If one person in St. Louis doesn’t get counted in the 2010 Census, that’s $1,200 of federal funding that the city misses every year for the next 10 years.
U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay told Gateway Math and Science Elementary students that they will be 16 when the next Census comes around.
That’s a long time to wait for more money to come to St. Louis, he said.
“Here’s a quiz: what’s $1,200 times 10?” Clay said. “$12,000.”
On Tuesday, Gateway hosted the national launch of the 2010 Census in the Schools program, which includes teaching tools and exercises to educate children about the Census before questionnaires are mailed in March.
The logic is that schools are places to create awareness and excitement about the crucial effort to count the national population, as a basis for political districting and the distribution of federal funds.
“Educators are respected members of their communities and can be powerful advocates for the 2010 Census,” said Renee Jefferson-Copeland, chief of the Census Bureau’s Census in Schools branch.
An African-American, Jefferson-Copeland designed the program that was launched in St. Louis on Tuesday. She traveled from Washington with Census Director Robert Groves to kick off the initiative.
“Children are convincing voices and can help deliver the 2010 census message in their homes,” Jefferson-Copeland said.
Along with other schools that choose to participate in the program, Gateway will include lessons about the Census from January until March. April 1 is Census Day. Wherever residents live on that day is where they will be counted. The Census forms will be mailed to every home in the nation the first week of March.
Census in Schools is a successful way to teach the next generation why Census is important, said Groves, who interacted personally with Gateway students on Tuesday.
“Counting three million people can take a long time, but you can help,” Groves told the students, referencing the approximate population of the St. Louis area.
The national program includes 56 million students, who can make sure that all of their relatives get counted in the Census, he told the children.
The students asked how Groves became director of census, and he said, “Somehow the president found out that I like to count. You can be director if you like to count really well too.”
Rose Howard, principal at Gateway Elementary, demonstrated an exercise that teachers can use in the classroom. Each table of students was considered a family, and one person was given a pencil and told to fill out the form. The families had to tell the pencil holder what they liked to do best: draw, act or listen to stories.
When she gathered the forms, one table didn’t turn theirs in. So a girl put on a hat labeled “Census taker” and went to their table with a clipboard and a form to ask them questions.
Howard asked, “What can we say from this information?”
The students answered that a majority of the class likes to draw best.
Though the students learned Census concepts through a simple example, Groves said the 2010 Census form is the shortest questionnaire he has seen in his lifetime: 10 questions, taking 10 minutes to complete.
Also, though many people fear providing personal information to the federal government through the Census questionnaire, Groves said that all data provided is protected and confidential.
The bureau hires people from the neighborhood to be Census workers. “It’s the largest deployment of people the government does,” he said. “It involves background checks and training and oath process.”
Groves told The American that when Census workers are fully employed next year, that mobilization alone will impact the national unemployment rate.
About 125,000 organizations, thousands in Missouri, partner with the bureau to reach out to the community. And that includes everyone, no matter what their residency status is, Clay said. Even if a person is an illegal immigrant they will be counted, because the U.S. Constitution places no Census restrictions regarding immigration status.
With the Census in Schools program, teachers are encouraged to get creative. During Census 2000, in one school teachers led students to produce a large-scale billboard in their town advertising the effort. Other schools’ students have had Census fairs, conducted puppet shows and developed posters that were placed in community locations, Jefferson-Copeland said.
She said, “Students are not only our nation’s future; they also are collaborators and resources of information.”
