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MOBILE, Alabama — Trying to ease the tumult of the first day of class in August, Mobile County schools will send any unregistered students to the system’s Central Office in west Mobile to sign up.

Opening class days can be particularly stressful when unregistered students arrive and crowd the hallways while front-office staff members type their information into computers and try to figure out their schedules.

This year, students who aren’t registered by the Aug. 15 first day will not be allowed to register at the schools.

“You’ll be turned away and told to come out to Central Office and wait in long lines,” said Terrence Mixon, director of student support services with the school system.

“It’ll be very frustrating,” he added, “and it wouldn’t even be necessary if you’d go to your school’s registration at the designated time.”

The Central Office complex is located off Schillinger and Howells Ferry roads.

To encourage registrations, and ease the process, 14 schools – including most high schools – are piloting an online program through which parents can do most of the work from their home computers, Mixon said. The parents would still have to stop by the school to submit blue-card immunization records and two proofs of residence.

The other 75 schools are holding traditional registrations, mostly toward the end of this month and during the first week of August, which require parents to go to the school. A list of the registration dates and times at each school are available on the school system’s website: www.mcpss.com.

All schools will conduct their registrations online next summer, Mixon said.

The schools currently participating in online registration are Blount, Citronelle, LeFlore, Murphy, B.C. Rain, Theodore, Vigor and Williamson high schools; Alba and Burns middle schools; and Dodge Elementary.

Also, Lott Middle, Dauphin Island Elementary and Chickasaw Magnet did substantial online registrations this past spring.

To register at those schools, go to: https://registration.mcpss.com/ezregistration.html.

Parents can call their schools to get their user name and password. Mixon said he hopes that parents will register sooner in the process, rather than later.

Karen Harold, a special-education teacher who is assisting with registration at Theodore High, said that, thus far, most parents like the online registration. About two-thirds of the students at Theodore are already registered, and an average of 30 parents are coming in daily to bring in blue cards and proofs of residence.

“Some of the parents are saying it’s faster. Some are saying it’s easier. Some of the parents don’t like it,” Harold said. “We had one come in and say ‘I want to do it the old-fashioned way.’ I told her there is no old-fashioned way.”

Harold said school staff members are walking parents through the process. She said there have been some technological glitches, but those are being addressed.

“We’ve gotten off to a slow start,” she said, “but it’s really going to be a good system.”

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