Poorest school districts in Oklahoma cope

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Impoverished children make up at least half the student body at more than a dozen Oklahoma school districts, estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show. But school officials say the actual poverty rates are even higher.

The tiny southeast Oklahoma school district of Albion ranked highest in the state with nearly 69 percent of children between ages 5 and 17 living in poverty, according to the 1997 estimates of the nation's 15,000 school districts.

But Albion Superintendent Jim Hibdon said typically more than 80 percent of the district's students qualify for free or reduced lunches.

"We live with it all the time," he said. "We know we're a poor area. We deal with it."

The estimates -- not be confused with yet-to-be released Census 2000 data -- are used by the U.S. Department of Education to allocate funds to aid disadvantaged children nationwide.

But Oklahoma is exempt from using the figures to determine its funding because they tend to underestimate the poverty levels in smaller school districts, state Superintendent Sandy Garrett said Wednesday.

Title I funding instead is distributed to Oklahoma based on enrollment in free and reduced lunch programs.

Garrett said high poverty rates are found in counties with high unemployment, high teen pregnancy rates and other factors pointing to a "general lack of education" that tends to span generations.

Children may come to school lacking in proper nutrition and unable to afford basic school supplies, she said.

"All of our social indicators are magnified because of the poverty level," she said.

Garrett commended Gov. Frank Keating for creating a task force aimed at helping parents prepare their young children for school.

But she said efforts also need to be redoubled in helping adults pursue their GED high school equivalency diplomas.

The Census Bureau produced the estimates for school districts by combining 1990 census data with 1997 county poverty and population estimates.

The inaccuracy of the estimates for small areas is highlighted in school districts such as Pretty Water in Creek County and Merritt in Beckham County in far western Oklahoma.

Merritt, for example, is listed as one of the state's richest school districts with just 3 percent of its student body living in poverty. But Merritt officials said more than 200 of the district's 545 students qualify for free or reduced lunches.

Pretty Water Superintendent Kent Holbrook said more than 40 percent of students there qualify for free and reduced meals, although the Census Bureau estimates ranked it as having the fewest poor children in the state.

In northeastern Oklahoma, Oaks-Mission Superintendent Wyman Thompson said there's no denying the high poverty rate in his district.

His district uses federal funds to help pay for everything from computers to teacher salaries. Other considerations also must be made to help provide school supplies for children whose families can't afford them, he said. .. "When we take them to ball games and stuff, those kids may not have the money to buy a hamburger if we stop," he said. "So we send the money to eat after a ball game or feed them before a ball game."

Hibdon said federal funds helped Albion install at least two computers in every classroom. He said poverty hasn't hurt student performance. He said the low eighth-grade test scores that resulted in the state's "high challenge" designation last year were an anomaly.

Albion only has one business -- a convenience store, said Hibdon, who grew up in nearby Talihina. Most residents work in Talihina or in the logging industry.

He speaks of children in the area who have overcome their poor backgrounds and gone on to become doctors or lawyers but doubts the poverty levels will change without new industry.

"I was one of those poverty kids myself," he said.