After the winter break 12 students left the Haines Borough School District. Some residents are using that number as an indicator of Haines’ dire economy. But what does that number mean and is it an economic indicator?

Darsie Culbeck told the borough assembly about the drop in student enrollment at its meeting last week.

“As one indicator of the health of our community, it’s a strong one,” Culbeck said. “You may not know it, but it’s desperate in Haines. A lot of people in this town are barely making it.”

As far as Haines school enrollment goes, Superintendent Carlson said they’re on track with where they expected to be, despite the loss of 12 students.

“When we did the budget last year we predicted, really, where we’re at right now and unexpectedly we ended up with a bunch of new people who moved in,” Carlson said. “We ended up in the same place we anticipated. I don’t want to downplay anything, but I don’t want to elevate this to a level that I don’t think it deserves.”

In an interview with KHNS, Haines school principal Rene Martin said those families moved because they couldn’t afford to live in Haines.

Some families moved for different reasons. One of them, who had three children in the district, moved because the main bread winner’s state job was transferred, according to Haines School District Superintendent Rich Carlson.

Andrew Gray, who also had three kids in the district, moved his family from Haines to New Hampshire. He was employed as a staff engineer for proHNS, but worked less in the winter. He said he chose to pursue a career outside Alaska because jobs across Alaska are hard to find.

“We could have survived in Haines, but given the opportunity I chose to get out,” Gray said. “There was no Plan B in Alaska. Statewide opportunity for professionals, for good paying jobs, were hard to come by so I took the opportunity to move somewhere else.”

Unemployment rates spike during the winter across Alaska, however Haines rates are above the state average, according to Department of Labor data. Haines’ average unemployment rate from January through November 2017 was 9.1 percent compared to the statewide average of 6.9 percent. Petersburg’s was 8.6 percent, Wrangell’s was 2.7 percent Sitka’s was 4.5 percent and Skagway’s was 12.2 percent. Haines’ unemployment rate has steadily decreased since 2010. That could be because the population is aging and more workers are leaving town. Alyssa Rodrigues, state economic researcher, told the CVN last fall that less people are filing for unemployment claims because people are leaving Alaska. More people left Southeast Alaska in 2017 than moved in between 2015 and 2016, according to a Department of Labor trends report.

As another indicator of a poor economy, Martin pointed to Haines’ student population on the free and reduced lunch program.

“Almost half of our families are not living at a full quality of life amount of money that the government anticipates you need to live,” Martin told KHNS. “So that’s a significant portion of our town that are struggling.”

According to Alaska Department of Education data, 40 percent of Haines students are enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program compared to the 51 percent state average. Compared to similarly sized communities in the region Sitka has 36 percent of its students enrolled in the program, Petersburg has 52 percent and Craig is at 76 percent.

Haines has a lower poverty level than those communities as well. The state average is 10.1 percent, according to recent U.S. census data. Petersburg’s poverty level is 9.3 percent, Sitka’s is 9 percent and Wrangell’s is 9.9 percent. Haines’ poverty level is at 5.3 percent.