Deanna James, director of St. Croix Foundation for Community Development, had some alarming statistics in her presentation to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Aging, Sports & Parks Friday.
However, she also pointed to some positive developments in the Territory and made suggestions to improve the situation. One suggestion includes looking at a book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. The book “Anxious Generation” addresses the epidemic of teen mental illness worldwide, particularly in developed nations.
She said the book shines a spotlight on Gen Z (those born between the mid-to-late 1990s and the early 2010s) and outlines the effects of the rise of social media and a decline in play-based childhood.
According to James, Haidt recommends no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, no phones in schools, and more free, independent play.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the parent organization for Kids Count, annually evaluates data in Kids Count regions.
With those evaluations in mind, James said the local team, consisting of six members, offers policy suggestions.
One would be to expand the territory’s free tuition program to include Virgin Islanders whose children did not graduate from a local public high school but attended public school in the Virgin Islands at one time in their academic career.
She said that many families with school-age children leave the territory due to the high cost of living or limited academic standards, and free tuition would be an incentive to draw young Virgin Islanders and their families back to the territory.
Another recommendation would be to tie adolescent driver’s licenses to high school and secondary educational enrollment. She said such a measure has been enacted in several states.
James said it would take time to reiterate “all of the most alarming data points in our KIDS COUNT USVI Data Books,” so she highlighted a few.
- Child poverty: 5,576 children are living in poverty, that’s 33 percent of all children living in the territory.
- Shrinking population: In the Virgin Islands, approximately 21.3 percent of residents are over 65, higher than the national average of 16.8 percent.
- Lower academic assessment scores: Student scores across the board in the Virgin Islands sharply declined, with English Language Arts proficiency dropping by 7.3 percentage points and math proficiency decreasing by 3.9 percentage points from pre-pandemic levels.
- Increase in youth crimes: The VIPD reported 59 incidents involving youth ages 10-17 in 2022, a slight increase from 54 in 2021. Most reported crimes in this age group were violent crimes. Among older youth, 250 incidents were committed by individuals ages 18-24 in 2022, compared to 208 in 2021 for that age group.
Sen. Novelle Francis said during the hearing that he had been working with Kids Count reports for “many, many years,” and the most recent one was “striking” and really “hit home.”
Sen. Franklin Johnson said, “It bothers me, we have all this money coming in, but we still have all this poverty.”
Sen. Angel Bolques, committee chair, said in a press release after the hearing, “I am truly impressed by the work of the KIDS COUNT Data Book team, led by Deanna James. The data they provide is crucial for shaping policies that will benefit our children and families.”
James said the foundation faced significant obstacles posed by the lack of standardization in data collection and a lack of personnel and training for data collection and analysis in both public and civic sectors.
The positive notes in her report included:
- Low maternal mortality rates;
- The highest breastfeeding rate in the nation;
- Government agencies like the Department of Sports Parks and Recreation offering robust recreational programming.
Bolques, Francis, Johnson, Samuel Carrion, Ray Fonseca, Alma Francis Heyliger, and Milton Potter were among the senators at the committee meeting.
