Why the 2020 census is so important to Fresno schools – and students
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Efrain Botello has been invisible for a decade. At least as far as the U.S. government is concerned.
Government officials use data sets to determine funding levels for everything from school funding to congressional representation.
Botello, who has lived in Fresno his whole life, isn’t included in that local-funding equation. And neither is his family. That’s because he wasn’t counted during the last census in 2010.
Botello said he remembers his parents telling him not to open the door when census workers knocked. He was 12 at the time.
“All that they heard, I’m assuming, is someone from the government is going to come and ask questions,” he said. “I didn’t know what the census was. All we knew is that someone is going to come and ask questions.”
The Fresno schools he attended missed out on thousands of federal dollars which could have benefited him. During the last census, almost 1 million children under 5 were not counted including about 210,000 Californians, according to a report by the U.S Census Bureau.
School officials say undercounting in the census plays a role in overcrowding classrooms.
Money for schools
The federal government allocates money based on census data.
An undercount in the census leads to less money from early education programs like Headstart or free and reduced lunch programs, said Evaristo Trevino, the associate director or the migrant education program for Fresno County Superintendents of Schools.
“It would make total sense a low census turnout is impacting overcrowding of schools because we’re not able to plan accordingly,” Trevino said
Local school districts also lose out on money that helps afterschool programs, teachers positions and school-counselor jobs, Trevino said.
“If we don’t’ know how many 0-5-year-olds (there are) how do we know how many classrooms we need for transitional kindergarten students and kindergartners?” he said. “How many teachers? How many extra desks? Do we need long-term planning to build new elementary schools?”
For every person that goes uncounted, communities lose out on about $2,000 each year - for 10 years, Trevino said.
The census only comes around once per decade.
“It takes a decade to become visible again in your community,” said Ashley Rojas, executive director of Fresno Barrios Unidos. “So if you don’t get counted, you are invisible in regards to resource allocations for a decade.”
Why the Valley is hard to count
This time around, students throughout the San Joaquin Valley, ranging from middle-school age to college, are making sure as many people as possible are counted in the 2020 census.
Botello is part of that effort.
In 2010, children under 5 were one of the largest populations that were undercounted, said Botello. He now works as a program assistant for the Youth Advocacy and Leadership Department at Fresno Barrios Unidos.
“Those children are now in their teens so we’re seeing the impacts of that,” he said.
Ten out of the 50 hardest-to-count areas in the nation are in the San Joaquin Valley, according to data from the U.S Census Bureau. Areas that are considered hard-to-count are places where there is a high density of some of the most vulnerable populations.
Hard-to-count populations:
Non-English speakers
Young children
Low-income people
LGBTQ+ people
Racial and ethnic minorities
Homeless people
Undocumented immigrants
People with mental or physical disabilities
People who don’t live in traditional housing
People who distrust the government
Those populations are difficult to count for many reasons.
“If you are hungry, if you are unhoused, if you are suffering in any way, completing the census sort of drops pretty low on your list of priorities,” Rojas said.
The state has invested $187.2 million into the California Complete Count effort -- no other state has poured as much money into the census. California is also the first state to divide its 58 counties into 10 regions, based on hard-to-count populations.
This year also marks the first time census forms will be primarily online and because of that Fresno Barrios Unidos is assisting people who might not have access to WiFi or computers.
Fresno Barrios Unidos and partner organizations have young kids making calls from phone banks every night leading up March when people can start filling out census forms, Rojas said. Students are calling between 1,500 to 2,000 people every night and canvassing on Saturdays.
Fresno Barrios Unidos will have assistance kiosk set up next month around south Fresno. Canvassers will have tablets available for people to fill out the census forms. On March 21 they will host a Count the Barrio block party from noon to 5 p.m. with food, games, music, art, and information on the census.
“A big part of our campaign is to clarify there will not be a citizenship question in this year’s census effort and they can be counted without disclosing their documentation status,” Rojas said.
Local organizations like Fresno Barrios Unidos say they’re hoping a more accurate count will lead to more funding for neighborhoods and schools that need it the most.
“We’re seeing there’s not enough funding in education,” Botello said. “We want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 10:56 AM.