Morning Read: Where have all the children gone?
Bob Gorman, managing editor of the Watertown Daily Times, has written a painful essay about the steady decline of children in the North Country.
He focuses on St. Lawrence County, where the number of kids in public schools has plummeted from 27,110 in the mid-1970s to the current level of 16,691.
The loss of 10,419 students equals today’s combined student census of Brasher Falls, Canton, Clifton-Fine, Colton-Pierrepont, Edwards Knox, Hammond, Harrisville, Hermon-DeKalb, Heuvelton, Lisbon, Madrid-Waddington, Morristown, Norwood-Norfolk, Parishville-Hopkinton and Potsdam.
So what does it all mean? Well, who wants to wait another 20 years to find out?
Obviously, communities without kids can’t survive. And this particular problem is epidemic across the North Country. (Gorman’s essay makes it abundantly clear that this isn’t just an Adirondack Park problem.)
So what do you think? Will the region stabilize at a new, smaller normal after the industrial job cuts of the last couple of decades?
Is the agonizing decline likely to continue? If so, what can we do about it? Comments welcome.
These sorts of long term demographic shifts can only be responded to; not changed. President Kennedy of SUNY Canton proposed a very workable plan four or five years ago of creating one district for the entire county, you would keep community schools as part of this one district and eliminate large scale redundancy and create efficiencies between community schools. Even as one district St. Lawrence County would be a small school district.
I don’t think BOCES should be the ones driving the response. Unfortunately they are part of the cost problem and part of the administrative and overhead baggage weighing down our schools. They largely advocate for their own survival first, which is fine we all do that but they should just be one of the players involved in restructuring. I don’t see excellence coming out of that institution, I do see excellence in some of our smaller schools that even though they are declining are providing great education. Clifton-Fine recently won a national award. Other districts in St. Lawrence County stack up quite well academically (not all).
It would help for local leaders to try to make young people welcome in the community. As an example, several years ago when the only people out on the streets of Glens Falls were the skateboarders, instead of saying “we’re glad you’re here, now let’s make a safe place for you to skate” the city leaders did everything they could to drive those kids out of town. Sometimes public policy works.
Heavy industry is what brought people in relatively large numbers to St. Lawrence County, and allowed them to stay and raise families, in the first place. That ship has sailed. If the industry exodus continues (i.e. Alcoa can’t justify 600-700 million to renovate the East plant) people will of course continue to leave and force local schools to rethink the system. A better solution would be to have district actually plan for what is likely to be a continuing trend.
The children didn’t pick up and leave town because they couldn’t skateboard. They aren’t here because their parents aren’t here. Those of an age to be having children in our schools, my children among them, left the area because there were no jobs here for them. They got college degrees and found jobs elsewhere, downstate and in Texas in my children’s cases. Both would like to “come home” but there are still no opportunities here for them. Will that change? I don’t know but the rejection of the grant for broadband expansion in the North Country is a set back in our hopes to compete for next generation jobs.
Actually, I don’t think anything can or should be done to reverse the decline.
The ultimate vote is to vote with your feet. As the saying goes: How are you going to keep them on the farm after they’ve seen Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, etc.?
The Internet and 100’s of TV channels, plus class trips to Orlando, have opened the eyes of the young that there is more to the world than the North Country. There is nothing here for them unless they want to snowmobile or hike and they can do that with a visit.
Let’s face it. This is a boring, conservative place. If you want jobs and social action, this is not the best place to live.
One has to wonder; the many abortions preformed over this period has had to contribute to this population loss.
For what it’s worth, I know of at least 4 families in the Saranac Lake area, with (about) 10 children between them, with one or both breadwinners very gainfully employed through telecommuting. Most are from outside the area, but at least one dad graduated from SLHS and managed to return here. All have kids in, or recently graduated from the Sarananac Lake. Other North Country communities also have these. While this does not offset the loses completely, it may represent a small counter-trend.
Pete is right that bright, well-educated young people tend to flee the area by choice, as well as necessity. But it is still a good, safe, place to raise kids until they are ready to flee, and maybe this could be a selling point.
Pete,
Come on its not that bad! In fact people from the city that are sick of the urban life move here. It’s not that boring if you like the outdoors and the rural life. Great hunting, fishing, camping, climbing and on and on. Rich people pay big bucks to go do what we take for granted.
But we need a better private sector and I don’t know what to do about that? Until that changes we will shrink to fit the base of industry we do have, which is largely education, government, tourism and health care.
Mervel,
I am not talking about the few adults who move here. I’m talking about the kids who grow up here. They are the ones who want out. I went to a high school graduation two years ago at an unnamed high school where one of the graduates spoke of her desire to leave ASAP. She grew up here and her next stop was to go to college.
James you miss the point. If you act like you don’t want someone around you increase the incentive for them to leave.
Young people want to be where other young people are. They will move away because they want to see the world, explore, do new things. If you treat them like you care about them they will come back to raise a family. If you treat them like dirt they will come back for Thanksgiving dinner.
The ultimate problem is the lack of good paying jobs. And that really comes down to NY’s hostile business climate, especially it’s taxes. And the high taxes are driven by uncontrolled spending. To stop the exodus, government spending must be reduced.
It’s a simple solution to the problem, yet no Albany one seems to want to recognize it, or acknowledge it, or enact it.
no one in Albany
Scratchy the future is for the people who create their own jobs and taxes are only one of many factors for those people.
If taxes were the be all and end all as some seem to believe, then why is the area between Albany and Glens Falls, and New York City growing?
I think jobs and an expanded social life are far more important than taxes, otherwise the above mentioned regions would have the same problems as the North Country and other rural area. In fact, those areas would be even worse off.