RE: School District Issues & Discussion

[Brian Dennis <brian@uidaho.edu>]

Visionaries,

I offer a hypothesis about the declining enrollment of school age
children in the district, seemingly in the face of population increase.
The hypothesis is based on anecdotal evidence:  my observations of the
student population at UI through the years (I teach hundreds yearly).

I suspect the general fecundity of the students has decreased in the past
decade.  There seem to be much fewer school-age children of UI students,
in student housing and elsewhere.

UI enrollment has increased considerably in the past decade, and that is
the likely source of much of the population increase listed for Moscow.
The students reside here on census day in the spring and thus are counted
as part of Moscow's population.

In the 80s and early 90s, I marveled at the enormous extended families
that would be packed into UI family housing apartments, particularly
those of international graduate students.

Around 1993, UI greatly expanded their family housing, adding well over
100 apartments.  The existing UI apartments at the time contributed to
the district an average of something like 1 school age kid per
apartment. The principal of West Park (Marilyn Howard) expressed alarm at
the prospect of absorbing so many new kids.

But the kids never materialized.  The new family apartments
opened, but the families apparently were smaller.  West Park, then
crowded, saw as I recall only a slight enrollment increase.  I conjecture
that this demographic trend of UI students arriving with fewer kids has
continued.

Is UI the dog wagging this tail?

Brian Dennis



On Fri, 17 May 2002, Dale Courtney wrote:

> Ron wrote:
> > I believe what the table says is that 20.3% of the total
> > county population is under 18. No trend is given for that statistic.
>
> OK, this is my last look at the statistics until the census bureau
> reports the facts.
>
> 1.  The census bureau reports that Latah's total population has
> increased 14.1% in 10 years
> (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/16/16057.html)
>
> 2.  The census bureau reports that Latah's 17-and-under population has
> increased 20.3% in 10 years
> (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/16/16057.html)
>
> 3.  Moscow's total population increased from 18,519 in 1990 to 21,291 in
> 2000 (13% in 10 years)
> (http://www2.census.gov/census_2000/datasets/demographic_profile/Idaho/2
> kh16.pdf vs http://venus.census.gov/cdrom/lookup/1021654114)
>
> 4.  Moscow's school-aged children make up 11.2% of the total population
> (http://www2.census.gov/census_2000/datasets/demographic_profile/Idaho/2
> kh16.pdf)
>
> 5.  MSD reports that they are down 357 students (15.1%) in 5 years
> (http://www.sd281.k12.id.us/GeneralInformation/files/movement.pdf and
> http://www.sd281.k12.id.us/GeneralInformation/files/Enrollment_11-02-01.
> pdf)
>
> Now, you don't have to have a PhD in statistics to see that the books
> don't balance. *All* the stats show that the overall population and the
> school-aged population is up anywhere from 13%-20% and that school
> enrollment is down 15%
>
> Not only has there been an exodus from the government schools, there's
> been a *mass exodus*. Well, let me rephrase that -- there should have
> been a mass *entrance* (up ~15% instead of down 15%).
>
> MSD alleges that the cause is families with kids leaving. That's
> nonsense. Nothing supports that allegation.
>
> Rather, the question is why parents are not enrolling them to begin
> with.
>
> I've said my statistical peace. We'll wait until the school enrollment
> data is in (http://www.census.gov/census2000/futurereleases.html), then
> there'll be no more guess work.
>
> Dale
>