Holland Public Schools Demographics VR Tech High School

The city of Holland is a mid sized city with a population of 33,051 as of the 2010 census. While this is the city central, the surrounding area that calls itself Holland is comprised of 95,394 persons. This is partially due to the city straddling the county line of Ottawa and Allegan, as well as the greater township being Holland, but not part of the city.

The city itself is a mix of landscapes that offer a classical downtown, that rests alongside and within Hope College's campus. Surrounding this city center is an urban zone wherein many of the citys minority population and lower socioeconomic classes reside. To the South and East lie suburbs that support the middle class, while to the North and West are the homes of the ultra rich on the Lake Macatawa and Lake Michigan shoreline. These multimillion dollar homes are several hundred yards away from ranch homes of the middle class, and only two miles away from the citys poorest sections. While this land use model is fairly typical amongst cities, Holland stands out because of the proximity of the poor to the ultra rich. This is significant because it influences city politics, and school district politics, even if certain families do not attend Holland Public.

Holland Public Schools consists of four K-7 buildings, one Early Learning building, as well as the three high schools; Holland High, NewTech, and VR Tech. The district is home to 4029 K-12 students. VR Tech, a high school option is located closest to the center of town of all of Holland Publics Schools,With a fall count of 142 high school age

students, 150 adult ESL students, and 40 Pre-K aged students. While housed at the former VanRaalte Elementary building, VR Tech has had many technological and infrastructure upgrades to support the programs that exist within.

VR Tech competes with one other school of choice that offers alternative education. WaveCrest Career Academy is a charter run by the ISD that has competed for students, however, VR Tech is a choice school in that 29% of students are from out of district.

Key Community Demographics and Trends:

While 70% of the city community is white, much of this population lives in the suburbs and non-urban part of the city, and has an older median age.

This will become clear when compared to school demographics that do not align with the city census demographics proportionally.

The racial makeup of the city of Holland has Shifted dramatically in the last thirty years.

Through much of Hollands 166 year history the population was comprised of mostly white persons of Dutch ethnic background. Since the early to mid 1970s there has been an increasing population of Hispanic/Latino persons. Many of these people came from the Texas Highway, a colloquialism used to describe the movement of Hispanic/Latino persons from Texas to Western Michigan. This

population has also seen an increase due to migrant workers being employed in the surrounding areas. This increase in population has also seen a recent rise in African American populations and Asian populations.

The school district has seen a much more inflated view of these demographic changes. The graph on the right shows the racial percentages within Holland Public Schools. Note that the population of white students is 30% less than that of the city as a whole, and the hispanic population has increased to 44.45% This is notable because it shows that white

populations are older and do not have school aged children, and/or that white families are much more likely to send students to paroquial, charter or other district schools.

A survey conducted at VR Tech showed interesting results when compared to census data for the city of Holland. While the city of Holland had 83% of residents with a high school diploma, VR Tech students responded with only 69% of parents having a diploma. Likewise, only 18% of VR Tech parents had Bachelors degrees while 31% of Holland residents did. The most striking difference was in comparison of single parent households. The census showed 13,212 housing units with 1,231 households headed by single parents for an effective rate of 10.7%. VR Tech households, however, show a 63% rate of having a single parent. The data show that VR Tech students are disadvantaged in comparison to the norm of the city of Holland. This data, though striking, has not undermined the success of VR Tech and Holland High School. The school district continues to try and innovate and renovate. The innovations are in regards to teaching models and evaluations, inegrating technology in the classrooms and lessons, and driving thinking about community and equity. In regards to renovation, each building within the district recieved funds from a 72 million dollar bond passed by the city of Holland. These bond funds have completely remodeled some schools, and in the case of Holland High School, demolished and rebuilt a completely new school. All of these factors contribute to an enormous

opportunity to impact students. This also has offered me a diverse administrative clinical experience that will be invaluable.