Washington pushing student participation in Census

ATLANTA - Washington is pushing an effort to get children in Georgia involved in promoting participation in this year's Census.

According to Georgia News Network, Robert Groves, director of the Census Bureau was in Atlanta Monday, launching a Census in the Schools program. Groves says he hopes it will help remind families to return those census forms that'll start arriving in our mailboxes next week. Specifically, he says educating immigrant children about the census will help produce an accurate count.

"The children are sometimes the first to learn English and they help their parents in filling out the forms, so giving them a heads-up is cost efficient," Groves said.

Local and state governments around the country have been stepping up their own campaigns to get everyone to return their Census questionnaire, citing the federal dollars that at stake because many of them are allocated based on population.

Census forms are going out now and should be returned by April 1.

During April, households that do not return the questionnaire will be visited by Census workers.