3rd From Sol

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Tag Archives: population

Nevada School District is Missing Children

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by Paul Kiser in About Reno, Aging, All Rights Reserved, Conservatives, Economy, Education, Generational, Government, Higher Education, jobs, labor, Life, Nevada, parenting, Politicians, Politics, Pride, Public Image, Public Relations, Reno, Taxes, The Tipping Point, United States, Women

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charter schools, Nevada Schools, overcrowding, population, population growth, private schools, public charter schools, public schools, religious schools, taxes, Washoe County, Washoe County School District

Nevada’s Washoe County School District is missing children. About 6,500, and no one seems to have noticed. In the last decade (2008 to 2017,) the student population in Washoe County Schools has increased by 291 students. That is a half of one percent increase (0.05%) in ten years. The population of Washoe County has increased by almost eleven percent (10.7%) during the same time period. If the student population grew at the same rate the school district would have 6,500 more students than it does. Where are the missing children?

GRAPH 1.0 – WCSD Growth vs Washoe County Population (1,000’s of people)

Mystery of the Missing Students

The population of Washoe County increased by over 44,000 people from 2008 to 2017. One might expect that the Washoe County schools would have increased by more than 291 students. If the student population had kept pace with the Washoe County population growth, there should be over 70,000 pupils instead of just under 64,000.

Table 1.0 – WCSD student population growth compared to projected growth (Based on Washoe County population. NOTE:  All figures are from WCSD reports.)

Some of the missing students can be found in private schools and public charter schools. Private schools in Washoe County enrolled 3,419 students in 2016-17; however, total enrollment in private schools in Nevada have not changed significantly during the last ten years. Public charter schools account for some of the missing students, but they only enrolled 2,753 students in Washoe County during the 2016-17 year.

Assuming that public charter schools absorbed 1,000 new students during the last ten years, and private schools absorbed 500, there is still approximately 5,000 missing students. It is possible that the growth in Washoe County was primarily adults without children. If that is the case, it may indicate that families aren’t moving to Nevada.

Flat Student Growth Saved Schools

There is a silver lining to the flat growth in Washoe County schools. Prior to 2008, the district was overcrowded and facing a crisis. The flat growth allowed time to ease some of the overcrowding and end some of the desperate measures to handle the situation.

However, Nevada may be facing a bigger crisis. If families are choosing not to move to the State it may be that Nevada’s poor school rankings have finally sealed its fate. No one wants to raise a family in a State that has underfunded schools.

What Happens In Sixty Years

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by Paul Kiser in About Reno, Aging, Education, Generational, History, Internet, Lessons of Life, Politics, Science, Space, US History

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automobiles, cars, Change, development, lifetime, NASA, Pope, population, Presidents, space exploration, Technology, U.S. history

I was born sixty years ago today. We often talk about how life has changed since the Internet age, as if life before the Internet was static. It’s good to be reminded that change is relentless, and it is not confined to any particular time period.

In my lifetime:

  • Sputnik 1 and 2 were still in orbit (both launched shortly before my birth)
  • The word, ‘Aerospace’ was created
  • The average U.S. lifespan increased by almost ten years.
  • NASA was created
  • Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union
  • Eisenhower was the first President to be broadcast in color on television
  • Almost all of the Interstate highways were built
  • Ford, GM, and Chrysler went from producing almost 90% of all U.S. cars to half that today, with Chrysler owned by foreign investors
  • We went to the Moon
  • There have been seven Popes, eleven Presidents, (and Donald Trump)
  • General Charles de Gaulle was elected President of France
  • Alaska and Hawai’i became the 49th and 50th States
  • Just over a third of all U.S. adults had a high school degree, now almost ninety percent have graduated from high school
  • Humans saw first image of the far side of the Moon (USSR’s Luna 3)
  • Fidel Castro became Premier of Cuba
  • We’ve had people in space, almost continually, for decades
  • Kmart and Wal-Mart didn’t exist when I was born
  • Sears went from dominating the retail market to almost complete failure
  • Leaded gasoline was determined to be poisoning humans and was banned
  • The World Trade Center was built and destroyed
  • Average gas mileage has more than doubled
  • We have advanced from rotary-dialed phones, to tone-based keypad phones, to cell phones, to smartphones
  • The world population has grown from 2.9 billion to 7.6 billion

This is just a small sampling of the changes that have happened in my lifetime. What will happen in the next sixty years?

Moffat County, Colorado: Story of Two Families (Part I Pre-Homesteading)

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Paul Kiser in Generational, History, Lessons of Life, Relationships

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Barrick, cattle ranching, Colorado, Craig, Family, genealogy, History, Kiser, mining, Moffat, Moffat County, northwestern Colorado, population, railroads, Steamboat Springs

On or about November 20, 2015, Michael Warner Kiser died in his home of a heart attack. He was 65. His death marked the end of a century of Kiser/Barrick family history in Moffat County. This is the story of those families.

Early Northwestern Colorado
To understand northwestern Colorado it is important to know the context of the political and cultural history that shaped its destiny. Until 1847, northwestern Colorado was part of northeastern Mexico. In that year the Mexican Government signed the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe at gunpoint after losing the Mexican American War. Colorado did not become a State until 1876 and Moffat County did not exist until 1911. 

In 1847, Mexico was forced to relinquish all of Northern Mexico to the United States.

In 1847, Mexico was forced to relinquish all of northern Mexico to the United States, including what would become northwestern Colorado.

While Native Americans, primarily the Ute Indians thrived in northwestern Colorado, the opinions of early European explorers in the late 1700’s and 1800’s about the value of the area were not kind. In 1844, John C. Fremont said the country was nearly worthless. In 1869, John Wesley Powell came to the same conclusion, holding out that with massive irrigation the area might produce crops, but there wasn’t enough water.

In the 1860’s gold had been discovered in the mountain creeks west of Denver and men fanned out into the Rockies. In 1865, a group of men found small quantities of gold around an extinct volcano in northwestern Colorado. The primary discoverer, Joseph Hahn was apparently betrayed by one of his partners who left him and another man in the field while he allegedly was off to get supplies. He never returned and Hahn died in an attempt to reach civilization in April of 1867. The extinct volcano was named Hahn’s Peak in honor of him.

Hahn's Peak and the town after the Gold Rush

Hahn’s Peak and the town 40 years after the gold rush

Mining continued to expand in the late 1860’s in northwestern Colorado, but the lack of significant ore deposits and lack of access to and from the area brought an end to the fickle growth created by prospectors.

Farther west in the high desert of northwestern Colorado, Native Americans, primarily the Utes, maintained their traditional nomadic lifestyle; however, some western Europeans sought to retrain the indigenous people and make them adopt the western culture. The effort created conflict between the Native Americans and the caucasian invaders. In 1879, a minor incident of shoving an agent, Nathan Meeker, led to him requesting troops be sent to the area. Ultimately, both sides lost control of the situation and a U.S. Army detachment was attacked resulting in 50 men wounded or killed. An outcry for ‘justice’ led to the 1881 relocation of all Ute Indians from their Colorado lands into Utah. This opened the door for Congress to declare the vacated lands open to homesteading in 1882.

As the Utes were moved out, the cattle ranchers moved in. This created a pressing need for better transportation to the area to ship cattle to Denver; however, a centralized gathering point had to be established to move cattle in and out of the area and many of the existing towns lacked the geographic qualifications needed as a cattle and transportation center.

In the late 1880’s, the founding of Steamboat Springs created a target for those who sought to create a transportation link to northwestern Colorado. It also had the benefit of being near the Oak Creek area where new coal deposits were discovered.

Almost simultaneously, the inflow of homesteaders coming from the Denver side of the Rocky Mountains created the need to build roads and rail lines over the high altitudes and steep terrain of the Continental Divide, but the challenges would take years.

The

The railroad challenge was to build a mountain railway that would access all points west.

It would not be until 1909, that the railroad would reach to Steamboat Springs, and almost overnight Steamboat Springs became the largest cattle transportation center in the country. Had the railroad ended in Steamboat Springs, the town might have become twice as large and hindered the growth of any other communities in northwestern Colorado, but the plan for the railroad had never been to end in a community just on the other side of the Rocky Mountains.

Knowing the railroad was coming farther west, William H. Tucker established a townsite about 40 miles west of Steamboat Springs. One of his primary financial backers was Reverend William Bayard Craig, and so he named the town Craig. The first census of Craig in 1910 was only 392 people; however, with the completion of the railroad to Craig in 1913, the town would triple in size by the 1920 census to 1,297 citizens.

Population growth of northwestern Colorado

Population growth of northwestern Colorado

In 1911, the State legislature created Moffat County by carving out the western two-thirds of Routt County and made the three year-old town of Craig the new county seat. Growth in Steamboat Springs flatlined for decades after Craig and Moffat County were established and even with the development of one of the nation’s premier ski areas in 1963, Steamboat Springs remained Craig’s junior until the late 1990’s.

Two years after Moffat County was established, the Barrick family came to homestead. Five years after that the first Kiser family would follow them. That would begin a century of intertwining history of these two families that would end with the death of Michael Kiser in 2015.

NEXT: Part II – Two Family’s Destiny Unfolds

ALSO:  Part III – Another Radiator Springs

Other Pages of This Blog

  • About Paul Kiser
  • Common Core: Are You a Good Switch or a Bad Switch?
  • Familius Interruptus: Lessons of a DNA Shocker
  • Moffat County, Colorado: The Story of Two Families
  • Rules on Comments
  • Six Things The United States Must Do
  • Why We Are Here: A 65-Year Historical Perspective of the United States

Paul’s Recent Blogs

  • Dysfunctional Social Identity & Its Impact on Society
  • Road Less Traveled: How Craig, CO Was Orphaned
  • GOP Political Syndicate Seizes CO School District
  • DNA Shock +5 Years: What I Know & Lessons Learned
  • Solstices and Sunshine In North America
  • Blindsided: End of U.S. Solar Observation Capabilities?
  • Inspiration4: A Waste of Space Exploration

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