With a little more than a month until Census Day, the Washoe County School District unanimously passed a resolution to designate March 30 through April 3, as Census Days of Action in an effort to encourage participation in the 2020 Census and get schools more involved in facilitating the count.
Irene Payne, chief communications and community engagement officer for the school district, and Alison Berreman, a partnership specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau, brought the resolution to the school district board meeting on Tuesday as part of the state’s efforts to inform people about the importance of the population count.
“Most generally, adopting this proclamation is just a public statement. It’s something that gives credibility to the process,” Berreman said in a presentation to the school board. “In the case of districts, we’re asking principals to talk about the census in their classroom.”
Ruben Murillo, a member of Nevada’s Complete Count education subcommittee, presented with Berreman. He said passing the resolution entailed making the schools available to community members participating in the census, such as opening computer labs to those who needed to fill out the census questionnaire or hosting events related to the census.
Both Murillo and Berreman emphasized that having students learn about the census in school would help disseminate information to communities that may not have heard of the census.
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