Census Takers to Visit Households
System Seeks Number of School-Age Children

By Timothy Richardson
loudounextra.com Staff Writer
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Loudoun County school officials said last week that they have sent 43 workers to visit the nearly 30,000 Loudoun households who did not respond to a school census survey mailed out this year.

The workers will be wearing a Loudoun public schools badge and will have an authorization letter from Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III, officials said.

The number of school-age children counted in the census, conducted across Virginia every three years, helps determine the funding each school district receives from the state.

The Loudoun census enumerators will visit homes through the first week of July, officials said. At each home, they will ask if the household includes any children ages 5 through 19. If it does, the enumerator will ask brief additional questions. If it does not, the household will be crossed off the list and no further questions will be asked.

All responses are confidential, and address-specific data will not be shared with another government agency, school officials said.

The survey is voluntary, and a resident may tell an enumerator that the household is refusing to participate. But school officials said all Loudoun households have an interest in participating because of the impact on school system revenue.

"It should be important to all Loudoun households to respond to the census as state sales tax revenues are allocated to all Virginia localities based on the census counts," the Loudoun school district said in a statement.

School officials said a quarter of the state sales tax revenue allocated to education is distributed to cities and counties based on the census count. In the last census, in 2005, Loudoun received $2,400 for each reported school-age child.

If no one is home during a first visit, an orange notice containing the enumerator's phone number will be left at the door so that the resident can call and answer the questions over the phone. If no one is home during a second visit, a pink notice will be left at the door, along with the survey form and a postage-paid reply envelope.

Enumerators have census forms in Spanish and will have access to interpreters to help residents who don't speak English.