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2020 Census Count

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Board members needed to ensure complete 2020 census count

Kentucky School Advocate
April 2019

By Brenna R. Kelly
Staff writer

Frankfort Independent school board member Becky Barnes learned about the importance of the U.S. Census through her work on the state’s task force to make sure all Kentucky residents are counted in the 2020 census.

“I’ve gotten lots of information on the census,” she said, “so I thought it was important that other people who are on school boards got the same information.”

Michelle Elison, U.S. Census partnership specialist, and Amy Swann, Kentucky Youth Advocates policy

analyst, explain how the 2020 census will impact education funding during KSBA’s Annual Conference.

School board members might not think that next year’s count of every person in the country has anything to do with school districts, but at KSBA’s Annual Conference two census experts explained that the decennial census will have far-reaching impacts on Kentucky’s students and school districts.

“I refer to the census as the ultimate RSVP,” said Michelle Elison, census partnership specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau. “The biggest thing people don’t realize is how much funding is tied to census data.”

In each year following the census, federal government uses the data to disperse $675 billion to states and local governments, Elison said. In Kentucky, that’s about $2,021 per person based on the top 16 federal programs.

“That’s why I hope you understand how important it is to get an accurate count of everybody who lives here in Kentucky,” Elison said. “Otherwise, we’re just leaving money on the table.”

For schools and districts, the census data is used to calculate two big pots of federal money – Title I funding for disadvantaged students and special education grants to states.

Federal spending on Kentucky kids in 10 large programs: 2015 fiscal year

Overall, there are at least 10 federal programs that affect Kentucky’s children, including school breakfast, school lunch, Head Start and the state’s Children’s Health Insurance programs. (See box)

While children are some of the biggest beneficiaries of the funding that comes from the census, they are the people most likely to be missed in the census, Elison said.

“Children ages 0-4 are the largest undercounted aged population in America,” she said. And children ages 5 to 9 are the second-most undercounted population.

If a child isn’t counted in the 2020 census, Elison said, he or she won’t have another chance to be counted until 2030, and by that time the child will be out of elementary school and any funding for that child is lost.

Amy Swann, a policy analyst with Kentucky Youth Advocates who presented with Elison, said experts estimate that one million children ages 0-4 were missed in the 2010 census, which translates to about 8,000 children in Kentucky.

For the 2020 Census, 11 percent of Kentucky’s kids are at risk of being missed, Swann said. That’s because their family falls into another undercounted population such as renters, foreign-born residents or low-income residents.

Children who live with grandparents are also often missed, Swann said, noting that Kentucky has the second highest rate in the country of grandparents raising their grandchildren.

When Elison meets with superintendents, she often hears that they have more students in their schools than what the census count shows, a factor likely due to underreporting, she said.

“That’s why we need to work with our teachers, our schools, our superintendents and make sure that the message is getting out through students to the families that, please for the sake of your schools and funding and your child’s education for next decade, please make sure that we count all the children living here,” she said.

School board members and school administrators can help spread the message of the importance of responding to the census.

In addition to the statewide task force that Barnes serves on, the Census Bureau is working to establish complete count committees in every county. Elison urged board members to seek appointment to their community’s committee, which is usually created by the judge-executive or highest elect official in the county.

So far there are about 30 committees across the state. If the highest elected official doesn’t form the committee, someone else in the county can, even school board members, Elison said.

“The idea is that what works in eastern Kentucky is not going to be what works in western Kentucky, and it’s not going to be same message that works in Louisville or Lexington,” she said. “We need local people with local knowledge to help us figure out how to best reach the people in their communities.”

For example, the next census will be the first where people can respond online, however many Kentucky communities lack reliable access to the Internet. In those communities, schools and libraries can open their doors for residents to use computers to fill out the form, she said.

Counting everyone can also be difficult in communities with large immigrant populations that may be leery about giving information to the federal government.

“The best thing we can do to count our foreign-born population is to work with our trusted voices in their communities,” Elison said, “and sometimes that may be their child’s teacher who can help explain that the census is safe and confidential.”

In addition to school board members or administrators participating on complete count committees, teachers can incorporate the census into their lessons. The U.S. Census Bureau's website provides lesson plans, classroom activities and other resources for social studies, math, history, English and other subjects.

“It really does fit into everything,” Elison said. Schools can also teach about the census on Constitution Day held every Sept. 17 because the census is called for in Article 1 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, she said.

Elison also urged districts to spread information about the importance of the census through their social media platforms and districtwide newsletters.

“You guys understand why it matters and you are the best people to explain that to people in your community,” she said.

Governor encourages census mobilization

In March 2018, Gov. Matt Bevin issued an executive order forming the Kentucky Complete Count Task Force designed to ensure a complete and accurate census count. One of the task force’s ideas is to incorporate 2020 census into the March Madness and the Kentucky Derby.

March Madness in 2020 will be about the time census notifications will start to go out and the first Saturday in May is about when the Census Bureau will start its Nonresponse Follow-up operation.

Kentucky was one of the first states to launch a 2020 task force designed to increase the state’s response rate of 77 percent in the 2010 census.

Kentucky’s task force includes representatives from the state’s largest employers, philanthropic organizations, nonprofits and universities and state and local government officials.

The National School Boards Association made a complete census count part of its legislative agenda

NSBA urges the administration, specifically the Department of Commerce, to refrain from policy decisions that would result in a census undercount, which could lead to potentially devastating ramifications for public educational entities that depend on funding streams and other programs tied to census data.