Number of students in poverty increases to 21% at Austin schools

Published 10:06am Thursday, December 13, 2012
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More K-12 students in Mower County are living in poverty than before.

From 2007 to 2011, the number of children ages 5-17 in the county who were in families in poverty jumped from 12.8 percent to 18.7 percent, or from 825 to 1,280 students, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau released Wednesday.

“It’s been going on longer than that,” said David Krenz, superintendent with Austin Public Schools.

One of the ways the Austin Public Schools District has responded to rising poverty rates is with a year-round schedule, referred to as the 45/15 calendar, at Sumner Elementary, Krenz said.

“Reducing the summer layoff really helps students on the lower end of the socioeconomic [scale],” he said.

There are also targeted services programs to help students, including free and reduced lunches during the summer, which the district is not required to provide.

“There’s many, many things we do to address the needs of kids coming from poverty,” Krenz said.

In the district in 2011, more than 1,000 students, or about 21 percent of the total student body, were in families in poverty. That’s a higher percentage than many of the surrounding area’s school districts. Albert Lea is not far away with 17 percent, while Owatonna and Rochester have about half of what Austin does at 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

Smaller districts were also lower than Austin, with LeRoy-Ostrander at 14 percent, Lyle at 13 percent, and Southland and Grand Meadow each at 9 percent.

The number of students in the free and reduced lunch program in Austin, which includes both those in the poverty range but also an income range above it, is higher than the state average. This year, 55.1 percent of the district qualifies for free or reduced lunch, while statewide that number is 37.2 percent.

As a whole, 13.6 percent of Minnesotans age 5-17 are in families of poverty, which is well below the national figure of 20.8 percent for that same age range.

“These estimates are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and are used as one of the criteria to allocate federal funds to local education agencies,” acting Census Bureau Director Thomas Mesenbourg said in a news release. “In addition, state and local programs use these estimates for distributing funds and managing school programs.”

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  • JC

    So the #1 employer in Austin (Hormel) has posted increasing and record breaking net profits for at least 16 quarters straight while Austin has become one of the poorest communities in Minnesota. If it wasn’t for county social services subsidizing Hormel’s payroll by providing the labor pool with EBT, medical assistance, housing assistance, etc. no one could afford to work at Hormel/QPP. Hope P9 can negotiate a better contract next time and get their members off the county taxpayer’s back.

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  • netmanca

    This is what happens to communities when you have profitable corporations who break unions. You end up with this result. I would like to see historical data from the 70′s up to know to see any correlation with wage/benefit cuts and the rise of people needing some form of public assistance.
    I think Jay Hormel would be rolling over in his grave to see what has happend.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/tzabel1 Terry Zabel

    From what I can tell the starting wage at QPP is $12/hour. That would equate to an annual salary of $24,960. The federal poverty guidelines determined by HHS are for 1 person, $11170, 2 people, $15,130, 3 people, 419,190, 4 people, $23,050 and 5 people, $27,010. It appears to me that perhaps there are some other determining factors that may be influencing the high rate of poverty in our school other than wages by Hormel and QPP.

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    • JC

      Thank you for the facts. A real eye-opener for me. What could be the reason for Austin’s high poverty level? According to the last census, Austin has one of the lowest household income averages in the state.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/mark.decker.940 Mark Decker

    it is funny how everyone wants to blame Hormel for keeping people below the poverty line. Since other towns in the area have less poverty school age kids, they must have better jobs. Why not look for other employment than Hormel if you are that much under poverty? Or is it that these people just have more kids, so the poverty line is higher? Just thinking like Terry that it might be something else besides Hormel why Austin has this high of students in families under the poverty line.

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  • highway105s

    I am always offended when this article shows up assuming my kids are stupid and needing special services because of my paycheck. We can’t all be doctors and lawyers and management. I work full time at my poverty level job and proudly raising my family with good old fashioned values.

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    • JC

      Yes 105, I thought the 45/15 schedule was to raise test scores. What has that (45/15) to do with feeding hungry kids? There are free lunches provided at the high school during the Summer months.

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  • disqus_g6IoQPdlby

    If you look at the application for Free and Reduced meals at the schools you will notice that a family of 4 is considered low income if they make $43,000 per year; I don’t think the laborers made that much money before the strike. So think about that figure, the bar has been raised!!! One problem is that working 2 parent households in Austin probably have more children than 2, but I think they do a good job supporting their families. What we need to look at is the single, unmarried, non-working families–with no intention to work; they are the cause for putting Austin on the map for being one of the poorest communities in Minnesota.

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