Cutting Back on Babies
Decatur Metro | August 7, 2009
Marvel at my willingness to jump on half-baked data to prove a nagging hunch I had a few months back.
In the midst of our many scintillating conversations about school enrollment and the general population’s assumption that the student-age population will continue to skyrocket until school-age children are living on their own in huge bungalow communes, I brought up birth rate.
And this morning, I was vindicated. As reported in the New York Times, baby-making hit a 50 year high in 2007, but for the first time in a decade, the birth rate fell in 2008, especially in the second half of the year.
Why? For the same reason you’re cutting back on eating out, new car buying, and jumping blindly into adjustable-rate mortgages. Babies are expensive.
Now I’m not arguing that Decatur’s student population won’t continue to rise in the coming years. It’s certainly possible that new families with kids could still outpace declining birth rates of the current population. But don’t be surprised if I reemerge in 2014 to say I told ya so!
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Babies are indeed expensive. Thankfully, though, the production process remains free…
Not for everyone, Scott.
;^)
Hospitals are expensive. I guess it would be free if you did the in – home birth thing.
We just had a recession baby. If you’re right, maybe she’ll have a better choice of colleges that those non-recession babies.
Before anything segues into a heated healthcare discussion, let me be clear that in mentioning “free” I was referring to, uhhhh, the conception process.
Perhaps too far down in the gutter for DM’s more esteemed readership…
In-home birth isn’t free, in fact, the fee paid to a home birth midwife is not covered by insurance in Georgia. But a fabulous birth experience at home….priceless.
And thank you, Baby Jesus, for giving us wisecracking Agnes Scott women (I happen to be one myself . . .).
I actually predicted this too at the start of the recession. It was my argument for being conservative in our reconfiguration decisions even though I’m a great supporter of taxes, grants, and other community resources for CSD. It would be really crummy if we built up 5th Avenue in a major way and added on to other schools, only to close one or more of them down soon after. Besides being wasteful fiscally, it’s very disruptive to families and neighborhoods. I don’t think that CSD and the city really understand how much a school becomes the center of a community. Case in point: The Westchester Elementary field and neigboring Hidden Cove Park used to serve as a community center, not just for parents of K-5 kids. Now, while Hidden Cove Park is used some, there’s no sense of “center” for the Westchester Ave and Chelsea Heights communities. In fact, I tried to fly a kite with my child there the other day and we had to leave because of all the hornets’ nests around the lawn. The history is that at least 4 of the 7 elementary schools were renovated in ~1997-2000, then we closed 3 in 2003-2005 including one recently renovated one, then we immediately started adding on to four of the remaining schools, now we’re almost completely rebuilding Fifth Avenue. It will be heartbreaking for one neighborhood or another if we have to close 1 or 2 schools in 5 years. I’d have preferred more trailers. The new duplex one at Clairemont is as nice as any classroom, private bathrooms and all!
They broke their promises about maintaining the Westchester property and the playground. What a shame for the community and the city.
I was at Westchester this spring, and it was in great shape. We have yellow jackets on our own lawn too. They just happen sometimes – and quite suddenly from what I have experienced. I’m sure that if you called CSD about it that they would look into it.
Which brings me to another topic. I’m all for seeing the Westchester property maintained by someone. However, CSD is a school system that exists to educate all of the students who attend there. They are not in existence to provide a playground for a neighborhood. My guess is that there are taxpayers and school families would would rather see CSD money go to education than to maintaining a park that serves only one small section of the city, particularly in time such as these when school funding has been cut to the bone.
I’d hate to see a class of first graders lose a para-pro because CSD has to renovate a park.
One optiob would be to give Westchester back to the city. That would save CSD money; they could use trailers for offices–the Clairemont trailer is great, and the city would maintain the grounds much better.
Oh and the building could be used for the Decatur Rec after-care program in the afternoon and evening. There was so much demand for Animal Crackers after-care this year that even the off-site spots filled up and lots of kids are on long waiting lists. Color Wheel is more expensive and may be full. Not sure about First Baptist or the Boys and Girls Club. The YMCA after care program is horrible and avoided by most.
During the morning, Decatur Rec could use the space for adult or senior programs. The Decatur Rec facility on Sycamore is a good location for DHA housing residents and central Decatur folks but a long hike for folks west of Ponce.
Meant to say West of Scott but northwest of Ponce also makes sense.
While I agree with the concept that there will be less babies due to this recession, I think the CSD estimates for growth will hold up. Many parents will now be re-thinking their plans for private schools, and CSD quality is known to be on the rise so even more young families will center their home buying decisions on CSD.
No one really knows what will happen with student enrollment because we have never had a recession like this before. That’s the problem. We just don’t know and I’d be wary of anyone who thinks they can predict enrollment (or about anything) in these unstable times. The local birth rate never has been useful for Decatur projections because so many young families move in after they’ve had their children. Maybe private school families in Decatur will transfer their kids to CSD and balance out the drop in birth rate but CSD always claimed there really weren’t that many of those families. Maybe young families who have lost a critical salary will move out of Decatur altogether to areas with cheaper housing and lower taxes. Maybe public schools will be so devastated by state cuts that local tax increases can’t offset them and even CSD schools will become less attractive to those who can still afford to live in Decatur. I know that CSD feels they have to act now to prevent further overcrowding in the future and I can’t say that’s a bad choice. I just would have waited a while longer with trailers to see whether this is a two-year, five-year, or 10-year recession/depression.
Re CSD quality going up: Depends on what element of quality you’re looking at and what schools you’ve been at and when. I hesitate to get specific because, for any example I name, someone else will have had the exact opposite experience at another school or at another time. For our 12 kid-years of CDS, some things have improved and some are not as good as they were; overall, it’s a steady level of quality that is good for our family. I can’t argue with those who feel the quality is not sufficient for them nor with those who feel that things have improved tremendously. I just hope that, given the cost of the loans that will finance the latest reconfiguration, our operating budget stays high enough to keep us at a steady level of quality or better. Since I happen to think we’ve got the greatest kids ever–and I mean that sincerely even if it’s sappy; every year I appreciate my kids’ classmates, all of them, more and more–I hope we don’t make any irreversible financial mistakes.
Ya know.. a lot of the enrollment increase is folks pulling their kids from private school – particularly at Renfroe. I’m just one person and I know five kids that transferred into Renfroe from private schools. Last year we had at least 10 that I knew of… some were from private schools others were tuition payers from nearby DeKalb Co. public schools.
I also know of a couple families with younger kids who changed their private school plans and moved her b/c of the reputation.
Whether it’s true or not… word is definitely getting out about CSD – particularly Renfroe.
Agree that the word is out on Renfroe and kids are now going there who wouldn’t have a few years ago. But Renfroe is not the bottleneck in CSD that requires reconfiguration, the 4/5 Academy is and, to a lesser extent, the elementary K-3s. Renfroe has plenty of room and doesn’t require any additional space for a long time. Recently, I’ve seen some families removing their kids at the 4th or 5th grade level and then sending them back at the 6th or 7th grade level. It’s not clear to me whether the motivation is dissatisfaction with the 4/5 Academy model, a bad experience at Glennwood, disappointment with the private school experience, financial pressure, confidence in the new Renfroe, or several of these factors.
Hmmm… I wasn’t arguing about anything regarding space or reconfigurations… I was just making an observation with no strings attached.
But now that you bring it up, I agree with you somewhat. I think that the 4/5 has become the new middle school as far as having educational/social difficulties. Probably part of the reason why Renfroe has improved so much is b/c of the academy though. I think it’s all a trade off.
In my humble opinion, the reason Renfroe is so good now is MR. ROADEN, the principal, and the support CSD is giving him. He knows every kid personally; he understands middle schoolers; he is a front-line person out on the sidewalk, out in the halls, not sitting in his office all day; he supports his good teachers and moves out the ones who can’t cut it. I also thank the parents who pushed CSD hard to fix things at Renfroe and bring in someone as dynamic and effective as Mr. Roaden. Other options evidently were on the table.
I said part of the reason… not the whole reason. I agree that Mr. Roaden rocks and is a huge reason that Renfroe is in such good shape. All I can relate is my own child’s experience. Renfroe was a non-issue for her b/c she already had made the transition to a “big” school. It was nice to have the transition of puberty and all the drama that goes with that happen separately from the transition to a much bigger school environment. Maybe that’s not the case for other children. Maybe your experience was different.. and that’s fine. I’m really not trying to argue about it.. it’s just my personal experience.
From what I can see, girls had the harder transition to Renfroe compared to boys so they are probably profiting more from the Glennwood social model. I think Glennwood is a wash, some things are lost by shortening the preK-5 experience to a K-3 experience but other things are gained. Given a 4/5 model, Glennwood was clearly the wrong location for it; right from the start, it was too tight, not just the limited number of classrooms but also the cafeteria and auditorium which were designed for a different size of student population. So I understand the need to find bigger space; I just worry that we’ll build a bunch more, relocate again, and then have population shrinkage. Then a school will have to be closed. Some neighborhood that has become used to having the school and the grounds will have to deal with the closing, whether it be Clairemont (the tightest squeeze and the water-logged playground is progressively shrinking), Glennwood (multi-story not so good for the littler kids), Fifth Avenue (not unheard of to close a school soon after a renovation), Oakhurst (I wouldn’t cross those parents if I was the School Board), or Winnona Park (another great field that would be a shame to lose).
Oops… change “her” to “here” – clumsy fingers!
I believe birth rates in Decatur may be less of a factor than home prices in Decatur and the health of the overall Atlanta economy in the population of our schools. Decatur pricing has held up well enough that it’s becoming even more unaffordable for young families starting out with pre-school aged kids, and folks moving in may have older kids or none at all. That makes it much tougher to predict school enrollment. Of course, if our schools start performing as well as advertised, people should be kicking and screaming to get in here, get annexed, etc. Yet another X factor. Creates one heck of a throughput problem.
X factor? Throughput? Sorry, too techie for me.