USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > Town annual report of Swampscott 1957 > Part 9
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Town of Swampscott
and, once having screened out the results, will undoubtedly recommend modifications. One important finding it has already been able to report. After a thorough compara- tive study, the Committee turned up ample evidence that there is no validity to comment sometimes made that marks in elementary grades correlate poorly with those received in junior high. Correlation is, in fact, high; marks a pupil gets in his elementary years prove an accurate gauge of what he may expect in junior high school.
Three years ago another group of teachers organized themselves into a com- mittee to evaluate our elementary science work and conducted a two-year study that led to adoption in our system of the Allyn-Bacon series. Last fall a consultant from Allyn-Bacon gave live demonstrations in the teaching of science to teachers from each of our grade levels. Today this committee is launching a new study. The group will determine what science is being taught and should be taught on each grade level and hopes to make available to elementary teachers themselves materials and procedures that will contribute to their maximum effectiveness.
As we look ahead to 1958, we see several curricular areas that merit considera- tion. Educational television is one, certainly. This spring Channel 2 will begin in-school programs for elementary grades, with individual study guides geared to specific lessons scheduled and announced for specific days. Though we have made no budgetary provision for participation in 1958, we shall follow the progress of the program closely. It is likely that we shall find it sufficiently valuable to make us want to participate in 1959.
An up-to-date curriculum depends greatly upon modern instructional equip- ment. This past year we purchased five electric typewriters for our business department. In 1958 we expect to add recordings to the equipment of our language department that will enrich the conversational portions of the program.
Professional Activities Cover Wide Range
With each new year we find more and more of our school family participating in professional organizations on both regional and state level. These undertakings we have encouraged since we strongly feel that they have direct value for our schools themselves.
The Swampscott Teachers Association has been extremely active. At the request of the School Committee, they made a thorough study of merit as it relates to salary. Representatives visited and studied Lexington, Concord, Lincoln and Weston and other towns to appraise the success of variant forms of the merit principle.
Philip A. Jenkin in June completed his second year as chairman of the Essex County Teachers' Association Salary Committee and more recently has been named to the Public Relations Committee of the State Association. Your Superintendent has enjoyed the privilege of serving on a committee for the study of school building problems in Woburn. Several other staff members have been active on committees of the New England School Development Council, The Association of Childhood Education, and similar groups. Five teachers have continued graduate studies and won their Masters' Degrees.
We have also encouraged more of our people to attend and contribute to conferences in particular fields of specialization or interest. Mrs. Beatrice Hutchinson and Miss Alice Durgin, representing the Teachers' Association, attended in October
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1957 Annual Report
a Leadership conference at Great Barrington. Other staff members have attended conferences on reading, high school science, foreign languages, music, and English.
Theodore C. Sargent, Chairman of the School Committee, has been elected a director of the National School Boards Association. William Rothwell, 2nd, and Principal James H. Dunn of the High School were both named to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Council.
Our High School itself was chosen as a testing center by the College Entrance Examination Board. Pupils from Swampscott, Marblehead and neighboring com- munities will take Aptitude and Achievement tests there this winter and spring, under supervision of Swampscott High School teachers.
Athletic Program Pays Generous Dividends
It would be easy to describe the success of our athletic program soley in terms of recent team victories. Certainly Swampscott has chalked up its full share in the past year, climaxed by its first undefeated football season and the New Year's trip to Miami for the players sponsored by a grateful community.
Yet behind the success in actual competition lies an up-from-the-roots program which over a five-year period has nurtured young bodies into accomplished athletes. During this period, active participation has tripled and Swampscott schools can now offer to every boy and girl from the fifth grade up an opportunity to participate in a variety of sports. The program embraces football, field hockey, basketball, ice hockey, baseball, track, tennis, badminton, softball - even modern dance. Girls and boys alike receive training in physical skills and in the lessons of together-ness that eventually make them valuable members of Swampscott teams in healthy competition with other schools.
Record of College Admissions and Scholarship is Impressive
Graduates of Swampscott High School received degrees with honors last June from Harvard, Princeton, Williams, Bates and Vassar. One of our two honor graduates from Harvard won a Fulbright Scholarship entitling him to a year's graduate study at the University of Manchester in England; the other has gone on to a graduate year at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Members of the High School class of 1957 won substantial scholarships at Harvard, Tufts, Brandeis, Williams, Springfield, Regis and Emanuel.
Funds given by local groups for scholarships continue to mount. Last June the High School was recipient of a $5,000 bequest from the late Harry Cohen. Other Swampscott citizens contributed scholarships totaling $3700.
Adults Come Back to School
A total of 241 grown-ups joined evening classes in the first year of our new Adult Education Program. In October, ten separate courses began in homemaking, academic and secretarial subjects.
An article sponsored at the March Town Meeting by the Upper Swampscott Improvement Association and the School Committee authorized the School Depart- ment to set up a State-aided practical arts and homemaking program. Courses in sewing, knitting, home repair and decorated ware began October 8 and 9. With time out for school vacations, these meet once each week for twenty weeks.
To supplement the State-aided program, school officials enlisted services of University Extension to launch classes in French, Current Events, English, Basic
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Town of Swampscott
Electronics, Typing and Shorthand. The week of October 21 these began two terms of eight weeks each.
Cadet and Exchange Teachers Come From Near and Far
Swampscott schools have been honored as one of eight Massachusetts communi- ties to receive a foreign exchange student. On January 9, 1958, Miss Mamaroth Phengsy, a native of Laos, will arrive to spend approximately five weeks with us, primarily to observe as many phases as possible of American public education. Most of her time she will spend as a visitor in our elementary schools, giving pupils information and insight into customs of her country. Miss Phengsy will also attend meetings of community groups interested in what she can tell them about Laos.
We should also call attention to the significant number of students who each year spend several weeks obtaining supervised experience in our classrooms. In 1956-57 we had cadet teachers from Boston University, Brandeis, Tufts, Salem Teachers College and Perry Kindergarten School. These young people have gained ex- perience under our teachers in music, science, business, art and elementary education.
Staff Appointments Remain All-Important
I have stated before on many occasions that recruitment of teachers is my most important single responsibility. In not a few areas, shortage of teachers is acute and qualified candidates are scarce.
Fourteen teachers are new with us this year, selected after more than one hundred interviews and the accompanying machinery of correspondence and scheduling. Some of these appointments represent negotiations extending over the greater part of the school year.
Yet, after these many hours, we still have in the current year the same number of staff members that we had in 1955-56. Increasing enrollments at the High School necessitated addition of two teachers there, but platooning all kindergartens each under a single teacher resulted in a net reduction of two elementary teachers. Thus our total staff remains at 125.
Other adjustments resulted from one retirement, seven resignations and four leaves of absence.
Mrs. Mary Boyce, a teacher in the Junior High School since 1931, retired in June. Resignations were received from Virginia Earle, Maurice E. Nolan, Evelina Roney, Victor Sticklor, Geralde Sweeney, Helen Wessell and Georgette Weddendorf. On leave for the present school year are Patricia Sullivan, Marilyn Johnson, Carolyn White and Stanley Ellis.
Members of the school family were saddened when Elizabeth Kehoe, matron at the High School for twenty-one years, passed away in October after a short illness.
As enrollment in our schools has increased and as our program has expanded, so too have grown the responsibilities of the central office. The School Committee in 1957 created the new position of administrative Assistant to the Superintendent and in July named Philip A. Jenkin to the post. No better choice could have been made. Mr. Jenkin's contributions in six brief months have been many indeed.
Two positions were left unfilled in the 1957-58 school year. Both of them we hope to find the right people for by next September. We had planned to add a School Adjustment Counselor to our staff but, in spite of over twenty-five interviews with candidates, we were unable to secure exactly the person we have felt the post
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1957 Annual Report
requires. The position of Junior High art teacher, left open by military leave of the previous incumbent, we are confident will be covered again in the fall.
School Building at an Impasse
Town Meetings in February, March, October and December reached no final action on the proposed new high school. As this report is written, settlement awaits report of the special survey committee appointed to study the most economical and practical solution to the problem of inadequate school space. We can only hope that it will recognize and give chief consideration to the needs of our schools and have courage and foresight to meet them adequately. Meantime, 1150 secondary pupils continue on an abridged program with sub-standing housing and sub-standard facilities.
Temporary Adjustments Have Been Managed
A "staggered system" now operates at the High School. Ninth grade pupils, numbering approximately 200, come into the assembly hall at 8:30 and there divide into homeroom groups, six in all, each in charge of a teacher. This arrangement allows pupils of the three upper classes maximum use of all available classrooms from 8:00 until 8:53, at which time the freshmen begin their first regular class in a day that extends one period later than that of the older pupils. Thus we have retained for this year a full program and exploited to the full our limited classroom space.
Yet crowding has been costly. It has meant fewer activities for all: plays, student council and class meetings, musical programs, assemblies - all these have suffered. Tightly packed study periods, especially in the cafeteria, have lost us much of the atmosphere conducive to real learning. Further, coping with problems of classroom and corridor congestion has taxed heavily administrative time and thought that should be concentrated on creative educational planning.
The stagger system has given us a reprieve for this year. Another year we shall not avoid full platooning, with a program for 200 ninth graders running till nearly five o'clock in the afternoon.
Maintenance Problems Are Always With Us
In 1956 we had cut back drastically our budget for maintenance projects, not because the projects were unnecessary, but because it seemed wise to curtail our budget total. So in 1957 we had a backlog of needed jobs and were successful in completing a number of them. We hope that, by the end of 1958, we shall have departed from the emergency type of maintenance programming and will be on our way to a long-range program of preventive maintenance and consistent renovation.
The most expensive project in 1957 was the installation of a new boiler in the High School. Two of our old boilers were over 45 years old and had been condemned by the Inspector. The new installation is now complete and the boiler is operating satisfactorily.
At the Stanley School, we painted all classrooms in the old portion of the building. We made repairs to the roof of the old building and corrected some leaking conditions that had persisted for several years. Unfortunately we have been less successful in correcting the problems associated with the roof on the new addition. Ventilating ducts and fans were installed in the boiler room to improve
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Town of Swampscott
the operation of the boiler and to prevent serious over-heating of the classroom over the boiler room.
We finally waterproofed a wall of the Clarke School that had permitted water penetration during heavy storms for several years. All exterior woodwork was also given one coat of paint.
During the Christmas vacation period new fluorescent lights were installed in the auditorium of the Machon School. These have long been needed since the old lights were completely inadequate for classroom purposes. We are now using the area as a classroom for five hours daily. The School Committee cooperated with the Machon P.T.A. in financing new stage curtains.
The Hadley School Building Committee was inactive throughout 1957 while awaiting definite solution to the overall building problem. In this building we are now operating a minimum maintenance program, facing emergencies as they arise, painting only those areas in worst condition. We are trying to speed up the replacement of old furniture.
In addition to the new boiler at the High School, we painted the exterior woodwork on half the building. The project will be completed in 1958. Otherwise only minor work was done on this building. We contemplate much more extensive renovation in the coming year.
Months Immediately Ahead Are Crucial
We shall be in serious trouble if we cannot meet our building needs. School standards, and hence college admissions and job placements, will deteriorate. The community, too, will suffer. Trite though it may be to state it, as schools decline so a Town declines. Business levels and real estate values demonstrate, the nation over, acute sensitivity to downward pressure of neglected schools.
People too often forget that our conditions of inadequacy affect all levels of our school system - it is not the freshmen alone who suffer. For far too many years we have put up with a sub-standard junior high school that offers seriously restricted educational fare in a setting that would have been considered unsatis- factory by many communities a quarter-century ago.
In our elementary schools, we continue to use every available facility for classrooms and still cannot avoid the necessity of platoon. At the present time all kindergartens and one grade at the Hadley are on platoons. Next year we expect to place at least three grades on platoon in the Hadley. For some of these youngsters, it will be their fourth consecutive year on double shifts - not since they enrolled in kindergarten have they known what it is not to share a room with another group of pupils.
New construction, however, is not our only need. We must launch a thorough evaluation study of our entire educational program, concentrating the critical atten- tion of outside consultants on our junior high and high school in 1958. We should delay no longer following the lead of sister communities in appointing a State- authorized School Adjustment Counselor, to work between home and school with those elementary pupils whose problems may be outside the province of classroom teachers. And we should postpone no longer a thorough-going consideration of special courses of study for the gifted child.
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1957 Annual Report
Financial Statement for 1957
Total Appropriation
Transfers
$868,032.00 1,829.00
$869,861.00
Expenditures :
General Control
$ 19,350.04
Instructional Service
663,601.87
Operation of Plant
104,921.32
Maintenance
39,964.36
Auxiliary Services
30,773.53
Capital Outlay
5,035.07
$863,646.19
Balance at Close of Year
$ 6,214.81
Credits to the Public Schools:
State Aid, Trade &
Vocational Schools
947.00
State Aid, General School Fund
54,483.00
State Aid, Special Services
5,217.00
Tuition Received
1,142.00
General Receipts
364.00
$ 62,153.00
For the past three years the Board of Assessors has computed the tax rate for schools and the general tax rate for town departments. The procedure for computing the rates is established by law. Rates are as follows:
Year
Town
Schools
1955
30.90
20.10
1956
34.13
22.47
1957
37.71
24.29
On occasion, statements with little basis in fact have been made concerning the proportional part of the taxes in Swampscott allocated to the schools.
In conclusion, I should like to express my appreciation to those many citizens of Swampscott who during the past year have given generously of themselves in the cause of public education.
Respectfully submitted, ROBERT D. FORREST Superintendent of Schools
Pupils Enrolled - October 1, 1957
High School
Freshmen Sophs. 198
Juniors 187
Seniors 143
2
Total 742
Junior High Grades
Kind.
1
2
3
4
5
6
Sp.
Clarke
49
64
53
64
58
62
46
396
Hadley
39
36
45
56
47
44
57
324
Machon
42
35
24
37
38
41
30
247
Stanley
62
57
66
71
79
64
75
11
485
192
192
188
228
222
211
208
11
1452
High School
742
Junior High
380
Elementary
1452
2574
P.G. 's
212 Grade 7 195
Grade 8
185
380
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Town of Swampscott
Electronics Display - Swampscott Public Library - 1957
Public Library
TRUSTEES GEORGE W. HOWE, Chairman ANDREW R. LINSCOTT RUTH M. BARRY, Secretary
STAFF (December 31, 1957) EDITH N. SNOW, Librarian ELIZABETH W. FORBES, Children's Librarian RUTH E. POLLARD, Reference Librarian MARGUERITE W. CONDON, Part-Time Assistant JANE PINARD, Office Assistant THERESA F. KENNEALLY, General Library Assistant LOUISE E. CARON, General Library Assistant ANGELO M. LOSANO, Janitor ANTHONY DIPIETRO, JR., Night Janitor
LIBRARY USE
"The moment in which a book passes into the hands of a reader is the culmination of all the librarian's efforts, the point toward which all his activities
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1957 Annual Report
are aimed. If this event takes place frequently and fruitfully, the library may be judged to be successful." Swampscott Public Library can report its most successful year since 109,349 volumes were borrowed in 1957. This surpasses by 6192 the peak year of 1939.
Not all books used are taken home, however. "In library service . . . the recipient initiates a request for a certain message or type of message and the librarian must then find somewhere in the total body of recorded communication, the particular message or type of message requested." (People who saw "Desk Set" realize that this is not yet a fully automatic performance!) Though no count is kept, many more questions have been asked in both departments. Teachers stimulate many inquiries but not all, as this random listing of "answers found" on a few busy days shows:
Name and address of Maine Civil Service Commissioner.
Information on makes of steam irons - for a purchase.
Salaries paid in Forestry.
Recent novels with New England setting.
Wording for a resolution.
Which Chief Justices have changed within the past year?
Découpage - examples, etc.
Existentialism - history, explanations.
What is Tole Ware?
Kind of Paintings done by Thon.
Is "The Third Eye" seen in an English edition published in the United States ?
We attempt to schedule an assistant who gives full time to reference work on the four school nights. She is available afternoons also. Successful endeavor in this area shows how stimulating a librarian's work is, and how much general knowledge, plus special skill in handling books is needed.
AUDITORIUM
The Library has served an uncounted number of people who have come to attend meetings held in the auditorium. Unattractive though it is in its unfinished state, that room has been used weekly during the school year by a group of Boy Scouts; this fall a Brownie troop has come one afternoon a week. The Public Health nurse found it convenient for a 6 sessions' course for Expectant Mothers. Two groups used it to present one illustrated lecture each; and the Lynn Art Association is holding its winter series of 4 lecture-demonstrations there. All these add up to 50 meetings - for which our devoted janitor, Angelo Losano, has moved chairs and borrowed other equipment as needed. There is no doubt that other groups would like to use the room - there have been inquirers - if it were finished and equipped. Now that the need has been demonstrated, the Trustees have taken steps toward completion by asking the advice of Chester A. Brown, a noted architect, who gave his time to it as a public service. The Finance Committee has been asked for a sum of money.
EXHIBITS
The exhibits in the cases in the lobby have been planned to acquaint people with library resources, or to correlate books with topics of interest. Townspeople have been generous in lending objects and some have aided in arranging.
WORK WITH COMMUNITY GROUPS
In March the Library was host to a one-day Book Fair, inspired by Mrs. John H.
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Town of Swampscott
Hollis, skillful chairman of the Woman's Club Literature Committee, with the ample cooperation of the P.T.A.'s and St. John's Parents' Association. Unusual publicity directed by Mrs. Harold Power of the Woman's Club brought an almost overwhelming attendance which necessitated "repeat" stories and an overflow series in the basement. Marjory Hall, local author, generously met with High School girls for a talk. Lists of books of recent years dealing with schools and education, "reading aloud" titles, and a typical home reference library were distributed. Profits from the books sold were donated to the Children's Room to spend for things it 'would not otherwise have had'.
Our loyal friends, the town's numerous garden clubs, continue to bring the weekly arrangements; they gave $200 worth of trees and shrubs for the outside landscaping, which were put in place by the Public Works Department. Christmas decorations were again planned and put up by the Cottage Gardeners.
GIFTS
Gifts from individuals were many. A list of donors of books, periodicals and phonograph records is posted on a Bulletin Board in the main Library.
STAFF
As a volunteer, Miss Patricia Sales told stories to children once a month until school closed. Mrs. Philip Kitfield has held a reading and story-telling hour once monthly throughout the year. Mrs. Martin E. Katzenstein has given two mornings a week since October for "behind-the-scenes" work, doing anything that was most needed at the moment - some of them genuine bibliographic tasks.
Help from such well-qualified people has been particularly appreciated in the vicissitudes caused by resignations and the re-filling of 3 positions. The year ends with a full quota of promising staff members and indications that the Library will now be enabled to catch up on the arrears mentioned last year, which had been slightly augmented.
The Librarian is serving as a member of the Notable Books Council of the American Library Association, Massachusetts Chairman of A.L.A. membership and chairman of the Literature Committee of the Swampscott Woman's Club.
Police Department
FRANCIS P. WALL, Chief
PERSONNEL
Officers Harold J. Keating and Joseph P. Ryan attended and graduated from the Massachusetts State Police School. The training of these officers has proven to be beneficial both to the officers and to the department.
AUXILIARY POLICE
The Auxiliary Police under the direction of the Captain John P. Costin has been active during the year in assisting the regular force in many police functions. This force is ready for immediate service at any time.
ARRESTS
On warrant
6 Without warrant 26
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1957 Annual Report
Summonsed to appear in Court
28 Witness summonses served 12
Warrants served for other Police Departments 7
Summonses to appear in Court served for other Police Departments 245
OFFENCES CHARGED
Assault and Battery
7
Breaking, entering and larceny in the nighttime
7
Delinquency by reason of stubbornness
1
Disorderly conduct in violation of the Town By-Laws
1
Drunkenness
18
Larceny
1
Stubbornness
1
Vagrancy
1
Wilfully, intentionally and without right did cause damage to a building owned by the Town of Swampscott
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