Salem students.jpg

Poverty rates among school-aged children improved for the first time in many years in many Oregon school districts, including Salem-Keizer, where these children attend Hallman Elementary School.

(Betsy Hammond / The Oregonian / 2014)

Poverty rates among school-aged children rates improved in some parts of Oregon, including Portland, the greater Eugene area and in and around Salem, for the first time since the recession, new Census figures show.

But statewide they were essentially flat, declining from 18.8 percent in 2013 to 18.7 percent in 2014, the bureau reported Wednesday.The rate was 14.7 percent in 2007, before the recession hit.

In most of Portland's suburbs, including Beaverton, Hillsboro, North Clackamas, Tigard-Tualatin and Oregon City, poverty among school-aged children worsened in from 2013 to 2014.

Child poverty rates

The share of school-aged children living in poverty in 2014 in Oregon's 10 largest districts.

Portland Public Schools 16%

Beaverton 13%

Salem-Keizer 21%

Hillsboro 16%

North Clackamas 13%

Eugene 13%

Bend-La Pine 14%

Gresham-Barlow 18%

Medford 23%

Reynolds 28%

Source: Census Bureau

The Census Bureau reports each year how many school-aged children live in every U.S. school district and how many of those it estimates live below the federal poverty line. For 2014, the poverty line was drawn at $23,450 for a family of four.

The yearly reports are important to Oregon school districts because they are used to determine how much extra funding each district receives to help it better educate low-income students, who tend to need much more help to reach grade-level standards than do their better-off peers.

Some districts where child poverty has been very high, including Woodburn, David Douglas and Klamath Falls, saw their rates improve from 2013 to 2014. Woodburn's fell by 3 percentage points to 34 percent, and in the David Douglas district in east Portland, the rate fell 3 percentage points to 31 percent.

At the other extreme, West Linn and Lake Oswego, where child poverty is quite rare, saw their rates worsen a little bit. West Linn's rate rose 1 percentage point to 7 percent and Lake Oswego's rose 2 percentage points, also to 7 percent.

Beaverton, Hillsboro and North Clackamas saw even sharper increases in poverty rates among school-aged children. Those rates rose 3 percentage points in all three districts, to 13 percent, 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

The Census Bureau bases its estimates primarily on federal tax returns, bolstered with American Community Survey results. Estimates for districts with small student populations, generally 500 or fewer, have very large margins of error. But for large districts, they are fairly accurate, the bureau says.

Child poverty rates improved in Eugene and in more than a dozen smaller school districts surrounding it, including Springfield and South Lane.

Salem-Keizer saw the biggest drop, with nearly 2,000 fewer school-aged children tallied as living in poverty. That district's poverty rate fell 4 percentage points, to 21 percent.

Portland, Oregon's biggest district, saw a more modest drop in students living in poverty. Its rate improved 1 percentage point, to 16 percent.

The poverty rates count all students aged 5 to 17, without regard to whether they attend public or private school or any school at all.

-- Betsy Hammond