USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 25
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Submitted in January 1949, the Engelhardt Report* became the focus of wide and often rather acrimonious discussion for months, for years. The Report recommended a 10-year program of rehabilitation and new construction at an estimated cost of $11,288,750-which staggered not a few citizens even though approximately a third of the cost would be borne by the state under the School Building Assistance Act of 1948. The city would have been wiser if, during the Depression, it had accept- ed Federal aid to keep its school plant up-to-date, instead of having to pay all at once for long overdue expansion and mod- ernization.
More particularly the Engelhardt associates recommended the construction of a new $5,000,000 high school at Springside Park, suggesting that the existing high school on East Street be used mainly for a junior high school, partly for an elementary school, and partly for the School Department's administrative offices. Public opinion was almost unanimously against this proposal.
But there was little dissent to the recommendation that the Dalton Avenue and outer Elm Street neighborhoods should have priority in getting new elementary schools because of the recent rapid growth of population in those areas.
Shortly after the release of the Engelhardt Report, the city's Capital Outlay Committee recommended the construction of five new school buildings-two new junior high schools, one in the north and one in the south section of the city, each to accom-
* Additional discussion of the Engelhardt Report and its results appears on pages 218-222.
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modate 1,000 pupils; an elementary school in the Williams Street area to accommodate 250 pupils; another in the Allen- gate section to accommodate 350 pupils; and the replacement of the Peck's Road School with a building to accommodate 125 pupils. The cost of sites, buildings, and equipment was estimat- ed at approximately $6,000,000, of which state aid would sup- ply about $1,800,000.
To administer the construction program a School Building Commission of eleven members was appointed, headed by Franz X. Brugger, a General Electric executive who had recently re- tired. More than $1,000,000 was soon appropriated to erect three elementary school buildings-the Allendale, Egremont, and Highland. Educational specifications for these buildings were based in large part upon studies and recommendations made by the elementary school staffs of the city.
In September 1951, for the first time in a generation, some of the city's younger children entered new school buildings with plenty of light and air and space, though the space in one of them was soon occupied to full capacity.
Egremont School in the outer Elm Street section had scarcely opened when Superintendent Russell pointed to the need of a sizeable addition to care for all the children of this area which was being so rapidly built up. Three years later, in December 1954, the School Committee unanimously requested that steps be taken for the construction of such an addition, to consist of four rooms and a kindergarten.
The new schools, as Pittsfield proudly noted, were "as educa- tionally up-to-date as any in the land." Each had a combination auditorium-gymnasium, cafeteria, and health room. Walls, ceil- ings, and floors were finished with sound-proofing materials which kept noise at a minimum. Classrooms were equipped with new movable desks and chairs, for the day of the old screwed- down desks standing rigidly like soldiers in file was over.
Meantime, an extensive program for modernizing the older schools had been going forward. Fire hazards were corrected and greater safety was assured by a 5-year construction project completed in 1949 at a cost of $100,000.
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Several classrooms in Plunkett School were renovated and used as models of what modernization might do. The old fixed desks were removed and replaced with movable furniture light in finish. Floors were bleached. The old blackboards gave way to green. Walls were painted in pastel colors of high reflectivity. Fluorescent lighting was installed in place of the old incandes- cent bulbs.
The experiment was so successful and so widely approved that a program for modernizing all rooms in the older schools was started under the direction of the recently-appointed School Building Commission.
The building of the two new junior high schools was a more complicated and controversial business. Some felt very strongly that the city could not afford to obligate itself for the $4,000,000 cost of construction. When the question reached an impasse in the City Council, the matter was placed before the voters in the 1949 municipal elections. The measure having passed, the authorities moved ahead with their plans for a North Junior High School, at Springside Park, and a South Junior High School, between Pomeroy and Marshall avenues.
Joseph C. Nugent was appointed principal of North Junior High, and Joseph J. Canavan of South Junior High. Both had had experience as junior high school principals-the first at Central, the second at Plunkett. Teaching staffs were trans- ferred from the junior high schools to be discontinued, and new teachers were appointed for such special fields as art, music, science, industrial and home arts, and physical education.
In spite of difficulties caused by the Korean war, the buildings opened in September 1953, to the delight of all the junior high school students in the city, who had never enjoyed proper junior high school facilities, and to the glowing pride of Pittsfield in general. Designed by Perkins and Will of Chicago, a distin- guished firm of school architects, the buildings were very at- tractive and highly practical adaptations of the modern func- tional style, having a semi-campus appearance through the ar- rangement of classroom wings, auditorium, gymnasium, cafe- teria, shops, and administrative offices.
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In their first year, the new schools were filled almost to capacity. In 1954-55, their second year, they were already over- flowing, operating at 7 per cent over capacity-a situation that has overtaken many another American community that has en- larged its school facilities only to find them almost immediately outgrown. To alleviate the local situation, it has been suggested, among other proposals, that a new West Junior High School should be built or that the old building on the Common, closed in 1953, should be reopened as the Central Junior High School.
The developing junior high school program had occasioned an unusual degree of community participation. After World War II, all education had been subjected to searching questions about curriculum, methods, goals, philosophy, and teacher qual- ifications. The School Committee decided that in remodeling junior high school education, the teachers themselves should have a major voice; that community participation in the study should be channeled through the Parent-Teacher Council; that an expert study should be made by the Center of Field Studies of the Harvard Graduate School of Education at a cost of $6,000.
This expert study, begun in 1950 and entitled Stages in Cur- riculum Design, 1951-1960, later an official Harvard publica- tion, became the foundation of much current practice and future planning.
So-called "lay" participation, as it was termed by professional educators, was of much help also, though the organizations through which it functioned were short-lived. An Elementary School Lay-Professional Council of fifty members was formed in 1951, disbanding a year later. In May 1952, a Junior High School Planning Council was organized with some twenty-five "lay" members nominated by the Parent-Teacher Council and an equal number chosen among junior high school teachers, supervisors, and principals, with a "lay" member, William C. Russell, as president.
The School Committee adopted many of the recommenda- tions of this lay-professional Council, which, having accom- plished its mission, disbanded in 1953. Its functions reverted to
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the Parent-Teacher Council and to the individual Parent- Teacher Associations at the two junior high schools.
"Integration" was the goal of post-war junior high school education. This was a retreat from the extreme departmentaliz- ing of subjects in the 1920s. Junior high school students in Pittsfield had been taught English composition, literature, spell- ing, and penmanship by four different teachers. History, geogra- phy, and civics were similarly taught in tight little courses with small regard for the larger relationships and patterns of knowl- edge and understanding.
The curriculum in the city's new junior high schools, virtually the one outlined by the lay-professional Planning Council, was designed for (1) complete integration of the "language arts"- i.e., English; (2) integration of history, geography, and civics in the social studies program, coordinated with social science studies in the lower schools; (3) correlation of the language arts and social studies in grade 7-a rudimentary "core" pro- gram; and (4) major science courses in grades 8 and 9.
In 1954-55, in an important innovation, authentic core classes were taught in the junior high schools-one at North and one at South-by Miss Ruth I. Mills, a Pittsfield teacher who had studied core programs all over the country under a Ford Foundation fellowship. The core curriculum had been strongly recommended in the Harvard Report.
Undoubtedly the most exciting event at the new junior high schools was the filming there of sequences for a documentary television production entitled "The Search." Made by the Columbia Broadcasting System, the film dramatized the inter- acting elements of curriculum and plant in really modern schools. Televised for a nation-wide audience in January 1955, Pittsfield saw the film over area Station WRGB and was proud to have its junior high schools exhibited as models for other communities to follow.
In the senior high school, attendance had remained almost stable since 1940-about 1,500 to 1,600 students a year, more than the building could efficiently accommodate. Of the girls, about half enrolled in the commercial department, a third in
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college preparatory, and the remainder in general courses, household arts, and the "retail sales curriculum."
After World War II, most of the boys chose one of three courses; (1) vocational, with alternating weeks of school and shop work, leading to a high school diploma and apprentice work in a trade; (2) college preparatory, designed not only for those planning to go to college but for those desiring a broad academic background; and (3) technical, planned for those intending to go on to higher studies in science and engineering, or to engage in technical occupations after graduation.
The technical high school program was organized in 1947 and placed under Dr. Louis W. Marks, who was granted leave of absence from General Electric to become the first teacher- administrator of the program, being succeeded in 1948 by Dr. Edward B. Van Dusen, vice principal in charge of technical education. So far as boys are concerned-girls are not regularly enrolled-"Tech" has rapidly risen in enrollment to a point equal to that of the college preparatory program.
Even so, stimulated by the return to school of so many war veterans under the "G. I. Bill of Rights," the high school has encouraged college preparation and sought to establish more scholarships for able students needing some financial help. In addition to the scholarships offered by business and civic groups, the Teachers Association established scholarships for future teachers, financed by the annual plays presented by the teachers.
While heavily weighted with academic and vocational studies, the high school program offered many opportunities for somewhat more creative expression, especially in writing and music. Operettas were presented each year by the graduating class. Choral groups and glee clubs were organized. The high school band was enlarged, as was the student orchestra. Groups from the high school participated in the impressive Western Massachusetts Music Festival held at Pittsfield in May 1954.
During the war and post-war years, the school magazine, The Students' Pen, under the supervision of Madeline E. Pfeiffer, head of the English Department, gained national recognition by winning sixteen successive merit awards in the Columbia Schol-
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astic Press Association's annual contests. In 1951, the magazine was given the much-prized Medalist Award. The Dome, the senior yearbook, has also won many first awards.
Periodic testing of intelligence, aptitudes, and achievement had long been part of the school program. In 1944, to co- ordinate and develop this work, the School Committee au- thorized the creation of a public school testing department, which was placed in charge of Theodore Herberg, head of mathematics at the high school and a statistics specialist.
In 1951, the department was expanded to include research and curriculum. Its responsibilities include the administration of the testing program from kindergarten through high school; the statistical processing of results arising from the testing; the continuous accumulation and interpretation of data of all types relating to the educational program and school needs; the co- ordination of curriculum development; and the analysis of text book requirements.
An organized guidance program was built up by Robert J. McCarthy, who resigned in 1945, and by his successor, Charles E. Murphy, a teacher at the high school who had served as a Navy officer during the war, specializing in personnel work.
New features were added to the guidance program: cumula- tive folders, containing test profiles, interest inventories, anec- dotal records, and other pupil-personnel data; pupil interviews with counselors; ninth-grade curriculum clinics in the several junior high schools; testing and advisement for veterans; con- sultative service, using people drawn from industrial, business, and professional fields; and a community occupational survey. The program won an award in a national guidance program contest, and earned inclusion in the text book How to Organize Your Guidance Program.
As 1954 closed, Director Murphy was arranging to code the school census to be taken in conjunction with the 1955 state decennial census as a preliminary to the IBM card-punching operation that would make the data available for a number of guidance studies, as well as in the School Department's school building surveys.
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The phenomenal educational achievements of the armed services training program identified "learning the G.I. way" with audio-visual education and gave impetus to the classroom use of films.
In 1947, the School Committee created a department of audio-visual education headed by Joseph R. McMahon, a teach- er at the high school. Under the new department, much new equipment was bought and increasing use has been made of sound and film strips, record players, magnetic tape recorders, tachistoscopes and reading accelerators, portable radios, and other modern teaching aids. The Harvard Report declared that Pittsfield should be congratulated on the use it made of "audio- visual materials for the enrichment of the entire school pro- gram."
In 1947, also, another new department was created-health and safety education, headed by Alice V. Coffey, an M.A. in health education. A School Health Council was formed, with membership drawn from the Health Department as well as from teachers and principals.
Health education became integrated into the daily classroom activities of the elementary schools and the several subjects of the secondary schools, centering around the basic areas of personal health, nutrition, community health, sanitation, family living, first aid, mental health, safety, and home nursing.
In 1953, in response to newly revised state legislation, the health examinations of pupils were made more searching and parents were encouraged to be present. The School Department cooperated in the administration of the Salk polio vaccine to pupils in Grades 1, 2, and 3 in clinics set up in the public schools.
The schoolboy traffic patrol, sponsored by the Automobile Club of Berkshire County, was developed into an efficiently functioning organization with the aid of the Police Department and support from the B'nai B'rith, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Master Plumbers Association, and the local theatre managers.
Similar community cooperation came to the aid of the driver education program. A Pontiac dual-control car was donated by
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a local automobile dealer. The American Legion sponsored driv- ing skill contests. Trucking companies, automobile dealers, and the General Electric Company also cooperated in the program.
Among Pittsfield "firsts" in the health and safety program were the periodic measuring of height and weight of pupils by the classroom teacher (1947); system-wide accident survey (1948); police inspection and "scotch-liting" of bicycles at school playgrounds (1950); planned teacher-nurse conferences on pupils of the class (1950); 20-hour classroom driver educa- tion course required of high school pupils (1950); A-bomb school civilian defense (1951); class for deaf pupils (1953); student accident insurance coverage (1954). In 1952 and 1953 Pittsfield was cited by the National Safety Council for "out- standing achievement in school traffic safety education."
Pittsfield opened new avenues in civic education, too. Mount- ing post-war international tensions-the "cold war," so called- caused public schools to invigorate civic education programs de- signed to teach procedures characteristic of the American way of life.
"Good citizenship begins at home," Superintendent Russell had said, "and a rich source of learning experiences in good citizenship can be found in the family and child welfare, youth, health, and service organizations which are banded together in the Community Chest and Council."
In 1951, the School Committee authorized the Superintendent to explore the establishment of a United Students Fund em- bracing all the pupils in the public schools. One of the reasons leading to this decision was the belief, shared by many teachers and principals, that existing opportunities for pupils to partici- pate in charitable endeavors were heavily weighted in favor of financial contributions rather than the educational aspects of such participation. It was felt that the educative phases of par- ticipation should be stressed and the financial phase should be a means and not an end in itself.
As a result, individual campaigns conducted in the schools for the Community Chest, the Red Cross, polio drive, and others, were eliminated in favor of two general contributions,,
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one in October and the other in January, the proceeds from which went into the treasury of the United Students Fund.
The establishment of the United Students Fund inspired a year-round educational program in regard to charitable contri- butions. To promote this program, the Curriculum Department issued a booklet on "Learning About Community Chest Agen- cies." In 1953, citing this program, Freedom Foundation award- ed the Pittsfield public schools the George Washington Honor Medal "for outstanding achievement in bringing about a better understanding of the American way of life."
The post-war years brought increased influence, prestige, pro- fessional standing, and pay to the teachers in the city schools. In the 1945 municipal election, as directed by the state legisla- ture, Pittsfield and all Massachusetts communities voted on this question:
Shall women teachers employed in the same grades and doing the same type of work with the same preparation and training as men teachers be paid at the same rate as men teachers ?
Admittedly, the phrasing of the question was vague. What was "the same type of work," or "the same preparation and training"? In any case, Pittsfield favored the proposal in prin- ciple, voting "yes" by more than 4 to 1.
As a consequence, taking this opportunity to revise an obso- lete salary schedule, the School Committee decreed that, with- out regard to sex, teachers' salaries would henceforth be deter- mined (1) by the grade level taught (elementary, junior high school, or senior high school), and (2) by the individual teach- er's professional preparation (training beyond high school, col- lege degrees, etc.) This was a transition to a single-salary sys- tem, which the School Committee adopted the next year.
Under the single-salary system, teachers were placed in pay categories based on length of professional training, regardless of the grade they taught. Extreme inequalities still prevailed in teachers' salaries and in 1948, the School Committee completed the "equalization" process by removing the last vestiges of position and sex differentials, placing each teacher in a salary category determined by education and experience. By 1955,
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maximum salaries reached and passed the $5,000 mark. Be- tween 1945-46 and 1953-54, the average staff salary rose from $2,190 to $4,077 a year.
With the increased emphasis on and the new incentive for professional training came another important development. More and more of the city's public school teachers sought ad- vanced training. This had been difficult for teachers in Pittsfield, who had had to make long trips to North Adams, Amherst, Springfield, Albany, and even more distant points for the "resi- dence" courses required for a bachelor's or master's degree.
In 1945, with Superintendent Russell cooperating, the North Adams State Teachers College gained the permission of the State Education Department to make Pittsfield High School part of its campus, so to speak. Courses taken there were accepted as "residence" courses. A much longer step was soon taken. The North Adams Teachers College held its annual summer session at the city high school in 1946, and every summer since has done so, attracting students from a wide area.
The proportion of local elementary teachers with college degrees rose from 5 per cent in 1944-45 to more than 40 per cent in 1953-54. More of the junior and senior high school staffs held a B.A. or a higher college degree. Setting an example for his staff, Superintendent Russell earned a Ph.D. degree from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 1951.
Local school boards, or school committees, usually take a terrific beating from all sides-by students, parents, teachers, and the general public. They are either "too conservative" or "too radical." They want to spend either "too much" or "too little" on the public schools. They are either "too visionary," asking the impossible, or "too practical," looking only at tax rates.
Pittsfield's recent school committees have borne their share of criticisms and complaints, but they have been "beat up" less than most. In 1950, the Public Education Association and Columbia University's Teachers College, in a joint survey on school boards making a major contribution to educational prog-
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ress, named the Pittsfield School Committee as "one of America's outstanding school boards."
In 1951, the question of releasing children from school an hour a week for religious instruction came to the fore in the city. All of the Catholic churches favored the proposal. The Protestant and Jewish congregations were unanimously op- posed. Late in 1951, the School Committee voted 5 to 3 to table a proposal under which released-time of an hour every Wednes- day afternoon would be granted to children whose parents sig- nified their approval. The question was deferred because the constitutionality of released-time legislation by states and local communities had been challenged, and cases were before the United States Supreme Court, which handed down a favorable decision early in 1952.
In September 1953, after considerable controversy, the School Department arranged that pupils in grades 9 to 12, later 10 to 12, could be dismissed for religious instruction during the last period on Mondays if their parents so requested. All Catholic churches have established such released-time instruction. The first of the Protestant churches to do so was the South Congre- gational Church. It has been followed by St. Stephen's, the First Baptist Church, and the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church.
In June 1955, after 34 years as principal of the high school, Roy M. Strout retired and had the honor, for the first time in his Pittsfield career, of presenting diplomas to members of the graduating class, an office traditionally performed by the mayor. Vice Principal Harold E. Hennessy was named to be acting high school principal for a year, being appointed to succeed Strout as principal early in 1956.
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