USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Plymouth > Town annual report of Plymouth, MA 1912 > Part 10
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The sessions of the other schools are as prescribed from time to time by the committee.
Schools are in session every other day. Every year there are a few days when inclement weather makes it inadvisable for some children to come to school. The decision in such cases is left to the parent. The schools are open to receive all pupils who come.
CALENDAR FOR 1913
Winter term began Tuesday, December 31, 1912.
Summer term begins Tuesday, April 7, 1913. School year ends Friday, June 20, 1913. Fall term begins Tuesday, September 2, 1913. Fall term ends Friday, December 19, 1913.
VACATIONS.
March 28, 1913, to April 7, 1913,
June 20, 1913, to September 2, 1913. December 19, 1913, to December 30, 1913.
HOLIDAYS
Every Saturday, Washington's Birthday, Patriots' Day, Memo- rial Day, Columbus Day; from Wednesday noon before Thanksgiving, the remainder of the week.
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FINANCIAL REPORT
RECEIPTS.
Appropriation,
$63,000 00
From Contingent,
1,408 20
Refund on supplies,
7 29
Miscellaneous (Truant School),
39 15
$64,454 64
PAYMENTS.
Salaries,
$43,219 26
Books,
2,033 73
Supplies,
1,666 59
Fuel and light,
4,378 69
Repairs,
4,999 18
Janitors and care of school houses,
3,851 98
Building supplies,
391 28
Freight and teaming,
210 16
Night schools,
802 50
Transportation,
1,274 84
Truant Officer,
105 00
Furniture and furnishings,
345 00
Printing,
275 47
Medical Inspection,
389 50
Incidentals,
317 21
School Census,
54 25
Tuition to other towns,
140 00
$64,454 64
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REPORT OF SCHOOL COMMITTEE
Neither of the school buildings, the construction of which was authorized at the last annual Town Meeting, has yet been begun. The delay, while unfortunate, was unavoidable. The one at the North, being an addition to the Hedge building, was found to be more costly than had been anticipated, and an in- crease in the appropriation was therefore necessary. Additional money was granted at a special town meeting, and the matter was at once taken in hand by the committee. A contract has now been made with Mr. E. T. Wilson of Natick, the builder of the present building, which insures having the four addi- tional school rooms ready for occupation at the opening of our schools in September. This will do away with the present double sessions, and will provide for the increase in attendance.
The delay on the other building, which is to be built on the lot purchased of Mr. Saunders, was caused by the inability to carry the sewer connection to Sandwich street, the building site being on too low a level. By purchase from Miss Alice B. Barnes, the town has acquired a right to connect with the sewer in Bradford street, thus getting an advantageous "fall" to the pipe. A contract for the construction of this building has been made with Mr. Robert Wilson, the builder of the Mt. Pleasant building, and it will also be ready for occupation at the begin- ning of the fall term. The playground acquired under the will of the late Nathaniel Morton has been enlarged by the purchase of the lot for this building.
We again call attention to the need of enlarging some of the school yards, and particularly direct attention to that of the
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Allerton school, where the children are using a vacant lot, not owned by the Town. The increase in attendance at the Hedge building will make apparent the wisdom of buying adjoining land.
An unusual expenditure was caused by the failure of both! the heating and the sanitary apparatus of the Burton build- ing, and the relocation of the fixtures has made a long-needed improvement, the original arrangement having been exceedingly unfortunate.
The vacant school building at the corner of Court and Bourne Streets is an embarrassment to the Committee, and it will be of no further use to this department. In our report, made for the year 1910, we recommended that this building, with others, be turned over to the Selectmen, to be by them put to such use or purposes as they may deem expedient, or if thought by them to be for the best, to be sold. In the case of this building no action was taken by the Town, consequently the Selectmen have declined to take charge of it. It is deteri- orating, and any unoccupied building is likely to become a nui- sance ; we therefore urge that the Town take action under the article which has been provided to meet this case.
We regret that we have to show expenditures in excess of our estimate and the appropriation made for them, but cer- tain items which were imperative and beyond our control have obliged us to take advantage of the relief afforded by the au- thority given to the Selectmen, permitting them to make trans- fers of appropriations. Necessarily, the payments for salaries and for the care and maintenance of new buildings will make the amount required next year larger than it is this year, and we therefore feel obliged to ask for an appropriation of sixty- eight thousand dollars for the expenses of the School Depart- ment.
By evidence which has come to us, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, we are convinced that the Town receives efficient service from the Superintendent of Schools and his
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faithful staff of teachers, and we ask your appreciation of your schools, believing that creditable results are obtained.
The report of the Superintendent is herewith transmitted, and we request the voters and all who are interested in the schools to give a careful consideration to his statements and recommendations.
WILLIAM W. BREWSTER, EARL W. GOODING, J. HOLBROOK SHAW, EDWARD W. BRADFORD, JR., W. M. DOUGLASS,
School Committee.
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SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT
To the School Committee of the Town of Plymouth -
The following is submitted as the report of the Superintend- ent of Schools for the year 1912. It presents statistics of at- tendance of the schools for the year ending June 1912; and a record of other school matters for the year ending December 31, 1912.
ATTENDANCE
Two thousand two hundred and seventy-four different pupils attended the schools here during the year ending June 22, 1912. This total enrolment is sixty-seven greater than the enrol- ment of the previous year. The average membership for the year, that is, the number which shows the constant member- ship of the schools for that period is 2,131. The average daily attendance, 1983, or 93 per cent. of the number in the average membership.
It may be noted that the percentage of attendance has fallen below that of a year ago. This lower percentage is accounted for in some measure by the large number of children who, dur- ing the year, are excluded from the schools because of their physical condition. Many of the children thus excluded are suffering from causes easily remedied. They might be in suit- able condition to return to school in a few hours or days if the proper remedy were at once applied. But many of them do not find at home that interest or intelligence or ready and per
Plymouth Fourteen
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sistent treatment which would speedily make their return to school proper and safe. And so, at times, days and weeks are taken for cures that might more effectively be made in as many hours. The school has only the power to exclude; it has no reasonable way of making parents take the proper steps, when they know them, to bring the child into suitable physical con- dition and to return him to school. And so it comes that many children who most need what the schools can do for them must remain at home or on the street until chance or nature does in days or weeks what could better have been done in a few hours. Most of these cases would readily be provided for if it were somebody's business to see that the parents of such chil- dren knew the proper remedy and how to apply it, and to see personally that it is applied effectively and speedily. Until some provision is made for such direct help, much loss of school time for those who can ill afford to lose it must result.
EXPENSES
The items given below are based upon the expenditure for school purposes during the financial year 1912. The financial and attendance periods are not identical, but since each covers a full year, the one period being only a little in advance of the other, the returns they furnish are fairly reliable.
1. Assessed valuation of real and personal prop- $12,311,057 00 erty in Plymouth, April 1, 1912,
2. Per cent. of valuation expended for current expenses of schools in 1912, or $5.23 on each $1,000.00, .00523
3. Expense per pupil on average membership, 30 25
4. Expense per pupil on same for schools of State. 1911-1912, 36 09
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5. Average monthly wages of men (2) in High School, 120 83
6. Average monthly wages of women (7) in High School, 61 31
7. Average monthly wages of women (55) in Elementary Schools, 48 69
In this statement, items 5, 6 and 7 are based upon twelve monthly payments each year. Items 2 and 3 are based upon the whole amount, $64,454.64, which the Committee has spent. This sum includes the expense of repairs, $4,999.18, and the cost of Evening Schools, $802.50, which items this year for the first time are to be included as a part of the current ex .. pense of the schools, and this sum must be certified to the State by the Committee as having been raised by taxation and expended for the support of the public schools.
The total cost of school support for the year was $64,454.64, an increase of $4,373.19, as compared with the previous year. This increase is largely explained by the salaries of four addi- tional teachers, and the large expense for repairs necessary for the past year. The school expense of each child in the average membership (2,131) was $30.25 last year and $28.87 the pre- vious year.
While the number of pupils increases each year, additional teachers must be employed to care for them; and this expense, with the advancing cost of repairs, supplies, and every form of school service must increase the per capita cost of the schools considerably beyond the present limit.
There are 354 cities and towns in Massachusetts. During the past year there were 158 of these cities and towns which im- posed upon themselves a heavier tax for the school support of each child in the average membership of their schools than Plymouth, and 195 that imposed upon themselves a lesser tax. There were 189 of these same communities which paid a larger percentage of their assessed valuation for school purposes than Plymouth paid, and only 164 of them that paid less.
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PRIMARY SCHOOLS
Children five years old are admitted to the primary schools during the first four weeks of the fall term only, if they have never before attended school. Children of the legal school age are admitted to school at any time in the districts where they live, if there is room; otherwise, they are sent to the nearest school where there is room.
The whole number of children enrolled in the schools at present is 2,203. Of this number 1,163, about 53 per cent. of the total number, are in the primary schools, grades one to four, inclusive, distributed in twenty-eight school rooms. The small- est number in any one room is eleven, and the largest fifty-one.
These 1,163 pupils are enrolled in the four primary grades as follows :
Boys.
Girls.
Total.
Grade I,
173
168
341
Grade II,
164
170
334
Grade III,
125
127
252
Grade IV,
113
123
236
575
588
1163
Last September three additional classes for first and second year children were formed-two at the Hedge School and one at Lincoln Street. Each of these classes has about forty pu- pils. There are now sixteen classes for these two grades, num- bering 675 pupils. It does not seem likely that any further provision for these grades will be necessary for another year. It is probable that an additional school room will be required for an overflow Third and Fourth year class at the North, and another room for a Sixth grade at the Center. Both of these new classes can be provided for, the one in the new addition at the Hedge School, and the other in the proposed building on Sandwich Street.
There still remains the urgent need of two special classes,
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one for backward or abnormal children, and the other for over- age children who know no English.
It is not reasonable nor economical for children of twelve years or more, whose only bar to rapid progress in school work is that they cannot use English, to be placed with five- or six- year-old pupils. They need instruction different in kind and method from the younger children with whom they now must be placed. A year or two in a class particularly suited to their needs would do more for the most of them than double that length of time in the ordinary first and second year school. There is a financial as well as a moral consideration here, both greatly in favor of forming a special class for such children.
The second need of this kind is special provision for back- ward or abnormal children. In many classes in the lower grades there are one or more children who ought not to be in a public school. They can gain little direct help from the reg- ular school work, and are a real hindrance and often a menace to the other children with whom they are placed. They are unfortunate, and should have our special consideration.
It is most desirable, and should be made possible, to provide a school with suitable equipment for such children, and to place in charge of it a teacher especially trained for such work. This matter is spoken of more in detail in the report of the School Physician. Any reasonable provision that can be made to carry out the suggestions which he makes on this subject will receive the cordial endorsement of every teacher who has such children in her care.
The need of such classes is urgent, as much for the sake of the children whose special requirements could thus be provided for, as for the sake of those schools which these children attend, and the work of which is hindered by their presence.
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GRAMMAR SCHOOLS
The grammar schools include grades 5 to 9. The number enrolled in these schools at present is 818, about 37 per cent. of the total school enrolment. They occupy nineteen school rooms, making an average of forty-three pupils to each teacher.
These 818 pupils are enrolled in the five grammar grades as follows :
Boys.
Girls.
Total.
Grade V,
112
136
248
Grade VI,
99
116
215
Grade VII,
83
160
Grade VIII,
69
65
134
Grade IX,
26
35
61
383
435
818
Promotions are made in each school by the regular teacher at the end of the school year in June. In doubtful cases the Superintendent is consulted. These promotions are based on the estimate of the pupil's daily work made by the teacher, and recorded at the end of each month, in the grammar schools, on report cards sent to the parents. When conditions seem to justify it, a pupil may be promoted on trial for a month. In such a case, the parent is notified by written form of the intended conditional promotion, and the promotion in this form is made only in case the parent gives written consent thereto. If, at the end of the probationary period, the pupil's work warrants it, the promotion is made for the rest of the year; but no pupil is expected to be retained in any class when his interests are best served by his going to a higher or lower one.
Every year some form of labor is claiming more and more of the boys and girls as soon as they are fourteen years old. The factory is becoming for most of them the ultimate goal. For many such the two years from fourteen to sixteen are lost years. They are not efficient workers by reason of intelligence
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or strength or fitness; and by their experience in the mill they are little better fitted for successful life at sixteen than at fourteen. Many foreign children who come here at twelve or thirteen years of age are at school only until they can meet the meager statutory test of being able to read and write English as well as an ordinary eight-year-old child, and then they go to work. Most of them have had their last direct help to fit them for intelligent citizenship or efficient labor. Being caught thus early, they become the more surely mere machines, useless out- side their narrow track.
It is this condition which is leading men and women in many different localities to seek some practical way of helping such children as are at work to find a more reasonable and efficient preparation for life during the period from fourteen to sixteen years. The night school in various forms has been tried; but the physical endurance of the ordinary boy or girl of fourteen or fifteen does not allow him to do school tasks at night after his full day's labor. And now the Continuation school is pro- posed for Massachusetts. There are two bills before the pres- ent session of the Legislature for the establishment of such schools. Both bills provide in substance that in any city or town where the School Committee shall have established part- time day schools for the purpose, children between fourteen and sixteen years old. who have left school and are in regular em- ployment, may be required by the School Committee to attend such schools not less than four hours a week between the hours of 8 a. m. and 5 p. m. The sort of work done in these schools will be left to the School Committee; but if the work and teach- ing done in them are approved by the State Board of Educa- tion, a part of the net cost of the schools is to be paid by the State. The hours of such schools are to be in the employer's time, and not at night, so that the children may profit by it to the greatest possible extent and without placing too heavy a tax upon their physical strength.
Continuation schools have been in operation in Europe for
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more than thirty years; and for the past three years have been carried on in Ohio and Wisconsin. They are reported to have gained universal approval and to secure most valuable results.
The schools proposed are important not only for the child's mental development, but for his general welfare. The years from fourteen to sixteen, especially when they are the first two years of work, are a critical period, in which a trained teacher, whose business is to keep the child's intellectual and moral in- terest alive, and who is alive to her privilege, can often exer- cise a decisive influence. By keeping their hold on the children during these two years, the schools can do more to solve the problem of juvenile law-breaking than could be done by any other agency.
If authority be given by statute to start such schools here in Massachusetts, Plymouth gives excellent opportunity for co-operation of the mills with the School Board to secure the excellent results which such schools have won elsewhere.
HIGH SCHOOL
Those who receive certificates from the grammar schools are admitted to the High School. No formal examinations are required, except in the case of those from other places who apply for admission. There were 50 who received certificates from the ninth grade last June, and 49 of these entered the High School. In addition to those entering from the ninth grade, 41 from the eighth grade who were regarded as ready to do the work of the High School, and two from out of town, were admitted on trial. This made the total membership of the entering class 92.
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The present current expenses of the High School are :
Teachers' salaries,
$8,290 00
Janitor, 550 00
Fuel and light (estimated)
800 00
Books and supplies (estimated)
1,000 00
$10,640 00
This makes the current expense for each pupil in the present total membership of the High School, $47.50.
The present membership of the High School is 224 pupils, with nine regular teachers. The work of the school is carried on in four courses, as follows :
Boys. 8
Girls. 31
Total
Classical Course,
39
Scientific Course,
35
6
41
Literary Course,
1
25
26
Commercial Course,
46
72
118
90
134
224
Each of the four courses named above ordinarily requires four years for its completion. The student can prepare for college or technical school in four years. With a few restrictions such as seem necessary to prevent waste of time by injudicious or careless selection of subjects, any student for whom a full course is unnecessary or impossible may ordinarily take a special or partial course suited to his purpose. In this way. too, pupils who wish to take a full course, but who, for reasons of health are not able to do so, may make the work of each year easier by doing it more leisurely, taking five or more years to complete the regular four years' course. By such an arrangement the advantages of the school are offered to some who would other- wise be barred from them, while the number of classes and the teaching work of the school are not materially increased thereby.
I have asked the principal of the High School, Mr. Whiting,
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to write a short statement of the work at the High School dur- ing the past year, and he submits the following :
Mr. Francis J. Heavens,
Superintendent of Schools.
Dear Mr. Heavens: Herewith I hand you a brief report of the High School for the year 1912:
The work of the year has been, on the whole, very satisfactory. The pupils are realizing more and more each day that success in school as well as in life depends largely upon individual ef- fort, and that the school room should be their workshop, reg- ulated by strict business principles. The reports coming in from the different colleges seem to indicate that the representatives from the class of 1912 are maintaining a standard of scholar- ship which reflects credit not only upon themselves but also upon the school in which they received their preparation.
The English Department, which ought to be the most import- ant and best in every secondary school, has been weak because of the lack of well equipped and specially trained teachers, and a move was made in the right direction when Miss Grace A. Croff, a graduate of Radcliffe College and a teacher of several years' experience, was engaged to take charge of this department. Everything now would seem to indicate that no mistake was made, and that Plymouth was fortunate in securing her ser- vices. Owing to the increased numbers in the two lower classes the work was such that an additional teacher was needed. Miss Roberta Miller, a graduate of Boston University in the class of 1912, was therefore engaged to teach French and English. The corps of teachers is without exception, doing its work faithfully and well, and there is no reason why, with proper support, the standard of scholarship in the Plymouth High School should not be the equal of any in the State.
There has been and is in Plymouth a lack of school spirit and school loyalty which are so necessary if a school is to reach the highest point of its efficiency. These can only be attained by making the school the center of the social as well as the intellect-
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ual activity of our young people. With this end in view, two debating clubs with a membership of about seventy, have been organized, one for the boys and one for the girls, a series of school dances is being held under the supervision of the teachers, and a class in Indian club drill, with Miss Gertrude Smart as instructor, has been formed with a membership of about forty girls. That the pupils appreciate these efforts made in their behalf is evidenced by the enthusiasm they have shown for these activities, and the seriousness with which they have tak- en up this new work. The school is handicapped in not being able to secure a hall large enough to accommodate all, both parents and children, who wish to take part in this social life, and this, I trust, may be remedied in the near future.
The High School which completes the education of about four-fifths of its members is not fulfilling its mission if it does not provide a training which will enable its pupils to begin ac- tive life well prepared to do some specific thing. We are com- pelled by law to prepare for college and this part of our work must be done and done well in order that our graduates may enter higher institutions without any handicap, but so much at- tention ought not to be given to these that the great mission of the school is overlooked. In the minds of the best educators some form of Industrial education should be provided by all secondary schools, and if a beginning could be made in this line of work the efficiency and usefulness of the school would be largely increased.
In closing, I wish to express my appreciation of the cordial support given me by the school committee and yourself. If the school has done good work during the past year and a half, it has been due largely to this support and the hearty co-operation of the teachers. Confidence in one's leader and a feeling of good fellowship among his followers are necessary conditions for success in any line of work. This is especially true in schools and school systems, and that these conditions exist in
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Plymouth is clearly shown by the standard of scholarship shown by the pupils who have entered the High School the past two years.
Respectfully submitted, WM. C. WHITING.
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