Public and private school officials in Leflore County blame a poor economy for the overall 3 percent drop in enrollment at their schools, but a steady, if smaller, number of students are leaving for another reason.
"We could very well have children transferring outside our school district going to other schools in the area," said Greenwood Superintendent Les Daniels. "That has a minor effect, but we are losing a few students that way."
The Greenwood district lost 82 students from last year, making its overall enrollment 3,410. Most of those who leave are white, Daniels said.
When Mike and Carolyn Bowles' children finished at Bankston Elementary School, they didn't want to keep them in Greenwood schools, where they would be among only a handful of white students. But they didn't want to send them to Pillow Academy with most of their white classmates either, says Carolyn Bowles.
"We just didn't want them in that environment, because that's not the way society is," she said. "We wanted them to be more well-rounded."
Feeling like there was no other option, the Bowles began home-schooling their eldest son and did the same for their daughter when she finished at Bankston. Bowles says home-schooling was a better option than continuing in the local schools, but eventually, the children wanted to play sports and do other activities associated with school life.
So the Bowles sent their kids back to public school - in Grenada.
The Bowles are Greenwood natives, but the move 30 miles up Mississippi 7 made sense, they said. In his job as a salesman with a helicopter company, Mike Bowles travels a lot, and Grenada is right on Interstate 55. Also, there were additional advantages at the Grenada County schools besides racial balance.
"The test scoring at the upper level schools in Greenwood was very low, and after checking, we found out Grenada had higher test scores," Mrs. Bowles said.
While the Greenwood and Leflore County school districts each lost 2 percent of their students from last year, nearby districts outside the Delta were able to maintain their numbers. Winona Public Schools held steady at about 1,400 students, and the Grenada County School District showed a slight increase with 4,646.
Other families have made the same transition as the Bowles. Their neighbors in Grenada came from Greenwood because of the schools, according to Mrs. Bowles. Another Greenwood family, the Piepers, moved partly because their daughter wanted to transfer from Pillow Academy to Grenada High School.
"We gave her the choice," mother Nancy Pieper said. "She was going to private school in Greenwood, and she chose to go to public school in Grenada because that's where her friends are."
Despite the Piepers' case, Pillow Headmaster Russell Robertson says his school isn't losing many students who decide to go to other schools. Enrollment at the private academy dropped 5 percent this fall.
"The majority of the people we lose are people moving out of the Delta area," he explained. "They're not changing schools. They're changing cities."
But some prospective students whom Pillow has traditionally picked up, such as the Bowles children, aren't ending up there. Some families are leaving because they can't afford private school.
That's the situation for Shannon and Deanna Minga. After putting their two children - one 7, one 10 - in Pillow for two years, they are taking them to the Lafayette County School District. The Mingas like the schools there because they're more racially balanced and the Lafayette High School is a Level 5, or superior, school based on state testing data. Greenwood High is Level 3.
"We have to do what we're financially able to do," said Shannon Minga. "We're trying to do the best we can do for our kids with what we have, and our family's having to move to Oxford is really the only way out of being swamped in a financial situation."
At the same time, the Mingas wanted a school with more racial balance than most of the Greenwood schools. Their children cannot go to Bankston because their West Claiborne Street home is outside the school's zone.
"It's not that they don't want to go to school with black children," Shannon Minga said. "They're going to school with blacks now. It's a financial thing."
For several years, Greenwood attorney Lee Abraham Jr. has had designs on a school where students of all races and economic backgrounds can get a quality education.
"My goal is to have a place where a child can go to get an excellent education even though their parents may not be of financial means to provide for it," he said.
Abraham says some parents don't choose the public schools because they can always "move 30 or 40 miles, and get an education they would desire."
"I think the public schools in Leflore County have some of the finest teachers anywhere in the state," he said. "However, I think there are spots in the county that do not rise to that standard, and I don't feel that parents are willing to play Russian roulette with their children's education in a hit-and-miss fashion."
Abraham describes himself as an "enthusiastic supporter" of St. Francis Catholic School and says he believes the small private school might soon be the model sought by parents who are dissatisfied with area schools.
"The only thing needed for an education is a qualified educator and a learning environment," he said. "St. Francis certainly provides that."
Some signs indicate St. Francis is on an upswing. It was the only school in Leflore and Carroll counties to post a double-digit percentage gain in its enrollment this year. After dropping its seventh and eighth grades in 2002 for financial reasons, St. Francis has added a pre-kindergarten program for 3-year-olds and plans to reopen the seventh grade next year.
The recent success has been the fruit of hard work and a little financial help, says Sister Carol Seidl, the school's director. St. Francis did a better job raising private donations and finding grants last year, she said.
"We've done more public relation, more publicity and recruitment for our school," said Seidl, the director of the school. "Also, recently, a lot more scholarship money to offer to families who come. So families who couldn't afford it before, can now afford it because of these donations."
The answer to the Greenwood district's enrollment woes has been harder to find, according to Daniels. Despite studying how it might retain the students who leave every year, the district has not been able to stem the outflow, he said.
"It's not that we have not talked about and discussed and studied that," he said.
