USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > Town annual report of Swampscott 1948 > Part 8
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Theoretically, here is an increase of two first grades of perhaps thirty pupils each; and such would be the actual case if the pupils should all live in the same neighborhood. Unfortunately, they will not. They will be spread all over town, and almost inevitably we shall be establishing not two additional first grades but four-one in each building. And because all of these children will have attended our kindergartens, there will already have been established several more of these classes since they are now at capacity in at least three buildings; while shortly afterwards the second grades will feel the result and there will be a crying need for expansion there. And so, ad infinitum, to a stopping point not easy to foresee.
Obviously we are not ready to receive such an influx. We have available one room in the Machon School, one in the Clarke School, and one in the Stanley. The Hadley School has no spare room left at all, and it is in this district that the most serious condition exists. This building could be relieved by transfers to the Stanley School if Forest Avenue were suitable for winter travel through the Whitney Estate, but it is not.
One fortunate circumstance has made possible a temporary and partially satisfactory solution of the Hadley School situation. At the moment the Junior High School is at its lowest enrollment point in years. This condition has made possible using two rooms in the Junior High building as elementary classrooms this year, but this relief cannot continue because the Junior High School is due to become larger almost immediately. This we can tell by observing elementary school enrollments throughout the town.
Consequently we are faced with the fact that on the basis of all observable evidence, within two years we are not going to have room in those two buildings to house the pupils attending Junior High School and the Hadley elementary. Indeed, we shall be hard put to accommodate them next September. The only immediate solution to this situation is to transfer the ninth grade to the Senior High School.
At the moment such a transfer can be made. The High School was planned to care for six hundred pupils when all possible facilities in the building are in use to utmost capacity, a figure now reduced somewhat because we have transformed a spare classroom into a music room. There are approximately three hundred and eighty pupils there now. For a year or two, prospective ninth grades will contain about one hundred twenty-five pupils. Their transfer would
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SCHOOL REPORT
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Relationship of resident births to enrollment in Grade One.
200 persons
= No. of resident births in given year.
= No. of children enrolled locally in Grade One, six years after date indicated.
À
100 persons
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
therefore, carry the building over the five hundred mark. In general, the equipment as it stands is adequate. The only obvious shortage of furnishings is clothing lockers, of which there are at present about 440.
By authority of the last annual town meeting a committee is at work determining the cost of a gymnasium at the Junior High School. A gymnasium at that location is, of course, a crying need, but its erection will do nothing to meet the need for classrooms. It is my hope that this committee may see its way clear not only to carry out its specific task, but likewise to interest itself in studying the needs of the Hadley School as a whole. It seems quite within pos- sibility that the whole process might be accomplished by one building project that would be an architectural whole, at considerable financial advantage to the town.
Our other buildings present their individual problems, pressing enough but not reaching the critical stage as at the Hadley School. There is still an unused classroom at the Stanley School. This building was planned to have another wing added between the auditorium unit and Forest Avenue. Factors that would force quick attention to this building would be the acceptance and improvement of Forest Avenue as a public way through the Whitney Estate, and the opening up of that property to home building. If Forest Avenue were a safe and passable thoroughfare in winter travel, the Stanley School could now be made to serve children living in the Shaw Estate, for it is nearer to them than is the Hadley School.
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TOWN DOCUMENTS
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The Machon School at the moment seems adequate for its popu- lation. It has one spare room. The erection of a Veterans Housing Project in the area may, however, bring a sudden change of condi- tions. There seems to have been no thought of a future expansion when this building was planned. Structurally the building is sound, and its extension is worth architectural study.
The Clarke School is a building that should be replaced. It was erected in 1906 and its design, while characteristic of the period, would not be permitted by State authorities today for a number of reasons, among them the arrangement of its stairways. It needs much attention in the matter of maintenance. Over a period of fifteen years its heating system and toilets have been modernized. Just before the war we insulated the attic and began to replace its floors, but we were not able to complete this job because of scarcity of materials. This year we installed new stair treads and remodeled a room for the kindergarten. Next year the building must be redecorated inside. In the immediate future we must install new lighting and lay the rest of the floors. I estimate the costs on these projects to be: Painting, $2500; new lights, including necessary rewiring, $4500; floors, $2500. I daresay the cost of these projects, plus that of the toilets and heating system represent a sum not too far removed from the original cost of the whole building when it was new.
With all these projects completed we still shall have an old building, and there is no indication that its facilities will be adequate. We know, of course, that it lacks entirely an assembly room of any type, which is essential space for any modern school, but I am not referring to that lack. I speak of pupil seating capacity. Our recent census shows that within three years we may expect fifty children to enroll in this building from the Plymouth Avenue area alone. I suggest, therefore, that now is the time to consider whether it is the greater wisdom to spend money on patching up a structure that owes us nothing and may not be sufficient when patched, or to set about replacing that structure with one that will be up-to-date and adequate in every respect.
In September we opened kindergartens at the Clarke, Machon and Stanley Schools. It must be frankly admitted that the demand for this type of class had been under estimated. A survey in the late spring indicated children enough for those three classes and for still another class in the Hadley School district, but the problem of avail- able classrooms in that area offered a serious problem. This was finally met by taking advantage of the estimated low Junior High School enrollment and transferring the fifth grade to that building.
The early start in equipping the first three rooms made possible opening them fully equipped, but with close to capacity enrollment. For the Hadley School, certain items of furniture have been greatly delayed and have not yet arrived. We are making out temporarily with fill-ins-some our own discards and some borrowed. We are not well off for kindergarten rooms. We are using ordinary classrooms made as attractive as redecorating could make them. They are not large enough for a modern kindergarten, are not decorated as such a room would be, and lack certain lavatory and toilet facilities customarily included in such a unit. They should be viewed as tempo- rary quarters, and additions or alterations in any elementary build- ings ought, in my judgment, to include new rooms for these classes as a necessity.
Coincidental with the establishment of kindergartens a slight adjustment was made in the entrance age to school. A pupil admitted to kindergarten must have his fifth birthday during the calendar year in which the school year starts. Logically, therefore, a pupil
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entering grade one must reach his sixth birthday during the cor- responding period. The net result is to require that a child be two months older than formerly in entering grade one. This is a regula- tion quite in keeping with the average practice in systems where kindergartens exist, investigation showing that more than half of those systems require that degree of chronological maturity, or more. Furthermore, it coincides with the opinion expressed by our primary teachers and principals that the youngest of our entering pupils have been too often handicapped by a lack of maturity to progress at a rate comparable to their older classmates.
In November our Junior and Senior High School lunch counters became participants in the Federal Lunch program. This assures them a subsidy from Federal funds to the extent of four cents for each balanced lunch served in accordance with certain standards of nutritional values. There were two substantial reasons for entering on this program: the certainty of serving to pupils a better lunch at less cost, and the necessity for increasing our income.
That the first aim has been attained is already evident. Sales of hot-dish lunches have already increased noticeably with the improve- ments in quality and size of servings without increase in cost. The need for additional income has been obvious for about three years. Over that period the surplus that had been built up in the lunchroom accounts has been nearly dissipated in the attempt to keep down the cost to pupils and still maintain quality and quantity. This has been a losing fight which we hope will be stemmed by the receipt of the Federal funds and the opportunity to use supplies at little or no cost from the Federal "abundant foods" list.
In September we established speech classes at the High School for the first time. Although we had no doubt in our own minds as to the value of such classes, neither Mr. Dunn or myself had anticipated the interest they would be to pupils. Our expectation had been a trial class of perhaps twenty pupils. Instead, more than a hundred enrolled, of whom about twenty eliminated themselves later when
they discovered either that program difficulties made the election impossible, or that what they had expected to be a lark was going to be a course requiring a considerable amount of hard work. The work is now going forward with enthusiasm.
In his annual report to me Mr. Dunn comments in this way about the course : "I believe that it is one of the most important sub- jects that we are offering to the student body. It is designed to make all pupils more effective when they converse among themselves and meet in social and economic ways. It affords training in thinking and helps to develop personality. It has proved to be a course that ties in closely with other curricular activities such as guidance, social activities, English and dramatics."
Meanwhile our Audio-Visual Education program has made sub- stantial progress. Equipment has been improved and the amount of use made of it substantially increased. By the end of this school year we shall be in excellent shape in that regard. Meanwhile six or eight teachers have been attending professional courses in that field, which will without doubt open up to them new opportunities and new understandings of the possibilities of this kind of teaching aid. Although Mr. Rathbone, who did the first organizing of this depart- ment, left us during the summer, his successor, Mr. Walter Drogue of the High School faculty, has picked up the task with enthusiasm.
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TOWN DOCUMENTS
[Dec. 31
During the year we accomplished some rather substantial re- pairs. The entire cast-stone trim of the Junior High School was re- paired by cutting out and filling defective areas, of which there were many, and applying a surface treatment. Rooms at the Clarke, Hadley and Machon were completely renovated for kindergarten use gutter repairs were made at the Clarke School, and a broken roof drain re- placed at the Hadley. In the High, Junior High, Machon and Clark Schools other classrooms were redecorated. A chain link fence was erected on the south property line of the Junior High School, abuttors paying half the costs. The play area above the Machon School on Bur- pee Road was surfaced and a fence erected along the sidewalk line. The crumbling entrance steps at the rear of the Hadley School were broken out and entirely replaced. New non-skid stair treads were in- stalled on the main stairway at the Clarke School. Approximately three hundred pupils' desks, and most teachers' desks at the Clarke and Machon Schools, have been refinished. The flagpole at the Machon School was moved from its inconvenient place on the roof to a more accessible location on the Essex St. front of the building.
I feel that the following are essential projects for 1949 :
New auditorium curtain and draperies at Stanley School.
Repair of chimney at Junior High School.
Redecorating of auditorium at Junior High School.
Installation of emergency lights at Junior High School.
Interior wall repairs and redecorating of two rooms at Junior High School.
Interior painting, complete, at Clarke School.
Repair of concrete work (flagpole base, sidewalk, steps and certain window sills) at High School.
Redecorating of corridor at Machon School.
Dedecorating of several rooms at High School.
Installation of new lighting in Grade 4 at Machon School.
Repair of switch board, High School auditorium.
Adjustment of ventilation, High School auditorium. Repair of roofs, Machon and Hadley Schools.
Fireproofing of all auditorium draperies in every school.
Painting exterior, Hadley and Junior High.
There had been several events worthy of note in connection with our athletic program. During the summer Mr. George Hutchinson, who had for many years carried on the activities at the Junior High School, indicated his desire to relinquish these duties. We were loathe to lose Mr. Hutchinson's services in this connection, and arrived, we think, at a happy compromise that promises to be to the advantage both of Mr. Hutchinson and the High School. With John Mclaughlin of the High School faculty taking on ninth grade athletics, Mr. Hutchinson agreed to carry on with grades seven and eight on an intra-mural basis. Mr. Mclaughlin will coordinate his work with that of the High School coaches, thus, we hope, sending boys into the high school picture better trained in the necessary fundamentals.
With the opening of the football season the long-awaited field house became available at Blocksidge Field, and our football teams were able to make it their headquarters. The location of needed facilities at the field has proven to be a distinct asset much appre- ciated by the coaches and the team members. Although in its original condition the building contained no fittings for the care of equip- ment, these items have been provided by funds from the Athletic Association. Mutual agreement between the Park Commissioners and High School authorities provides that care of equipment shall be the duty of the High School, while cleaning and sanitation shall be the care of the Park Department.
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SCHOOL REPORT
1948]
By action of the last state legislature, the way was opened for the first time for School Departments to provide insurance to cover essential bills for injury to pupils engaging in athletic contests or other supervised school-sponsored activity in the physical education program. As of mid-August the School Committee put such a policy in effect. It provides reimbursement up to $500 for medical, surgical or nursing expense due to an accident (except to natural teeth, in which case the coverage is much less) occurring to Junior and Senior High School pupils in physical education activities, football, baseball, field or ice hockey, basketball and golf. As of December 23 there have been forty-four claims made under this policy, all of which have been paid in full to a total of $379.00.
In addition to this insurance the School Committee has felt that security against financial loss warranted the placing of theft insur- ance on band instruments, typewriters and office machines owned by the Department and valued at well over $10,000, and on athletic equipment when it is at the field house.
At the close of school in June we lost by retirement three teachers who had been with us many years: Miss Anna Willey of the Hadley School, Miss Amy Thissell of the High School, and Miss Mary I. Perkins, Principal of the Machon School.
Whenever a teacher of such standing as these withdraws, there seems to remain in a school system less and less of that intangible something which was characteristic of the part or which exists in the present only in an altered and diluted form. Its definition is not easy. Certainly most teachers today have entered into and continue in their profession out of sheer love of teaching and a devotion to children. Their numbers are overwhelming in comparison to those whose purpose is to teach merely to make a living. Yet whenever one comes in intimate contact with such teachers as Miss Willey, Miss Thissell and Miss Perkins, the quality which stands in boldest relief and which so indefinably marks them as different is their utter unselfishness and devotion to their self-chosen tasks. The hours in their classrooms are never too long. The additional tasks which they assume, the uncounted hours of unscheduled work which they spend that their duties may be better performed, the conscientious attention to detail and perfection which they give, all these are to them the elements to be rendered as a matter-of-course and without thought of reward other than that which they share through the success of their pupils.
It is ironic comment on the attitude of the public-at-large country-wide that it has smugly accepted such services over the years as worthy of no other reward. One of the teachers in question taught her first fifteen years for a remuneration ranging between $350 and $950 a year. At the end of forty years she had still not attained a salary of $2000. How nice it is that she was so constituted that she could find her recreation in her profession and her satisfaction in the progress of her pupils! And how fortunate it is for her that, during the last four years of her service, those who could not live on satis- faction alone became so few that finally some resemblance to ade- quate remuneration came to her, lest she too give up in despair and there should be none to take her place !
*
Other teachers who withdrew from our system during the year are Robert Rathbone, teacher of English at the High School, who has joined the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Miss Marjorie McDougal who was married. New teachers are:
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TOWN DOCUMENTS
[Dec. 31
Mrs. Joan Curtis, from Lesley College, to Machon School kinder- garten.
Miss Ann Combs, from Marblehead, Mass., to Clarke School Kinder- garten.
Mrs. Helen Hudson, from Clarke School grade one, to Hadley School kindergarten.
Miss Barbara Young, from Topsfield, Mass., to Stanley School kinder- garten.
Mr. Arthur Crosbie, from Dean Academy, to High School English Department.
Mr. John I. McLaughlin, from U. S. Navy, to High School History Department.
Mrs. Cecelia Loring, from substitute list, to Machon School grade one (temporary).
Miss Jeanne Lepine, from Hyannis, Mass., to High School Foreign Language Department.
Mrs. Claire Murray, from substitute list, to Hadley School assistant (temporary) .
Mrs. Elizabeth Hahn, from Boston University School of Education, to Reading Consultant, all grades.
Miss Madelaine Murphy, from New Britain, Connecticut, Teachers College, to Principalship of the Machon School.
One hesitates to speak of increases in cost these days because the situation in that respect has become matter-of-course. However, it seems to me wise to point out that salaries alone in the extra classrooms made necessary by the kindergartens and our overcrowded grades are adding about eight thousand dollars to our budget over the figure for last year, and the normal step increases amount to more than $3,000 beyond that.
The following excerpts from the report of Mr. Dunn, Principal of the High School, will be of interest to you :
"A high school in this mid-20th century has many tasks to perform. In a suburban community, such as Swampscott, the high school must of necessity, be strong in its college preparatory curri- culum. Whereas the percentage of those in our school that will continue with academic, or liberal education, is much higher than the national average, our task is more than to prepare for a further- ance of this type of education. For a large percentage of the student body,-approximately 50% -high school comprises terminal educa- tion. If such is not the case, there often follows a comparatively short period of training in specific vocational skills. More and more it is becoming apparant that the chief justification of college education on the four year level is when the objective is preparation for profes- sional training. The challenge to us teachers is quite clear. We must give more and more attention to individual problems and needs. This includes vocational guidance and individual counselling. It is the intention of our teachers to stimulate vocational interests and to seek out the interests of pupils. We arrange for vocational talks to the students by representatives of different occupations. In a school of this size, too, each individual has an opportunity to avail himself of counselling from individual teachers in the school.
Academic Achievement
Among the colleges now being attended by the Class of 1948 are the following :
Boston University Brandeis Brown Colby
Radcliffe Regis Rhode Island State
Simmons
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SCHOOL REPORT
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Colby Junior College
Tufts
Dartmouth
University of Maine
Harvard
University of Massachusetts
Jackson
University of New Hampshire
Lesley
Wesleyan
Northeastern
Wheelock
That Swampscott High School has won the confidence of many of our leading colleges is due to the efforts, over a long period of years, of an efficient faculty, the efforts of my predecessor Mr. Gray, and the records made by Swampscott High School graduates. The latter are among the outstanding students, and are attaining scho- lastic honors at present in the following institutions: Harvard, Dartmouth, Radcliffe, Tufts, Jackson, Colby, Rhode Island State, Smith and Vassar.
Indicative of the high level of scholarship being maintained in the colleges by our graduates, is the record of three boys in the Class of 1951 at Dartmouth. Dean Morse of the freshman class notified the school last May, that of the seven ranking schools in the country, represented in that class, Horace Mann School for Boys stood first with an average of 3.03 and Swampscott High School second with an average of 2.93.
National Honor Society
Our faculty has voted to enroll our school in the National Honor Society. There are nearly 4500 member schools throughout the country. This action was taken to stimulate scholarship in the school. It is a distinct honor for a boy or girl to attain membership in this organization. Mr. Brooks Blossom is the faculty adviser."
Respectfully submitted,
FRANK L. MANSUR
December 31, 1948
SWAMPSCOTT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION
Financial Report for Fiscal Year September 8, 1947 to July 15, 1948 RECEIPTS
FOOTBALL
Gate Receipts
$4,664.37
Contracts & Guarantees 3,289.06
Miscellaneous :
Advance sale-Tickets for 3 games 165.00
Advance sale-Reading tickets 58.20
Advance sale-Gloucester tickets ..
156.70
Bus Fares-Reading
60.00
Bus Fare-Gloucester
52.80
Advance sale-Amesbury tickets.
44.70
Membership A. A. Assoc.
7.05
Bus Fares-Amesbury
42.30
Cheerleaders Sweaters
45.00
Bus Fares
32.90
Refund Brine Co.
2.05
Refund Arrow System (over-
charged on cleaning bill last year)
41.40
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TOWN DOCUMENTS
[Dec. 31
Boosters' Dance 86.92
Advance sale-All Star tickets .... 8.05
Football Sweaters (Bonefant & 14.75
Mackenzie)
TOTAL FOOTBALL RECEIPTS
$8,771.25
BOYS' BASKETBALL
Gate Receipts
$435.42
435.42
GIRLS' BASKETBALL
Receipts for jacket (J. Hurwitz)
10.00
10.00
BASEBALL
Reimbursed for expenses from
Dummer Academy for game
played June, 1946
34.50
34.50
GIRLS' FIELD HOCKEY
Hockey jackets
91.80
91.80
GOLF
,
Guarantee-Phillips Academy ........
15.00
15.00
ICE HOCKEY
Refund-Noyes Hardware 2/1/48
.70
Reimbursed for expenses for All
Star game
5.00
Total Receipts
$5.70
Total Receipts
9,363.67
DISBURSEMENTS
FOOTBALL
Equipment
$1,354.13
Cleaning & Reconditioning
184.55
Medical Services & Supplies
221.03
Transportation
679.80
Police
308.00
Officials
195.00
Contracts & Guarantees
1938.90
Ticket Sellers & Takers
136.00
Field Expenses
21.20
Printing
93.00
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