts. As Leland Public Schools Superintendent Stephanie Long notes, three of the four public school districts in Leelanau County this year — Leland, Northport, and Glen Lake — are classified as “out-of-formula,” which means their funding won’t be determined by count day anyway.

“School funding is so complicated,” Long says. “There are local sources, and then there are state sources, and then there are federal sources, and all of those things have to be working in unison. If you’re an in-formula district, the majority of your budget is made up of your state aid – or that $8,700 [per pupil] that just got approved to be the minimum funding. But if you’re able to raise more money through your local tax assessment than what you would be receiving from the state of Michigan based on your per-pupil count, you fall out-of-formula and you’re allowed to keep the tax base that you’re able to collect.”

“It's a compliance test for us, pretty much,” Wetherbee says of count day for out-of-formula districts.

Still, just because Leelanau’s superintendents expect count day to pass without issue doesn’t mean they don’t have thoughts about what’s going on in northern Michigan’s biggest public school district.

“Let’s play this out,” Petz says of potential TCAPS protests. “You don’t show up for count day, and it’s in protest of mask mandates. Well, if your plan works, you now have less money available to educate your child. You won the protest, but you lost the ability to have a high-quality education for your kid. What are you doing?”

“If you mess with the number [of students in the count], that is literally what the entire school budget is based on,” Long adds. “So, if the number goes down, the only way to keep the building moving is to cut. That’s it. So, you’re basically saying you care enough about masking…that you’re going to put more kids [in each classroom], because that’s essentially what happens. We have to lay teachers off. Or we have to cut transportation. Or we have to reduce athletic opportunities. Or we have to pick any number of the major line items in any school budget.”

She adds, “make all the statements you want to make, but in the end, you’re only hurting yourself. Because now you’re going to have to figure out a way to get kids to school, or your kids are going to have to sit in class with 33 other kids, or you’re going to have to start doing more pay-to-play because they’re not going be able to fund athletics. It’s a very dangerous game.”

Pictured: Leland Public Schools, by Shannon Scott Photography