Where have all the children gone?
School-closing talk returns with students
By DONNA JONES
Sentinel, August 3, 2003
Blackberry
bushes poke through gaps left by missing boards at the school bus shelter
on California Drive in Ben Lomond.
It
wasn't like that in the early 1990s, when Joyce Johnson pulled up in her
yellow school bus and threw open the door. More than a dozen kids
clambered aboard.
Now
about half that number catch the bus at the neighborhood stop, and the
little-used shelter is deteriorating.
It's
a sign of the changing demographics in the neighborhood just off Highway 9
north of town. A visitor to the community, a long loop with about 50
homes, is more likely to see graying couples walking dogs than parents
pushing strollers.
Kathy
Chesus, whose oldest daughter will be a senior in the fall, recalled when
the neighborhood offered plenty of playmates for school-age children. Her
youngest daughter, Kelly, 11, who will be a sixth-grader, must look
farther afield, she said.
"She's
very social, but in the neighborhood there are very few kids," Chesus
said.
The
Ben Lomond neighborhood is not unique. The shift can be seen in many Santa
Cruz County communities, and, for that matter, in many across the state,
and that's having a dramatic impact on schools as fewer students show up
for classes.
In
the past year, three school districts considered closing campuses for lack
of students - and San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District shuttered
two. The process was painful and is far from over. The decision provoked a
recall campaign against four district trustees.
Parent
Susan Weber had to explain to her son, Alex, why he won't be able to
finish his last year of elementary school at Quail Hollow, one of the
closed campuses. Then, as a district trustee, she had to turn around and
defend herself against the recall.
"It's
been really hard," Weber said. "You really have to step back and
look at the big picture, and for elementary school parents, that's
hard."
Without
closing schools, she said, there would be less money to operate the junior
high and high school, and that will mean older students won't get the
education they need to compete for slots in colleges or the job market.
Santa
Cruz City Schools and Soquel Union Elementary School District kept doors
open at schools only with financial help from their respective
communities. In Santa Cruz, property owners will be digging deeper into
their pockets to pay another $81 in taxes annually for five years. In the
Soquel Union, the Capitola City Council dipped into its reserves to donate
$160,000 to keep the city's only elementary school open next year.
Officials
in both districts acknowledge they may have to close schools before
enrollment hits bottom.
"We're
not done with the decline," said Kathleen Howard, Soquel's
superintendent. "We're going to have to look very closely at
enrollment in our schools, and see if that enrollment can maintain four
elementary schools. It may happen for a time that we move to three
elementary schools."
Smaller
households
What's
happening in Santa Cruz County is happening across the state - at least in
communities where immigration hasn't made much of a dent, said Andrew
Ruppenstein, a state Department of Finance research program specialist.
The
population is aging, and fewer babies are being born.
"Births
are the real engine of enrollment change," said Shelley Lapkoff,
president of Berkeley-based Lapkoff and Gobalet Demographic Research Inc.
Statewide,
births hit a peak in 1990, she said. During the next five years, they
slipped nearly 10 percent, and the drop in Santa Cruz County was double
that - a higher percentage than any of the San Francisco Bay Area's nine
counties.
The
county numbers are continuing to slide. While there have been spikes in
the last six years, the trend in most areas has been at best flat, at
worst downward. In some areas the slope is particularly steep.
In
1997, 224 babies were born in Soquel and Capitola, according to county
Health Department figures. In 2002, there were only 171. Look five years
into the future, and that's going to mean even fewer kids entering
kindergarten in the Soquel Union school district.
Boomers
- the big bubble of post-World War II babies born between 1946 and 1964 -
account for part of the trend, demographers say. Their children created a
mini-boom in area schools 10 to 15 years ago.
Most
schools in the county date from the population burst in the 1950s and
'60s. However, Soquel Union, San Lorenzo Valley and Pajaro Valley added to
their stock by building a total of four elementary schools in the late
1980s and early 1990s to meet the new demand.
At
that time, just about every county school district rolled portable
classrooms onto campuses as well.
But
now, graying boomers, between the ages of 39 and 57, are moving past their
child-bearing years.
"The
boomers are pretty much done, and the children aren't having as many
children as their parents did," Ruppenstein said.
Meanwhile,
the bulk of the county's children are in middle or high school. At the
upper limits, some have moved onto college and others to places where
housing is more affordable. With the median home price topping $550,000,
the younger generation is finding it tough to start families here.
Tom
Brezsny, a Realtor with Monterey Bay Properties in Capitola, said he sees
young people come up against the high cost of living all the time.
"Kids
are such an incredible financial commitment, as well as emotional,
spiritual and every other kind of commitment," Brezsny said. "In
some ways, people have to make a choice. Do they want children or a
house?"
The
economy has put the squeeze on 30-something dot-commers, who in the late
1990s and early 2000 were buying "Porsches and houses," Brezsny
said.
"Those
people don't have jobs now, so they're either going elsewhere or out
looking for work," he said. They're not buying new homes.
During
the last two years the area trend is wealthy Silicon Valley residents, in
the 45- to 60-age bracket, buying second homes in the Santa Cruz area with
an eye toward retirement, Brezsny said.
They
are joining the ranks of boomers who are staying put, making the 45-and-up
age group the fastest growing in the county. The 1990 U.S. census found
that the group comprised 28 percent of the county's population. By 2000
they had grown to 34 percent.
Jim
Rapoza moved to the San Lorenzo Valley after graduating from college in
1971, part of a wave of young singles and families attracted by the area's
rural character and cheap housing.
His
children are grown now, and he is retired. Some of Rapoza's friends have
left the area for places like Oregon, where they found communities
reminiscent of the San Lorenzo Valley of two and three decades past.
Others are staying put. For one thing, many bought their homes before
Proposition 13 took effect and are reaping the advantages of lower
property taxes by remaining, he said.
Rapoza
and his wife have no plans to leave their home on Glen Arbor Road in Ben
Lomond, where they recently installed a large picture window.
"I
look outside and all I can see is trees," he said. "Why would I
want to live anywhere else?"
Brezsny
recalled Santa Cruz in the days before UC Santa Cruz came to town.
"In
the early '60s Santa Cruz was the oldest county in the state," he
said. "So it's interesting to me to see it come full circle."
Bucking the trend
Not
every neighborhood or town in the county is experiencing the same
demographic changes. Watsonville, for example, has more in common with
places like Salinas, than Santa Cruz.
In
those communities, large numbers of Latinos, many the first generation in
California, are boosting school rosters.
Some
of the children are immigrants. Others are being born here. As the
statewide birth rate plunged overall, Latino families continued to grow.
Watsonville
was one of the few places in the county, where more children were born in
2002 than in 1997. Ben Lomond was another, but its birthrate has been
relatively flat and in the San Lorenzo Valley that's been offset by a
slide in neighboring Boulder Creek.
The
South County city saw its school enrollment dip slightly for the first
time last year, but with 800 housing units under construction there's
bound to be more children moving into the city in the next few years.
Keith
Boyle, a principal planner in Watsonville, said the city and school
district expect an average of 3.82 residents per new household.
"It's
a fairly consistent trend," he said. "We have larger households
(in Watsonville), and they're younger families."
While
other districts contemplate closing schools, Pajaro Valley keeps building.
Its latest, Ann Soldo Elementary School, opened in 1999 on East Lake
Avenue. Vista MontaF1a, a housing development with 257 homes and townhomes,
is rising from the ground next door. Another elementary school, which will
serve two new developments south of Main Street, is scheduled to open in
August 2004.
Elsewhere,
it's difficult to gauge when things will turn around.
Ann
Wise was a member of the San Lorenzo Valley school board that chose a site
north of Boulder Creek for a new school in the mid-1980s. At the time
burgeoning enrollment was crowding the district's schools, especially in
Boulder Creek, where Silicon Valley jobs were just "over the
hill" for commuters. The Redwood Elementary School site, 3 miles
north of town, seemed like it would be ground zero for further growth,
Wise said.
But
the San Lorenzo Valley isn't suited to large-scale development and the
growth never materialized.
"It
doesn't have the infrastructure for one thing," said Alvin James,
head of the county Planning Department. Limits on the water supply and the
reliance on septic systems make for major constraints.
Much
of the county growth nurtured by Silicon Valley jobs ended up in
Mid-County, from Live Oak to Aptos, he said. The economic slump has
softened this trend, though. Permit applications for new development have
dropped off, and there's more interest in adding to existing units, he
said.
Back
in the San Lorenzo Valley, the birthrate peaked two years before Redwood
opened in 1991. The school enrolled more than 500 students the first year,
but was down to less than 300 last year. The number of students dropped at
other district schools, too, and trustees voted to close two of the four
campuses, including Redwood.
Wise
thinks the Silicon Valley bust might be another deterrent for young
families to move to the area, and an economic uptick might make a
difference.
Lapkoff,
the demographer, agrees the downturn might be a contributing factor.
"A
short-term economic situation can put a temporary choke in a system,"
she said.
The ebb and flow
There
are larger forces at work, too. Populations ebb and flow, demographers
say.
In
1975, 11 years after the last baby boomer was born, California births hit
a trough. Then they climbed steadily until 1990.
Now
the scales are tipped toward older residents. But the wheel keeps turning
as one generation makes way for the next. The question is when and where
will the growth happen.
It's
more difficult to forecast now than it was in the 1950s, Lapkoff said.
"The
households were similar then," she said. "Now there are so many
different kinds of households, and children have parents in their 20s to
parents in their 40s."
One
of the big questions demographers can't answer is what kind of families
second-generation Latinos will have, Lapkoff said. Will they have large
families like their immigrant parents, or will they assimilate and have
smaller families like native-born Americans?
The
state Finance Department is predicting a gradual growth in the statewide
birthrate through 2011. How that will play out locally is less clear.
"Births
are going to grow because people keep coming to California," Lapkoff
said. "Where are people going to go? Where there's more housing
development."
In
Santa Cruz County, that means the Watsonville area. In other areas, the
housing stock is relatively fixed.
Santa
Cruz Planning Director Gene Arner said the city has little room to grow,
and development is focused on apartments that are unlikely to attract
families.
"In
the American story, nothing is going to replace the single-family home on
a large lot with a big backyard," he said.
Still,
much of the city's stock of single-family homes is occupied by groups of
unrelated individuals, such as university students or young professionals,
Arner said. They might find the new apartments a better match for their
lifestyle, and that could free up homes for families. The city would need
a stronger economic base to attract families who could afford the homes,
however.
"There's
so many dimensions to this," he said.
As
far as the next birth spurt, Lapkoff bets on 2020.
"We
could have a mini-boom with baby boomers retiring out of California, and a
majority of women of child-bearing age (will be) Hispanic," she said.
"It
may sound like far away, but it's only 17 years. School districts
shouldn't be selling property. Eventually enrollments could increase. It
could be 10, 20, 25 years down the road, but school districts need to be
flexible and have property in reserve."
Survival of the fittest
Meanwhile,
"downsizing" is the latest buzz word in local school districts
as officials scramble to deal with declining enrollment - and the
resulting loss of per-pupil funding from the state.
At
about $5,000 a head, a drop of 100 students translates into a loss of
$500,000. Since 1998, enrollment in Soquel Union has plummeted nearly 350
students, almost 500 in the San Lorenzo Valley, and more than 1,100 in
Santa Cruz.
Officials
are finding that it's not so easy to pare overhead. School board members
agonize about layoffs, and decisions to close schools, as demonstrated in
the San Lorenzo Valley, can tear communities apart.
"I
just finished four years in this district," said Dick Moss, assistant
superintendent in Santa Cruz. "We've been struggling with (declining
enrollment) from a budget standpoint for all that time, and I don't see
anything on the near horizon to change that."
While
the emphasis is on elementary schools now, the population dip is moving
toward middle and high schools. Lapkoff studied the San Lorenzo Valley
district, and based on trends predicts by 2011, San Lorenzo Valley High
School will enroll less than 700 students. The school enrolled 1,154
students in the 2002-03 school year.
Julie
Haff, San Lorenzo Valley superintendent, said the district is trying to
prepare now. One idea is to combine some junior high and high school
departments, such as math and foreign language. That will spread the cost
of specialized teachers over a greater pool of students. Otherwise, it's
going to get increasingly difficult to offer students choice in courses.
Complicating
matters is increased competition for a smaller pool of students. Private
schools have always pulled some students away, though overall that
percentage - about 10 to 12 percent of students - doesn't seem to be
changing. More recently charter schools are attracting students that would
have filled desks at traditional public schools.
In
1999, just about the time Santa Cruz officials were noticing elementary
school enrollment was shrinking, Scotts Valley opened a high school.
Previously, Scotts Valley, like Soquel, Live Oak and other smaller
districts, fed students into the Santa Cruz high school system. Next year,
Scotts Valley High expects to enroll more than 700 students, most of whom
would have gone to Santa Cruz.
Live
Oak, a district that until now has served students only through eighth
grade, will open a small charter high school in the fall. Most of its
enrollment, expected to be 40 students in the first year and gradually
grow to 120, also will come from Santa Cruz's pool.
In
the face of such competition, officials in some districts are tightening
policies that allow students to transfer from one district to another.
Others are embarking on marketing efforts, running ads in newspapers to
tout their schools.
New
programs are being launched to attract students as well. While Live Oak is
going into the high school business, Santa Cruz is looking at the other
end of the market. With new preschool and pre-kindergarten programs at
Natural Bridges Elementary School, district officials hope to capture
children at an earlier age and persuade their parents to stay in the
system.
Haff
is looking to unique programs at San Lorenzo Valley High School, such as
the science-based Watershed Academy and a new Video Productions Academy,
to keep students home and possibly lure others from private schools and
from other communities.
"It's
very competitive," she said.
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