Thought the assignment was finished when you filled out your family’s U.S. Census form?
Here comes more homework for Clark County school parents: A new check-off form, to collect with increased precision ethnicity and race data for all students.
There are almost five dozen ethnicities for parents/guardians to choose, compared with just seven categories listed before.
Starting Monday, the Battle Ground district will send the form home with all students who come from English-speaking households. Russian- and Spanish-language school parents will receive their versions by mail.
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The district wants forms returned within two weeks, by May 3. After that, it will need to chase down answers, Census-style, with direct follow-up.
Vancouver Public Schools will send parents a similar form in early May, with the Evergreen district following suit. In other districts, parents should stay tuned for a form.
It’s an exercise coming to all schools in Washington and across the nation, in response to federal laws adopted earlier this year. Before, districts gathered less-specific ethnicity/race information at the time when families first registered each pupil.
The data is being gathered collectively; students are not tracked individually. But the student’s name is required to ensure an accurate count.
Set in motion as early as 2007 by federal education officials, the revised survey no longer includes “multiracial” or “more than one race” responses.
Instead, parents are urged to check multiple boxes, as many as they think appropriate, which adds many more variations to better reflect the nation’s evolving school population and perhaps pinpoint greater areas of need.
As Battle Ground school Superintendent Shonny Bria explains to parents in a letter that accompanies the form:
“These reports help our district and the state keep track of changes in student enrollment and various outcomes (such as graduation rates) to ensure that all students receive the educational programs and services to which they are entitled.”
Gone are the days of simply marking “Caucasian,” “Hispanic,” “Pacific Islander,” and such.
The new checklist, suggested by the Olympia School District and fine-tuned by Battle Ground, offers multiple answers for each category.
Parents of Hispanic/Latino children can mark Mexican, Central American or South American, or choose among six more options.
Parents of Asian descent may select from Cambodian, Filipino, Hmong, Malaysian, or another dozen choices.
There are now nine choices for Pacific Islanders, and 31 for Native American Indians: The latter include 28 tribes associated with Washington and the Pacific Northwest, plus Alaskan natives.
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For all other students, there are simply “White” and “African-American/Black” boxes.
Not waiting for September
All U.S. schools must gather the new data by September, the federal deadline.
Battle Ground chose to tackle the chore this spring, using the Census as a springboard.
Other Clark County districts may wait, leaders indicated. Along with the paperwork comes the burden of chasing down nonresponses, some noted.
“I do have concerns about this issue. Yet another unfunded mandate!” wrote Mark Mansell, La Center school superintendent, in an e-mail.
The new survey was a hot topic at a recent meeting of local superintendents, he said. “I have not yet determined how we will work to achieve this.”
Some controversy
This year, there’s been heightened political posturing over the U.S. Census. Little surprise, then, that the new school request has raised some eyebrows.
“I think the main concern we’ve heard is the mandatory I.D. process, meaning if the parents opt not to I.D. their child, or don’t fill in the form, districts have to do it,” said Chris Barron, spokesman for the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in Olympia.
“The feds will not accept a form that does not include a student’s background,” he said.
Districts may modify the checklist to account for local populations, Barron said.
Many Washington districts appear content to wait until September, when the form can be completed along with other start-of-school student paperwork, he said.
