Poverty touches lives of many Polk County students

from The Tyron Daily Bulletin

Chris Dailey

Statistics suggest Polk County should have relatively few students in families living in poverty.

In 2005, Polk County had the ninth highest per capita income in the state, according to the Center for Local Innovation.

But those numbers can be misleading.

Despite having a relatively high number of wealthy residents, Polk County has a substantial number of students living in poverty, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau on poverty and from Polk County Schools on free and reduced meals.

A census bureau report released recently shows that 424 of 2,825 school age children in Polk County were living in poverty in 2005, up from 398 in 2004 and 246 in 1995.
As a percentage, the number of students in poverty in Polk County has risen from 10.3 percent in 1995 to 15 percent in 2005.

Polk was still below Henderson County at 15.8 percent and Rutherford County at 22.8 percent in 2005, but was nearly the same as Buncombe County at 15.8 percent.

Polk County Schools Supt. Bill Miller says state officials probably figure Polk has far fewer students in poverty than it actually does after seeing Polk’s high per capita income. That makes it difficult, he says, whenever Polk County Schools seeks grant funding.

Miller says state officials, and probably even some Polk residents, would be surprised to learn exactly how many Polk students are in poverty.

The school district’s data on free and reduced meals shows that perhaps a majority of students are in families living below or just barely above the federal poverty line.

This year 43 percent, or about 1,124, of Polk’s 2,615 students qualify for free and reduced meals. Miller says that figure is low since school administrators know that many students stop signing up for free and reduced meals when they reach high school.

The fact that a student qualifies for the free and reduced meals is kept private, yet Miller says some high school age students may have an unfounded fear that they will be perceived as different.

Excluding the high school and the middle school, nearly 51 percent of Polk County’s elementary school students qualify for free and reduced meals.

The highest poverty levels are seen among students at Polk Central and Sunny View, where 62.1 and 57.7 percent of students, respectively, qualify for free and reduced meals.

According to this year’s income eligibility requirements, students whose families make less than 130 percent of the federal poverty threshold qualify for free meals.

Students in families making under 185 percent of the federal poverty threshold qualify for reduced price meals.

For 2007 the eligibility guidelines mean that a family of four with an annual, gross income under $26,845 qualifies for free meals. A family of four under an annual, gross income of $38,203 qualifies for reduced price meals.

Supt. Miller says Polk County teachers recently went through a training session aimed at helping them understand the economic pressures experienced by many of their students. Those pressures can create significant obstacles to learning.

As Miller says, it can be hard to get students to focus on higher learning when they’re more worried about something as essential as getting enough food to eat.

For that reason, the school system has started a “Feed a Kid” program that is already planning to deliver weekend food supplies each Friday to 73 children. Miller says the number of students who can benefit from the program is much higher.

The “Feed a Kid” program has been launched in cooperation with Thermal Belt Outreach, Columbus Presbyterian Church and Polk County Cooperative Extension.