An elaboration on the column published today on home school demographics for those most informed folks in Santa Clarita, the readers of SCVTalk. http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/23075/
Prior to this publication I asked an elected school official what their guess was as to the number of children outside the public schools in the Santa Clarita Valley (“SCV”). They solemnly told me they knew personally of 300 homeschooling families. Even assuming extremely large families, this would imply a homeschooling population of 1,500; triple that, and one gets 4,500, still only 26% of the number derived in my calculation. The official asked, how could my calculation possibly be “right” since the homeschooled “district” was roughly the size of two of the elementary school districts in the SCV.
The fact is the calculation is actually arithmetically correct, but clever folks will realize it relies on two numbers that are estimates: The total population of the SCV (275,000) and the school age demographic (25%).
Due to the large numbers involved an overstatement of either or both of these numbers has a dramatic effect on the result. For example, if the total population of the SCV is really 265,000, and the school age population really 23%, the implied number of kids outside the public schools falls dramatically by 50% to around 8,000. If the demo falls to 20%, the number of kids outside public school is negligible.
Of the two estimated numbers, I am most suspicious of the school age demographic. My admittedly incomplete review showed that nearly every suburban city I checked in Southern California claimed a school age demographic of about 25%, which implies that it is derived not from granular local census numbers but some type of aggregate estimate. While this messes up my calculation, it has more profound effects on all of us, because consultants are using these numbers to make school infrastructure planning assumptions that may be grossly overstated. (Witness the SUSD’s now seemingly critical need to close on elementary school permanently and one probably permanently.)
This morning I thought of a more reliable estimate: The difference between Hart and elementary school enrollment. I personally know several homeschooling families, and nearly all transition their children into junior high and high school when they feel their instruction abilities are outstripped. While anectdotal, this does make sense.
So looking at those numbers we see a per grade increase in the high school district attendance over grade school attendance and it amounts to 600 per grade, or a gross spread of 3,600, which seems a much more reasonable number of homeschoolers.
A more terrifying explanation is that a demographic bubble of children existed in certain years that radically pumped up high school and junior high attendance. We are now working that surplus off and what comes behind is 15% smaller. Not good news as we currently have six high schools and a seventh in process.
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Do your numbers account for the children who are ‘homeschooled’ through the district and charter independent study programs? I imagine most of us would consider these children ‘homeschooled’, but at the same time those working with the local school districts would add to the districts totally head count.
Walker:
Don’t know if they are included in the head count.
ND, who would fund the census? And how would it be carried out?
I know when my daughter was in elementary school, parents were asked at the end of each school year if their child would be returning in the fall. But in these trying times, how many of us may not be able to say for certain whether our children will be here or living elsewhere in 3 months time? And while this may give a school some idea of future enrollment, it doesn’t account for new students arriving.
At McGrath Elementary in the Newhall district the student population is particularly “fluid” due to the fact that the majority are economically disadvantaged and their parents non-English speaking immigrant workers. Students move in and out of that school’s boundaries constantly. And even though the school year starts at McGrath during August, many students do not show up until after Labor Day. I can’t imagine how a meaningful census would be carried out for schools like that.
It was not so long ago that the schools in Santa Clarita were operating on year-round tracts due to the rapid increase in new housing developments. Parents were on the warpath, pressuring districts to get new schools built. Coordinating schedules for parents with children in elementary school and teens in high school was a nightmare. Times have certainly changed . . .
RM:
To be meaningful one would have to take census every year, compare it to actual enrollment, and then develop a time series algorithm. Difficult to do with volunteers.
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