Mobile County tells Saraland residents: Go to your own schools

SARALAND, Al.
The parents of 50 Saraland students who are enrolled in Mobile County public schools received letters recently telling them they will have to withdraw at the end of this school year.
That’s because they are supposed to be attending Saraland City Schools, which broke away from the county system in 2008 and now operates separate elementary, middle and high schools.
Some followed a sibling. Some live in areas that were unincorporated during the split, but have since been annexed into Saraland. Some flat-out enrolled in schools as far away from their homes as Semmes or southwest Mobile, or in magnet schools.
“They’ve been in our system for those four years, and should’ve worked their way through our schools by now, having gone to the highest grade,” said Mobile County schools Superintendent Roy Nichols. “But some of them have snuck in.”
“We’ve got some first-graders who are Saraland residents,” Nichols added. “I guess our principals weren’t paying much attention.”
The separation agreement between Saraland and the county system gave students four years to finish up at their home school if they wanted. For example, a freshman at Satsuma High School in 2008 could still graduate from Satsuma this spring.
But those 50 younger students remain scattered in schools throughout the county. Of those, 15 are underclassmen at Satsuma High; 8 are at the Chickasaw School of Math and Science; 8 are at North Mobile County Middle in Axis; 6 are at Murphy High in Mobile; 6 are at Lee Intermediate in Satsuma; and there are others elsewhere.
Those students will be able to finish this year at their current school, said Terrence Mixon, an assistant superintendent of the Mobile County school system who oversees attendance zones.
The school system is looking into letting them stay next year, if they’ll pay tuition.
A handful of Mobile County’s 62,000 students who live in adjacent counties pay $1,200 a year to attend school in Mobile County. That includes several who live in rural Washington County and are closer to Citronelle High than to their zoned school.
That tuition doesn’t come close to the $4,600 that Mobile County pays per student in local tax dollars, so Nichols said the district is looking at raising that tuition rate.
The state pays another $4,900 per student.
Saraland schools Superintendent Wayne Vickers said he was pleased that the settlement agreement allowed many students to complete their original school. But now, he said, “We want everyone that is a resident of the city of Saraland to attend school here.”
Vickers said his district will welcome these students. He said he has designated someone in his office to work more closely with Mobile County officials in the future to determine the proper school zones by address.
Two special-education students enrolled at Augusta Evans Special School in Mobile will be allowed to stay until they finish at the age of 21, as part of the separation agreement.
This comes as the cities of Chickasaw and Satsuma are negotiating to split from the county system.
Nichols said those districts are getting a “clean break,” meaning students who live in those cities will no longer be able to attend Mobile County schools in August, when the new city schools are scheduled to open.