Schools hear a boomer echo
Grandchildren of baby boomers will create an attendance spike within a decade.
By LETITIA STEIN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 28, 2007
TAMPA - Merey Giglia recalls having a miserable 14th birthday the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Later, as a mother, she took her children to Chuck E. Cheese's. When the nest emptied, she and her husband remodeled.
An early baby boomer, Giglia is approaching her next milestone - her first grandchild, a girl due within days of her 58th birthday next month.
"I think it really hasn't hit yet," said Giglia, a secretary for the Hillsborough school district.
District officials know the feeling. While Giglia hopes offers of free babysitting will lure her son back to Tampa, school planners are bracing for a wave of baby boomer grandchildren.
Births are on the upswing in Hillsborough, and across the state. In their long-range plans, district officials are calling for building 21 elementary schools between 2017 and 2028. They're attributing the need to baby boomer grandchildren.
The U.S. Education Department has projected a similar trend. In a 2000 report, it anticipated a "millenni-boom" resulting from the rising number of births between 2010 and 2028.
"It's starting now. It's the cusp," said local demographer Jim Hosler, a consultant for the school district. "It's probably not going to hit full force for another five years or so."
Hosler has a personal perspective. Born in the middle of the baby boom in 1952, he put off having children for years, like many of his generation. His son, now 21, is a so-called echo boomer.
Hosler thinks a grandchild is a possibility within the next five years. That would place a child in the school system around a decade from now.
You can read the tea leaves among boomer celebrities. Comedian Billy Crystal has written about becoming a grandparent. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have adult children, but no grandbabies yet.
That said, multidecade generations don't spawn in tidy packages. Some boomer grandchildren are mixed in with today's youths. Others won't be born for decades.
The population effect weakens over time, experts say. Foreign immigrants and their children are another factor driving the future generation. In Florida, movement from other states also figures into population changes.
"You may have an echo of the echo, but as the generations pass it tends to become more muted," said Stan Smith, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida.
No one quite knows what to expect from the coming generation. Baby boomers set high standards for educational expectations. Their grandchildren will be tech-savvy gurus of the Internet and cell phone age.
Woody Carlson, a sociology professor at Florida State University, expects the children of today's boomers will continue to start their families later and have fewer children.
"But that's a long way out there," he said. "They're just getting started, so we don't know where they're going yet."
Times researchers John Martin and Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report. Letitia Stein can be reached at lstein@sptimes.com or 813 226-3400. For more education news, visit the Gradebook at blogs.tampabay.com/schools.
FAST FACTS
Generations defined
Experts disagree slightly on the years separating younger generations, but these are the outlines.
Baby boomers: 1946-1964.
Gen X: 1965-1977.
Gen Y/baby boom echo: 1978 and later.