San Antonio/ Elementary School Building May See Changes Soon
By Lindsey Padilla
El Defensor Chieftain
August 29, 2012
At the school board meeting Monday night, board members looked at San Antonio School's process of remodeling.
Think Smart Coordinator Molly Smith presented some new phases for classroom settings to be included with the remodeled building.
The Public Schools Facilities Authority rated the school about a year ago, said Head Teacher John Ray Dennis.
- Since San Antonio ranked so low for their facility, PSCFA hired Smith to work with faculty, staff, parents and community members with what they would like to see happen at the school.
- "We spend a lot of time about what is going to be taught, what will happen in the future," Smith said.
At the end of last year, faculty, staff, parents and community members had four meetings with Think Smart where they played with color blocks. The blocks represented a vision of what the new school would look like, Dennis said. Sixty percent of the blocks represented classrooms, and the other colors were for restrooms, a cafeteria and other needed facilities in the school.
- "This plan will affect all grades with a better learning environment," Smith said. "The teachers will have all the tools they need."
The planning committee for the new architecture of the school has 25 people, including parents and other community members, she said.
- The first of four major goals for San Antonio School is flexibility - providing a learning environment to students by level.
- The second goal is collaboration among the five teachers who work with each other for support.
- The third goal is to have a community connection which includes how the community will use the building.
- The fourth goal is to establish how the land will be used to support the redesign of the school for 101 students, Smith said.
The space capacity for the new building would be 18,140 square feet. "Architects will be able to look at the colored blocks to see what the new school would potentially look like and start building," she said. "There will be more core classrooms and instructional space."
The new building will expand to the west with a media center and classrooms, food service and distribution.
According to Dennis, the existing building is 84 years old and faces electrical problems, small classrooms, door blockage to the hallways and classrooms and stairs that aren't handicapped accessible.
Dennis said the plans will take a year to 18 months to be completed pending approval of the school board.
The next steps are for the school board to decide if it will proceed with the re-design plan for the school, meet with a contractor, then start a new building, Dennis said.
"The building is like home," Dennis said. "We have awesome kids and teachers. Every kid needs to be in the best facility."
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Espaņola/ Highmark School Development: Delay in New McCurdy Construction
By Louis McGill
Rio Grande Sun
Thursday, August 30, 2012
McCurdy Charter School will have to wait until early next spring for Highmark School Development to demolish the old buildings and begin work on its new facility, Governance Board Chairperson Deborah Anderson said.
"Not that we've hit a snag, but we haven't had all the information pieces we wanted, and they haven't either," Anderson said. So the time-line has kind of stretched out a little bit, which will be fine."
Anderson said in July that she hoped for demolition to start before the beginning of school and Patrick Beausoleil, Highmark's director of business development, said at the time that he expected the building to be ready by next March.
Beausoleil said Aug. 27 that the project was delayed because the school leadership was busy getting the school launched, getting enrollment in place, getting the governing council and board of trustees aligned properly, and getting finalized budgets in place before moving forward.
The new timeline, he said, is to get the new facility finished some time in the summer of 2013 for the 2013-14 school year.
Beausoleil and company president Glenn Hileman visited McCurdy Aug. 24 to meet with the McCurdy Ministries board of trustees, who McCurdy Charter School will be leasing the building from, Anderson said. She said the meeting seemed to go very well and they were very excited. They think McCurdy will be successful.
"Everything is essentially all systems go," Beausoleil said. "We're hoping to send their credit package to our underwriter some time in the next couple of weeks here. But everything's sort of going as planned."
Both the school's governance board and the board of trustees will be putting together a credit package for Highmark to submit to its investors, Anderson said. This credit package will show investors the money that the school will be able to bring in and what will be expended.
Once they have the package, the investors will do their own research McCurdy, meets the school, understands the curriculum, and develops a deeper understanding of the school, the demographics, and history, Beausoleil said. Once that is complete, it can proceed to underwriting.
Because the clock on their 18-month plan get their facilities up to State standards started ticking when the doors opened on the first day of school, Anderson said they still have plenty of time to finish construction.
Once completed, the plan states the new Highmark building will hold the core courses for kindergarten through grade 12. Various other classes will be taught out of two portable buildings, a re-purposed elementary building and the student center, which will also provide cafeteria services. Memorial Gym will continue to be used for PE classes and athletic events.
Beausoleil said he loves what he sees in McCurdy.
"There's a century of history there and a group of professionals that is frankly what we love to see with charter schools," he said. "There's experience, there's versatility, there's professionalism, there's educational talent, there's a student body, there's a need that's being fulfilled. We love seeing charter schools like this. Really, objectively, professionally, these guys fire on all cylinders."
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Espaņola/ New Track Funding Tied to Cariņos Long Term Lease
By Louis McGill
Rio Grande Sun
August 30, 2012
An old agreement between the Espaņola School District and the Public Schools Capital Outlay Council regarding the old Espaņola High School building is coming back to bite its current resident, Cariņos Charter School.
Money allocated by the Council for Espaņola Middle School's athletic fields in 2009 was awarded again to the District at a July 26 meeting, but under the condition that the school Board determine a plan to phase that building out as a school, Superintendent Art Blea said.
The athletic fields were originally planned for the school when it was built, Blea said. However, when the District could not come up with funds to match the State award, the project died.
- These strings were attached to the $822,298 award when it was first allocated, Public School Facilities Authority director Bob Gorrell said. However, when the athletic fields project was resurrected, the old agreement and the stipulations it carried came with it.
According to the document:
- "As was in the additional conditions of all awards in the 2008-2009 cycle, this award is subject to district submission of a disposal plan for the old Espaņola MS East facilities. The following options may be considered: demolition; written agreement transferring the ownership of the property and/or facilities for non-educational use; or other re-use such that the facilities will no longer house students or staff."
Both Blea and Gorrell said Cariņos was safe for now. According to Gorrell, how long the school will be able to stay in their current building is a local decision.
Including this year, there are three years left on the lease between the District and Cariņos, Blea said. Gorrell said the Council would not stop the District from honoring that lease, though he said they likely would not want to see that lease renewed.
Blea said the school would be secure for at least this school year, and the District would have to give the school adequate notice for them to find a new home if they were going to be removed. However, it all depends on the course of action decided by the Board.
"I don't understand quite fundamentally what they feel the problem is with the building," said Cariņos governance board president Quentin Wilson. "It could possibly be that if the person who was in there and made those statements would articulate whatever he or she saw, we might say, 'Oh my gosh, they're right.'"
As a retired contractor, he said he didn't see a compelling reason to tear the buildings down without that knowledge.
"We have quite a few small problems, and maybe one or two big ones," he said. "We've got money available, which we have prioritized to go towards taking care of these things."
Cariņos' plans for fixing their building up includes the possibility of setting up a foundation to raise money for the needed repairs, Wilson said. This foundation could gather donations and grants to fund everything from special programs at the school to paying for a solution to their current location problems. He said several other charter schools in the state have done this.
"If we've got three years, that gives us time to set up a foundation," Wilson said. "We might be able to find sources of money to either get us a new building or make repairs."
The award should have been voted on by the Board at the Aug. 23 meeting along with several other Council awards, but that document was the only one that did not make it in time. The District received it Aug. 28. The document states that the grant must be accepted by Sept. 28.
My thought right now is that we do have a commitment to Cariņos," Board president Floyd Archuleta said.
He said that he would be in favor of allowing the school to stay at the school for the remainder of their lease, but he would want to make sure that whatever plan the District decides, is in-line with what the Council requires.
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Espaņola/ New La Tierra Montessori Charter School Proposes Tie with El Centro
By Louis McGill
Rio Grande Sun
August 30, 2012
La Tierra Montessori School may be adding El Centro to its already long list of community partnerships. Preliminary discussions between the school and health care provider began Aug. 27 to explore the potential of establishing a school-based health clinic at La Tierra.
If established, the clinic would be open one day a week and potentially provide the school's population of elementary students with a wide variety of medical procedures including hearing and vision testing, dental screening and immunizations.
"These are some basic requirements for students in school, and we do all those things at our school-based clinics," said El Centro CEO Lore Pease.
The main barrier to this partnership is money, Pease said.
"That's the primary discussion item, but being a state charter they have certain health requirements and I think we can work something out with that," she said.
She said funding for a clinic could come from billing for services to patients' insurance plans or Medicaid or applying for grants.
La Tierra principal Sandy Beery said she believes there are enough grants for which they can apply to make the program pay for itself, without dipping into school operational funds, and that El Centro is excited about the possibility of working with them.
"It's certainly a novel idea for them and I think it's certainly a need that we have, given our model of holistic health," said La Tierra founder Roger Montoya.
Pease said El Centro is looking at a long-range plan for this project. The next meeting should be in a couple weeks, after both parties gather more information.
El Centro is the main focus because it has the longest history and experience with school-based health care. However, both Beery and Montoya said they were investigating alternatives, should El Centro not work out.
"What's very important to us is finding a provider that really has a philosophical alignment," said Montoya. "We really want to make sure we have the right partner."
Beery said one of the key components of the charter school's mission is to provide some sort of school-based health care to their students. This component would go beyond medical care into supporting the well-being of the child through health education and nutritional support.
Montoya said they thought by having a school-based health center, that could do far beyond what a normal nurse would do, the school could create a system where families can gain the knowledge they need to make a positive shift in their health over time.
"We're looking at the social and emotional health of the child, the special needs of kids, and we have a BMI (Body Mass Index) and healthy eating component that's actually an educational goal," he said.
The school day will start with 30 minutes of vigorous physical activity for the entire student body and staff, Montoya said. This will include dance, yoga, and a wide variety of other activities.
La Tierra also has a healthy snack program which will provide students with a wholesome, organic snack.
Beery said what makes her excited about bringing a clinic into their school is that it would help La Tierra become a true community school, which would be the center of a community and provide all kinds of services to children and families.
Some of La Tierra's community partnerships include the Espaņola Wildlife Center, New Mexico Acequia Association, Moving Arts Espaņola, and the Espaņola Farmers Market.
"We really want a first-rate school in every way," Montoya said. "There are resources there that are untapped, so why not partner?"
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Questa/ School Board Hires Lester Beason as Interim Superintendent
By Matthew van Buren
Taos News
August 30, 2012
Retired administrator Lester Beason has been named interim superintendent of the Questa Independent School District following Roy Herrera's resignation last week.
School board president Bernie Torres said the timing of Herrera's departure as the school year began was unfortunate and blamed micromanaging from board members for Herrera's leaving. Herrera was hired over the summer.
Beason said he contacted the district after he found out about Herrera's resignation.
"I think they need some assistance," he said. "I thought that I would at least offer my services."
Beason introduced himself to the community at a special meeting of the board Tuesday night (Aug. 28). He said he is impressed with the district's staff and facilities and joked that after two days on the job he is completely up to speed.
Beason said he intends to present the board with a comprehensive plan to address student achievement relatively soon.
He said despite divisions on the board, everyone should be able to focus on improving things for Questa's children.
During an interview with The Taos News Monday (Aug. 27), Beason said he hopes to "get some serious progress made" during his time with the district.
"My focus has to be on student achievement," he said.
Torres said Beason has a "tremendous amount of experience" that will serve the district well. According to information from Torres, Beason has experience serving as a principal in Grants and Roswell and superintendent in Gadsden, Alamogordo and Columbus, Miss.
"I think he's going to do a good job for us," Torres said.
Torres said Beason will earn the equivalent of $90,000 per year, though it remains to be seen how long he will serve as interim superintendent, as the district has opened a search for a permanent replacement for Herrera.
About two dozen members of the public, including district staff, students and parents, attended Tuesday's board meeting. Many were there expecting a letter outlining staff concerns to be discussed, and the letter did appear on the agenda.
However, Beason suggested the item be continued to a future meeting in light of an investigation being conducted into the district by the state Public Education Department (PED).
PED representatives attended Tuesday's meeting and were also present for a board meeting Aug. 21. Torres said he expects the PED to address many of the issues raised in a report to the district and that it would have been premature to discuss the letter while the PED is still performing its work.
Beason also suggested that the letter be discussed at a future meeting because he said several board members had not been provided with a copy until Tuesday and needed more time to review it.
The letter raises a number of concerns about the Questa school board. Among them are overreaching and malfeasance, "bullying tactics" and retaliation, "unprofessional use of board power for family issues," "defamation of character," focusing on "petty issues or personal issues rather than professional issues," personal attacks and using positions on the board for personal gain.
The letter was submitted to Herrera earlier this month, and though Torres said he received a copy, he decided not to distribute it to the rest of the board because it had been addressed to Herrera, not the board.
"It wasn't my place to talk about it," he said.
However, board member Daryl Ortega pointed to Torres' withholding of the letter as an example of board dysfunction. He said the board needs to be informed of such concerns from staff in order to improve.
"We're not aware of any of that, because we're not given any information," he said. "(Torres) is creating a lot of the division that takes place."
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ABQ/ Thieves Help Themselves to APS Electronics
By Ian Schwartz
KRQE-TV, Channel 13
August 30, 2012
Crooks are looting Albuquerque schools for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods, and this year was even worse than last year.
It was another rough school year as thieves made off with more than $260,000 in computers and other equipment from Albuquerque Public Schools campuses.
Again and again computers are what crooks are after.
- "This last year we were about $33,000 more than we were in the past," APS Operations Officer Brad Winter told KRQE News 13. "We had someone that broke into the portable and stole 30 iPads at one time."
That iPad heist was at Mountain View Elementary School in May when someone went into an unlocked portable, broke open the iPad cabinet and stole more than $20,000 worth of the tablets.
Winter had told teachers before they were not supposed to leave electronics in the portables. The teachers got a reminder after the pricey theft to keep them in the main building, he added.
- "Every one of our school are alarmed," Winter said. "They are alarmed, and we monitor the alarms."
But a lot of the thefts are in the evening when janitors are still in the building and the alarms aren't on yet.
So who would know when the alarms are on or off? An APS source said someone on the inside.
Which is exactly what happened in October when someone stole more than $20,000 worth of computers at Tomasita Elementary School.
Winter said APS is performing an audit to see where they are going wrong so they can protect the schools from more costly thefts.
APS police officers will also set up tactical plans to heavily patrol the schools during the evening and at night.
APS couldn't say how many people have been arrested or charged in connection with these cases. However, a significant number of the cases are unsolved.
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Santa Fe/ EDITORIAL: State Needs to Buy Local
The New Mexican
August 30, 2012
The move by Gov. Susana Martinez to buy books for every New Mexico first-grader was great political theater. What's not to love about putting a book in a child's hands? In carrying out the plan, though, the state demonstrated once again that execution matters, even when following through on a good idea. Details, details, so much is in the details.
In this case, the state didn't go far enough to buy locally from New Mexico authors and publishers. Of the 30,000 or so books purchased, only 10,000 came from The University of New Mexico Press (the only in-state press approached).
The rest of the money spent - approximately $200,000 - went to out-of-state publishers. While it is true that local publishers might have had to work overtime to produce enough books, they should have been given the opportunity to compete for this contract. We know that the Public Education Department, which supervised the purchase of these books, was on a tight schedule - but spending the money locally is best, even if it might have caused a slight delay in handing out books.
Officials say they wanted to get the best deal for the taxpayers, and that's a decent argument. However, authors and publishers are taxpayers, and money spent locally multiplies, helping even more taxpayers. What's more, the award-winning books published in New Mexico have the added punch (many of them) of addressing topics and issues that our first-graders will know firsthand.
New Mexico, like the rest of the nation, is in a tough economy. Any bit of stimulus that will help local businesses - such as book publishers - make extra money, should stay in state. The idea of buying books for first-graders is a good one, both politically and for its substantive potential. The joy of owning a "real" book is palpable, and many New Mexico children come from homes without books. That they now have their very own books is cause for celebration.
With the first purchase over, we urge state officials to connect with the many New Mexico book publishers. That way, the next time the state needs books for children, there will be no reason not to buy local.
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ABQ/ COLUMN: Special Needs Kids Worry About SBA
By Joline Gutierrez Krueger
ABQ Journal
August 31, 2012
The letter was a joint effort between Cameron Price and his mother.
The words and thoughts about the unexpected switch this year to a different standardized test required to graduate were all Cameron's.
But the worry, well, that was all Mom.
"My brother and I are seniors at La Cueva High School and we have Asperger syndrome, which is a type of high functioning autism," he wrote me. "I want to tell you my story and how the test is affecting me (and my brother)."
Ah, the test. You know about the Standard-Based Assessment exam by now if you are a parent of a high school senior, especially if your son or daughter is among the 37 percent of Albuquerque Public Schools students - 43 percent statewide - who recently learned they failed the test.
Without a passing SBA score, or meeting another yet-unspecified criteria to demonstrate academic success, there is no high school diploma. And some parents are being told that with no diploma - or GED - their children may not be eligible for a New Mexico Lottery Scholarship.
That's apparently not true, but it's part of the confusion that surrounds the implementation of the SBA.
Although the state Public Education Department adopted the test to replace the High School Competency Exam in fall 2010, students never set eyes on it until last spring when it was used for the first time as the primary requirement for obtaining a high school diploma instead of a certificate of completion - which many students and parents apparently did not know existed.
The previous test was set at an eighth-grade level; the SBA is raised to 11th grade. That's sounds good on paper - high school seniors should be able to pass a junior-level test, right?
But critics, including an APS board member, say the test doesn't measure what students know or need to know.
Parents of students with special needs or learning disabilities on a standard graduation track like Cameron say they were not given enough notice to prepare their children to take the test with additional assistance such as tutoring.
"Nobody knew about it until recently when the results came out," said Cameron's mom, Vicki Price, who worries now that all her sons' efforts may not lead to a diploma. "It took us all by surprise."
But here, let Cameron and his letter tell it.
"I am a really good student at La Cueva and have a 3.38 GPA," the 18-year-old senior and member of his school's ROTC wrote. "However, I have to work a lot harder than other students to get these good grades. I am in all regular education classes except for math and do all the same work as everybody else. I have spent hours and hours doing homework and getting everything done in my classes, but that doesn't seem to matter to the PED."
People with Asperger syndrome are often socially awkward and might exhibit unusual behaviors. Certain tasks, such as taking tests or seeing the world in anything but concrete absolutes are often a challenge for them, although they can be uncommonly perceptive, even brilliant, at the same time.
Cameron failed the SBA by seven points; his twin brother, Corey, who maintains a 3.1 GPA, failed by 19 points.
"I should have been told when I was a junior that this was required, and then I could have done the extra test preparation last year," he wrote. "My parents have to help me a lot and I also have a tutor after school. The things that are hard for me are taking tests, working in groups, dealing with mean students and understanding people because my brain works differently than most people."
Students like Cameron are smart kids, but different kids, and they work hard to overcome their disabilities in order to keep up with their peers.
By and large, they are not lazy or stupid or looking for the easy way out. For some of them, test-taking is just beyond their grasp. As Cameron states, their brains work differently.
But they work.
"I don't want a free ride," one mother of a special needs high school senior who failed the SBA told me. "I just want him to have his diploma, if he earns it."
School officials have said that students who failed the SBA - about 10,000 of them statewide and about 2,100 in APS - will get another crack at the test in early October.
Schools are now offering after-school help to improve their test-taking skills. Cameron and his brother are taking advantage of that. But it's not much time.
If they fail a second time, students can still graduate with a "certificate of completion." An even murkier path to a diploma exists through the "alternate demonstration of competency," the specifics of which are only now being released.
But college requirements mention nothing about accepting these non-diplomas. And neither does the Lottery Scholarship. Price and other parents say they have been told by school officials that the scholarship is not available to those who earn a certificate of completion.
An official with my own child's high school also said they were told by PED that certificates of completion are not eligible for lottery scholarships.
But Larry Behrens, spokesman for PED and the state Higher Education Department, said that's inaccurate. He referred to state statute that allows for lottery scholarships to be given to those who "complete a high school curriculum," plus a number of other requirements such as attaining a 2.5 GPA. That statute, apparently, covers those who obtain a "certificate of completion" but not a diploma.
Which means there's a lot of educating on the SBA still left to do. And a lot of questions.
"Now how can the PED tell me I have not earned the right to graduate based on one test?" Cameron wrote. "I have worked extremely hard and have definitely earned that right."
And maybe now is the right time to question why we continue to put so much emphasis on standardized tests rather than on focusing on the practices that got most of us into a cap and gown and then into the real world - with hard work, studying and good grades.
Cameron would pass that with flying colors.
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Washington DC/ In Districts Where Seniors Outnumber Children, Schools Adjust
Seniors now outnumber students in more than 900 counties across the US, Census data show
By Sarah D. Sparks
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 2 [Edweek.org]
August 30, 2012
The 1,000-student Allegheny Valley district in Pennsylvania boasts generations of alumni and a community so involved with the schools that high school graduation becomes an open celebration in downtown Springdale Borough. Yet the district hasn't asked for a tax increase in three years, and it is pushing out a message to older residents about energy conservation, equipment reuse, and other cost savings.
Allegheny Valley is located in one of more than 900 counties where residents 65 and older now edge out school-age children.
- Out of more than 3,000 counties and county equivalents nationwide, seniors outnumber schoolchildren by more than 2-to-1 in 33 counties, recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau show.
- Educators in such counties are grappling with ways to keep the older community engaged in and supportive of their schools, from bringing older residents into classes to reframing education issues to address safety and economic concerns.
"We're conscious of the fact that our population is more skewed to the senior population," said Allegheny Valley Superintendent Cheryl A. Griffith, "and countywide, we're probably in the lower third of income; many of our seniors are on fixed income."
The combination of rising life expectancy and falling overall fertility in the United States means that, by the middle of this century, the nation will join Europe, Japan, and other areas across the globe where people 65 and older outnumber those 17 and under, according to the Census Bureau.
- "The general demographic trend may mean it's harder to have publicly financed education in an aging America," said David N. Figlio, an education economist who will become the director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., on Sept. 1.
"It's not that American adults, as soon as their kids are out of school, immediately turn their backs on the schools and say, 'OK, it's someone else's problem to educate the kids.' It's just that relative preferences change," he said.
Property and Police
Deborah Fletcher, an associate economics professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, found older Americans expand the overall tax base of a district and can lead to higher school budgets, but as voters they favor lower taxes and spending on schools.
Voters 65 and older often give priority to health-care and police programs over education, but do tend to be interested in the way school quality affects property prices.
Officials in the Allegheny Valley district, besides being judicious in their budget requests, try to guard against waning voter support by working to include older residents-many of whom attended the schools or enrolled their own children decades before-in academic presentations, a seniors' brunch on campus, and Veterans Day festivities.
"We do try to build up a lot of good will," Ms. Griffith said.
In Florida, Jane L. Goodwin, an over-65 member of the Sarasota County school board, has two grandchildren in the 41,000-student system and has been active in winning tax increases for school budgets in a community with a senior population that is more than double that of the schools.
"We've not really had a lot of pushback from the senior population as such," she said. "We've had some issues with very conservative seniors who are against what they see as any tax increase or any extra millage of any kind for any reason, but that didn't stop us."
"We went to a lot of clubs-Elks and Kiwanis and Rotary-any place where two people were together and wanted to talk," Ms. Goodwin said, noting that school leaders have to tailor their pitches for support.
- "The senior citizens are very much concerned with where every dollar goes and is spent in the budget," she said. "They are concerned with property values and security and those kinds of things. Parents are concerned with how well their children are learning, with the time school starts and stops-all the many things that dictate their child's day.
"There's a very different message that you talk about with those two groups," she said.
Ms. Goodwin said that when talking to seniors' groups, she often notes Florida's housing-market crash and points out that good schools help cushion Sarasota County from major declines in property values.
- "When the economy is bad, all of the budgets get squeezed," said Mark Mather, an associate vice president for domestic programs at the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau, "but when budgets are tight, it's the people who are going to be voting in elections who are more likely to get what they what want-and kids can't vote."
Diversity Mismatch
While the Allegheny Valley schools have had extensive involvement from longtime residents, from school volunteers to local historians, Mr. Figlio, the education economist, found seniors who remain in the communities in which they raised their own families are not necessarily more likely to support their local schools than seniors who recently moved to the area.
In a 2010 study for the Cambridge, Mass.-based National Bureau of Economic Research, Mr. Figlio analyzed the evolution of school support among families in the 1950s and 1960s who filled the newly developed suburbs after World War II.
- Overall, the higher the proportion of seniors in a community, the lower the support for public school funding, regardless of how deep their roots went in the community.
- That disconnect became especially strong in communities in which the senior population differed racially from the school population.
"It wasn't just a community getting older that makes this difference, but rather that the more mismatched the older residents were from the school-age residents, the more that affected the level of support," Mr. Figlio said.
That could be a growing problem because, while American seniors will continue to be overwhelmingly white, the U.S. Department of Education projects white students will be a minority in the school-age population by 2030.
"It's not just that there's going to be fewer kids relative to the elderly, but the kids are going to be much more racially and ethnically diverse," Mr. Mather of the Population Reference Bureau said. "There's concern that will all these baby boomers reaching age 65 support programs and policies that will help this younger generation that doesn't look much like them?
"The relative size of the over-65 population to the child population doesn't help matters," Mr. Mather added.
Personalizing the School
Sumter County, Fla., has the largest senior-to-child gap in the country:
- Residents 65 and older outpace youngsters by more than 6-to-1, thanks to one of the largest planned senior-living communities in the country, The Villages.
The massive expansion of the retirement community-its population rose from a bit more than 8,000 in 2000 to more than eight times that today-has dramatically changed the dynamics of the district, according to Richard A. Shirley, who has been the superintendent of the Sumter County schools for more than 16 years.
- "Imagine 67,000 people concentrated in one corner of what is otherwise a small, rural farming community," he said. "The Villages was such a small part of our community when I first became superintendent, but as it began to grow and the tax base began to grow, ... more and more of the schools' budget was paid for from the local tax base and less and less was paid for from the state tax base."
Florida has an equalization formula for school financing, Mr. Shirley explained, so "as that source of the funding shifted, as [seniors] saw more and more of their local money going to local education, it became pretty important for us to do a good job with our budget and focus on results."
The Villages was not designed for children. In most of the retirement community, no one under 19 is permitted to stay more than 30 days without a waiver.
"The biggest thing is, they are very concerned about cost," Mr. Shirley said of such residents. "Because, you know, their kids have been educated somewhere else, and so you have to do a really good job of emphasizing the importance of a good education and producing positive results."
The Villages is also home, though, to a network of charter schools that Mr. Shirley credits in part for protecting local support for public schools. Of the 7,600 students in Sumter County schools, about 2,200 attend charter schools in The Villages.
- "We know we are in their world; it's pretty unusual to have a K-12 public school in a retirement community," said Randy G. McDaniel, the director of education at The Villages Charter School.
- The school works to get residents on campus at every opportunity; it offers lifelong learning courses in areas like calligraphy and dancing, which have enrolled 17,000 residents in the last year.
- It also has developed a strong volunteer corps, with seniors providing 6,000 to 7,000 hours a year in activities in school.
Recruiting residents to read to elementary students or calling on retired scientists to judge the school science fair gives residents more connection to the children, Mr. McDaniel said. "The seniors can get some perspective that the next generation isn't going to hell in a hand basket; they might have green hair, but they're basically good kids," he said.
Mr. Shirley said the charter's connection to the senior community has benefitted the district as a whole.
- "The fact that we have a school right in the middle of that community, that has had a very positive influence," Mr. Shirley said. "It's not just 'that school' or 'that school system.' It becomes 'our school' and 'our school system.' It's not just a school; it's a school where Susie, my favorite waitress from the restaurant, goes."
Giving older residents a sense of ownership in the schools can prevent school budgets from becoming simply a battle over resources, Mr. Shirley and other administrators agreed.
"Once you make that school system personal, instead of just where my tax dollars go, that makes a difference," Mr. Shirley said.
