Shrinkage stabilizing: ; After 50 years of declines, county enrollment about half that in 69

Over the past 50 years, the Kanawha County school system has lostmore than 25,000 students - or nearly as many students as it hascurrently.

As factories and plants closed and downsized, the county'sschools shrunk, vanished or consolidated.

In the past half-century, 142 Kanawha elementaries have closed.

Much of the student population loss comes from job and populationdeclines in the Kanawha Valley. In the 1950's, the county wasgrowing, adding 13,000 people through the decade to begin 1960 with253,000 residents, according to the national Census Bureau. Butthings have contracted since then. In 2007, the county had about191,000 residents.

Over the past few …