Children are disappearing from Kansas. On that much, everybody seems to agree.

How fast their numbers are diminishing, however, is the subject of a dispute that could determine the future of federal education funding in Kansas.

The U.S. Census Bureau on Wednesday released state population estimates showing Kansas experienced a loss of nearly 19,000 school-aged children between 2000 and 2003.

“I think we’ve seen some of that,” Lawrence Supt. Randy Weseman said Wednesday. The Lawrence school district has lost 500 students in three years. Lawrence is growing, he said, “But it doesn’t mean everybody has kids.”

A state education official Wednesday was skeptical of the Census Bureau’s numbers.

Veryl Peter, director of school finance for the Kansas Department of Education, said total enrollment in public and private schools had declined during those three years — but only by about 2,000 students. Public schools lost nearly 1,000 students during the period.

“My land, it’s not even close” to the census estimates, Peter said. “I don’t know why ours would be so different, but we’re staying pretty flat, enrollment-wise.”

Weseman, though, cast doubt on the state’s numbers. If the figures are right, he said, Lawrence accounts for half the state’s public school enrollment decline between 2000 and 2003.

“That doesn’t add up,” Weseman said. “There are declining districts all over the state.”

Owen Kapfer, 4, and his brother Oliver, 2, Lawrence, greet a dog while walking with their mother, Amanda Kapfer, and 3-month-old sister, Eva, in downtown Lawrence. Though Kansas may seem like a starter-family haven, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday that Kansas lost nearly 19,000 school-age children in the last three years.

Why it matters: Weseman said the census estimates were a crucial factor in determining federal education aid to the states.

“I got a memo today from the state Education Department,” he said. “Because of the loss of children, Kansas is going to lose $8.5 million in federal education funding.”

The loss of 18,530 school-aged children in Kansas, represented a decline of nearly 3.5 percent in that group’s population in the state — even though total Kansas population increased by 1.3 percent during that time, according to the census.

“If the U.S. is stagnant, we would have lost (school-aged) population, I’ll buy that much,” said David Burress, an economist at Kansas University’s Policy Research Institute.

He added: “I think they’d know it if it showed up in the schools.”

The three-year decline followed a decade of growth. The 5-17 population in Kansas grew by 51,000 during the 1990s, according to the Census, a 10.8 percent growth for the decade. Across the United States, that age group grew by 17.4 percent during the 1990s.Nationally, the number of children between ages 5 and 17 was flat between 2000 and 2003, the Census Bureau reported, hovering at just more than 53 million.

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Peter was at a loss Wednesday to explain why Census Bureau and state figures were so different.

“I quite honestly don’t have an answer for why (census) numbers are dropping that much,” Burress said.

Weseman, at least, figured the problem was with the state.

“That’s ridiculous. Somebody recorded that wrong. It can’t even be close,” he said of state figures. “Somebody ought to get their numbers together on this.”