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Guilford County Schools is scrambling to find 860 high school students who have not yet showed up for classes.

The district's roughly 3 percent dropout rate could take a hit if administrators can't convince those students to return, Superintendent Terry Grier told members of the Board of Education on Thursday.

This month, Grier plans to present a budget proposal for an alternative "twilight school" to help educate struggling students, he said.

"We've got a lot of work to do," Grier said. "This is a challenge after Day 12 to get those children back."

The school system counted 71,176 students on the 10th day of school, 1,127 students below 2006-07 projections. Grier attributed much of the enrollment shortage to high school students who haven't returned to classes from the spring. He suspects other students have transferred to schools outside the county without notifying the district.

Missing students count as dropouts after the 20th day of school, or Sept. 25.

Grier said he has been on the phone with principals trying to learn the reasons behind the no-shows. Examples included one 17-year-old student with only three units of high school credit and another who passed a class with a D but was told to repeat the class and then failed it twice.

"That shouldn't be," Grier said about the student being required to repeat the class. "That's ethically and morally, in my opinion, wrong."

In other business, board members decided they will hash out the new cost figures for a proposed 2008 bond referendum at a board retreat later this month. District officials have revised the amount from $440 million to $454.8 million to account for additional inflation if an election is postponed from November to May.

Board members balked at recommendations from facilities staff to add an additional $47.9 million to expand a proposed North Greensboro elementary school, restore $6 million to the costs of an airport-area high school and add an airport-area middle school. That would bring the total bond amount to $502.7 million.

"No offense, but the board had previously made the decision ..." Anita Sharpe told facilities staff Joe Hill and Leo Bobadilla. "I don't think the administration has any right to come back to us and tell us to modify this list."

A flustered Amos Quick challenged an $88 million cost estimate for the airport-area high school.

"We're talking about an $88 million school?" Quick asked. "You know how close that is to $100 million?"

Hill, the district's facilities consultant, tried to explain that the price includes about $45.4 million in construction costs and the rest in design fees, land costs, furniture and equipment.

"Perhaps we need to look somewhere else (to build) because still, it's going to be $88 million," Quick said. "To some people, believe it or not, that's not acceptable."

Also, the school board finally approved revisions to two policies that affect outside groups' access to students. The first policy aims to better supervise youth groups while still keeping elementary schools open after hours. The other policy allows community sports and nonprofit youth organizations to send fliers and other information home to parents.

Discussion of both policies released a hornets' nest of public contention without significantly changing the previous versions. Some board members questioned whether it is fair to prohibit for-profit groups from sending fliers home to parents.

Grier stood his ground, saying the district should not open more than 71,000 students' homes to free advertising by businesses.

"If you aren't careful with this …" he said. "that door swings wide for everyone."

Contact Morgan Josey Glover at 373-7078 or mjosey@news-record.com