USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Weymouth > Town annual report of Weymouth 1958 > Part 28
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Mr. Francis X. Kelly continues as Principal of the classes at the High, Bicknell Junior High and Central Junior High Schools, and Mr. Thomas E. Lambe as Principal of classes at South Junior High School.
The Evening Vocational program includes four classes which meet both Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are 13 in the Diversified Related Apprentice Class, with Mr. Eric Roy as the instructor. There are 14 in the Trade Extension Class in Printing, with Mr. John F. Collins as the instructor. There are 14 in the Sheet Metal Layout and Pattern Drafting Class, with Mr. James Boland as instructor. There are 17 in the Blue- print Reading and Architectural Drawing Class, with Mr. George Klay as the instructor. Mr. Ray G. Parker is the Director for these classes.
We shall need to be alert for new trends in adult education so that we may constantly offer the courses that people want and find useful as leisure time increases.
The School Building Program
The new twelve-room Thomas V. Nash, Jr. Elementary School was completed in March, the three-room addition to the Homestead School was occupied in September, and the six-room addition to the Pond School was occupied in November. Both additions and the new school have rem- edial reading rooms. The Nash School also has a special class room for a trainable class and an all-purpose room. The Pond addition includes a new playroom and the assembly hall in the basement of the original 1928 building now serves as a combination auditorium and lunch room.
The new six-room Center School replacement will be completed late in January. Construction of the twelve-room Green Street School was begun in October, but the early winter with an unusually deep frost fine has seriously slowed the work. The completion of this school will prob- ably be delayed until the late fall.
In approximately a ten-year period, since April of 1949 when the first construction projects were started, Weymouth will have built ten new schools, two additions to new schools, and seven additions to older build- ings. These nineteen projects will have cost approximately $9,760,000 .; Bond issues have totaled $9,073,000; of this amount as of January 2, 1959 $2,512,000. has been paid, and the balance outstanding is $6,561,000. The amount of State reimbursement available over a thirty-year period, 1950 through 1979, to defray a portion of the cost will be about $3,125,000.
The following new buildings and additions make up this extensive building program which has been carried out by eight different Building Committees :
School
Size
Begun
Occupied
1. Abigail Adams addition
6 rooms
April 1949
Feb. 1950
2. Pratt addition
4 rooms
April 1949
Feb. 1950
3. South Junior High School
600 pupils
April 1950
Sept. 1951
4. Elden H. Johnson School
12 rooms
Nov. 1950
Nov. 1951
5. Homestead School
9 rooms
Oct. 1951
Jan. 1953
6. James Humphrey addition
6 rooms
April 1952
May 1953
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7: Edward B. Nevin addition
6 rooms
July 1952
May 1953
8. Bicknell Junior High addition
8 rooms
Nov. 1952
Sept. 1953
9. Pond addition
5 rooms
June 1953
May 1954
10. Elden H. Johnson addition
7 rooms
Nov. 1953
Sept. 1954
11. Central Junior High School
1000 pupils
Nov. 1953
Sept. 1955
12. Academy Avenue School
12 rooms
April 1954
Sept. 1955
13. Ralph Talbot School
12 rooms
Oct. 1954
Oct. 1955
14. Lawrence W. Pingree School
12 rooms
Feb. 1956
Feb. 1957
15. Thomas V. Nash, Jr. School
12 rooms
Mar. 1957
Mar. 1958
16. Homestead addition
3 rooms
Nov. 1957
Sept. 1958
17. Pond addition
6 rooms
Feb. 1958
Nov. 1958
18. Center School replacement
6 rooms
Feb. 1958
Jan. 1959
19. Green Street school
12 rooms
Oct. 1958
*Nov. 1959
* Probable date
Double sessions for ten classes at the old Shaw School ended with the opening of the Nash School and double sessions at the Pond and Homestead Schools ended with the completion of the new additions, so for the present we have all pupils attending school full time. Thirteen elementary classes from North Weymouth, including the Adams district, are now being transported out of district as follows: five each to the Washington and Jefferson Schools in East Weymouth and two classes to the Nash School and one class to the Nevin School in South Weymouth. The delay in voting the Green Street school bond issue and the slowness of construction will result in double sessions in the fall for 24 North Wey- mouth classes; the twelve classes which will occupy the Green Street school when completed, and twelve other classes whose rooms they must share.
The double sessions for a two or three months' period 'will be neces- sary because eleven overflow classes from the Junior High Schools and increased elementary enrollments in East Weymouth will need the class- rooms that the North Weymouth pupils are now using.
We had planned to reopen in September the old five-room Shaw School, closed in March when the Nash School opened, but the building of the new St. Francis parochial school made this unnecessary. The open- ing of this parochial school together with the new Center School will also make room in the fall for the housing of six South Junior High School 7th grade classes in the Nash and Pond Schools, three classes in each school. The five-room Jefferson School in East Weymouth will house five seventh grade classes from Central Junior High School. The old Wash- ington School in East Weymouth will remain open to take care of the overflow enrollment from the Pingree and Humphrey Schools.
The so-called Center Portable School at the corner of Washington and Middle Streets can be abandoned after the new school opens. This school came into being in 1931 when two two-room portable schools, used in various parts of the town during the period of rapid enrollment growth during the 1920s, were placed here on the old Town Hall site as a temporary measure. This "temporary" building has been in use for over twenty-five years (it was closed for two school years, 1947-48 and 1948-49). This will be the first permanent closing or abandonment of a school building as a result of the postwar school building program. It will not be wise at this time to abandon the old Shaw School, because it may be needed again for Junior High overflow enrollments.
With the completion of the two schools now under construction, the elementary school building needs should be met for many years to come,
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except in East Weymouth. Here it will be necessary to use the old Wash- ington School and also the old Jefferson School, when it ends its period of use as a Junior High School annex, for the overflow elementary pupils from the Pingree and Humphrey School districts. These two old frame buildings were built in 1888 and 1889. A second-floor addition built over the 1953 addition to the Humphrey School might be the best solution to this need.
It will also be necessary to continue to use the old two-room John Adams School built in 1854. This building serves as an annex to the twelve- room Abigail Adams School.
The School Committee has voted to place the High School on double sessions in September until the new school now being planned is com- pleted. This action was unavoidable, as the predicted enrollment of 2100 for the school year 1959-60 exceeds the normal capacity of the combined High School and Vocational School plant by 500 pupils. The double sessions will last for two full school years and perhaps longer. The curtailed school day will shorten class periods and seriously affect most aspects of the school program. Pupils in the afternoon session will be at the greatest disadvantage. As sophomores will attend in the afternoon, pupils will be assigned to this session for only one year of the three years they spend in high school.
Teachers and Their Salaries
The revised teachers' salary schedule effective September 1st, pro- vides for increases of $250 at the minimum and $300 at the maximum. See revised salary schedule on page 383. The Teachers' Association re- quested increases of $450 at the minimum and $900 at the maximum for the bachelor's degree level and $1,000 at the maximum for the other levels.
This higher schedule will simply keep us in competition with sur- rounding towns. Five or six years ago, we were well above the smaller towns in the South Shore area; now, as will be noted below, the differ- ences are very small, if any. Minimum salaries for the bachelor's degree for September 1959 are as follows: Quincy, Milton, Weymouth, Hingham, Cohasset, Hull, Scituate, Marshfield and Randolph $4,000; Braintree $3,900; Abington, Rockland, Norwell and Holbrook $3,800. Maximum salaries for the bachelor's degree are as follows: Milton, Marshfield $6,400; Quincy $6,250; Abington $6,008; Weymouth, Hingham, Randolph $6,000; Hull $5,900; Braintree, Cohasset, Scituate $5,700; Norwell, Holbrook $5,600; Rockland $5,550.
The shortage of competent, well-qualified teachers has been with us since the war years. For the first ten years after the war, the problem was primarily in the elementary grades and in specialized fields such as industrial arts, vocational, music, art, etc. For the last three or four years the problem of securing capable, properly certificated secondary school teachers has grown increasingly difficult. With the greatly in- creased high school enrollments that nearly all communities will have during the next seven or eight years, the task of finding and holding able, experienced, and fully prepared secondary school teachers will be doubly difficult. Our salary scales must be kept abreast or preferably slightly above our neighbors, if we are to maintain the high standard of teaching effectiveness that now exists in most of our classrooms.
One of the deterrents to effective teaching is big classes and a high pupil load per teacher. The situation in the high school and junior highs in this respect has gradually worsened as the schools have become more
365
crowded each year. The lack of teaching spaces prevented the adding of sufficient teachers to keep class sizes at reasonable levels.
Next year double sessions at the high school and the use of elementary school classrooms for junior high pupils will make more space available. As a result, we plan to add sufficient secondary teachers in September to take care of the increased enrollments and at the same time to reduce class sizes. The budget provides for 16 additional high school teachers and a second assistant principal, and for 11 additional junior high school teachers.
*Teachers can earn four $100 increments beyond this maximum by taking courses. Braintree also has a dependency allowance for spouse and children.
The 1959 School Budget
The estimates for the School Budget will be found on pages 342-343 following the report of the School Committee. The total is over five times larger than the first budget I helped to prepare in Weymouth thirteen years ago. Perhaps a comparison of expenditures over a ten-year period will throw some light on the causes.
Expenditures
1948
1958
Ratio of* Increase
Administration
$ 19,652.32
$ 53,754.83
2.7
Instruction
599,881.11
2,214,650.27
3.7
Operation
88,307.62
300,959.57
3.4
Maintenance - Outlay
65,331.18
199,703,80
3.0
Auxiliary Agencies
42,684.42
183,746.07
4.3
Day Vocational
77,398.64
145,031.64
1.9
Evening Schools
3,894.57
12,644.30
3.2
Traveling Expense
352.28
1,462.73
4.1
Total expenditures
$897,502.14
$3.111,953.01
3.5
Enrollment
4,860
10,427
2.1
Instructional Personnel
204
429
2.1
Teachers' Salary Schedule,
Bachelor's degree level $1800-$3400
40
85
2.1
Custodians' Maximum Salary
$2400
$3952
Number of Schools
14
21 **
Number of Additions
9
2.0 ***
*The total expenditure in 1958 is 3.5 times greater than in 1948, admin- istration is 2.7 times as large, etc.
** Number of new buildings 8 (new Center School and Green Street School not included).
Capacity approximately doubled from 5,000 to 10,000.
$3750-$5700
Other Personnel
It will be noted that enrollments and personnel more than doubled in this ten-year period, with a doubled school plant to house the pupils. (The enrollment increase from 1945 to 1959 will be well over 6,000 pupils.) The balance of the increase, of course, is explained by inflation resulting in increased salaries and much higher prices for fuel, light, power, tele- phones, textbooks, supplies of all kinds, the transportation of pupils, new
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equipment, and contract work for repairs and improvements. The cost of transportation included under auxiliary agencies increased from $30,385 to $118,099. The allowance for transportation in the new budget is $127,491.
Over 89 per cent of the increase in the 1959 Budget over 1958 is due to increased salary costs. The estimate for the 33 additional teachers needed in September is $53,650 for the four-month period; the cost of the general teachers' salary increase effective in September is $40,333. Salary increases in recent years have taken place with the beginning of the new school year in September, which means that only one-third of the cost occurs in the Budget for that year and that two-thirds of the cost is car- ried over to the budget for the next year. An analysis on this basis of the teachers' salary increases in the 1959 Budget follows:
Salary items payable for 12 months in 1959 instead of 4 months in 1958 $149,883
Increased special payments 14,792
Salary items payable 4 months in 1959 110,316
Total increase $274,991
No general increase is provided in the Budget for school nurses and secretaries. Three of the four step-up increments for Custodians and Maintenance Men were increased from $2.00 a week to $3.00 a week, effec- tive April 1st. This means that men at the maximum will receive an an- nual increase of $156.00. This increase makes the Custodians' salary scales more comparable with similar town-wide schedules in which annual step- up increases are either $3.00 or $3.50.
The expenditures for salaries in 1958 amounted to 81 per cent of the total expenditures and for the last five years this amount has averaged 80.66 per cent.
Our cost per pupil for current day school expenditures continues among the lowest in the State for large communities. Only 10 of the 54 cities and towns in Massachusetts with a population of over 20,000 have a lower per pupil cost than Weymouth. Seven of the ten are industrial cities: New Bedford, Fall River, Lawrence, Brockton, Chicopee, Attleboro, and Gardner. Among these same 54 cities and towns, Weymouth's rank in average teachers' salaries was 39th. For the school year 1956-57, average teachers salaries in Weymouth were $18.00 higher than the State average; for the school year 1957-58 the average salaries in the State were $36.00 higher than in Weymouth.
The receipts in 1958 from the federal government under Public Law 874 in the amount of $109,995.69 remain unspent and this sum is available to reduce the 1959 appropriation for schools in accordance with the policy adopted by the School Committee three years ago. The estimated receipts in 1959 from State aid for schools, tuition, sales, damages, etc., exceeds $540,000 or $60,000 more than in 1958. Thus approximately $650,000 will be available to the Town to reduce the amount that must be raised by local taxes for the support of schools.
Needed Services Which Aid in the Adjustment of Pupils
One of the reasons for our low per pupil cost, as noted in the dis- cussion of the budget above, has been relatively large class sizes, partly forced on us by the great growth in enrollments and the shortage of class- rooms. A second reason for the low cost has been the meagreness of our services which aid in the adjustment of the school child. This report ten
367
years ago discussed the need for these services and recommended staff additions to make our program more adequate and more comparable with good school systems of our size.
Some progress has been made. As the new Junior High Schools were opened, guidance counselors were added. The High School now has the Director, the Assistant Director and two half-time counselors. One full- time counselor will be added in September. The counseling staff will then have been increased from two in 1945 to the equivalent of eight full- time counselors. We have an excellent guidance program even though the eight counselors is about half the staff that would be needed if we met the recommended standard of one counselor for 300 secondary pupils.
In the elementary schools, we now have an Adjustment Counselor under the State-aided program, but she has time to work with the most serious cases only. In a system of our size, we could easily justify two counselors of this type, a school psychologist, and two other guidance counselors to work with elementary pupils who do not show tendencies toward delinquency but need guidance and assistance. The National De- fense Education Act will provide some funds for guidance counselor sal- aries on a matching basis. This act is designed to stimulate more ade- quate local effort and perhaps in taking advantage of its help, we can add more counselors in the five-year period covered by the law.
In 1944 for the first time, the Weymouth schools had available a full- time attendance officer. We now have the same man for a 140 per cent larger enrollment. With the one officer frequently tied up in court, cases needing prompt and full attention often fail to receive it. With increased secondary enrollments, more help in this necessary work is needed.
In 1946 we started with one remedial reading teacher. As of Septem- ber 1959 we will have nine remedial teachers or about one for 700 ele- mentary pupils. The average annual per pupil load of these teachers is from 55 to 65. This program has helped to bring hundreds of pupils more nearly up to grade level in reading, it has materially reduced non-promo- tions and thereby lowered the cost for pupils repeating a grade, and it has reduced the number of pupils needing special class work. More im- portant has been the fact that the causes for reading difficulties have been discovered in pupils at an early age, a remedy found, and the frus- trated, mal-adjusted child helped to become a good reader prepared to do good work in junior high and high school. Obviously, a poor reader will always be a poor student in practically all courses.
In September, a speech counselor was added to the staff. Her work to date is described in the report of the Director of Instruction. The Hing- ham Schools have had a specialist of this type for fifteen years, and a system as small as Cohasset now employs a full-time speech teacher. We will undoubtedly need to expand this program, and we should at an early date provide a properly trained, fully qualified teacher of public speaking in the high school.
In 1945 Weymouth had one substitute teacher serving as instructor for homebound children, as required by State law. In 1949 this teacher was placed on the salary schedule as a regular teacher. In 1955 a second part-time teacher was added to work during the portions of the year when the number of pupils was too large for one teacher. State regulations now require more lessons per week, and the 1959 Budget provides for two full-time instructors.
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Weymouth has too few cases to justify the establishment of special classes for the handicapped. Children with extremely poor sight attend the Sight-saving Class in Quincy. The State reimburses the Town for half the cost of instruction and transportation. One child attends the State class for the Blind located in Braintree.
Weymouth established special classes in 1929. Over the years, they have been known by various names, such as opportunity classes, or junior manual arts classes. These classes have always been located in the high school building, as it is possible to transport pupils from all parts of the Town on the high school busses. The classes operate on a departmental basis, with two academic teachers, a crafts teacher for girls and young boys, and a woodworking teacher for the older boys. The number of teach- ers and the average enrollment in these classes has remained the same over the years even though the enrollment in grades I through 8 has tripled. When the new High and Vocational School is completed, it will be possible to properly house these classes in the main building of the present Vocational School. There would then be room to add one or two teachers if the need at the time warrants it.
Two classes for trainable children, as distinguished from the four other classes for the educable pupils, have been established over the last eight years. They are located in new buildings in rooms designed espe- cially for this purpose, one at the Pingree School in East Weymouth, and one at the Nash School in South Weymouth. The first class in Weymouth was pioneered by the Association for Advancement of Exceptional Children in 1950 and was first located in the Clapp Memorial Building. This class was taken over by the public schools in April, 1951. These classes are now required by State law and the State reimburses the Town for half of the instructional cost for all special classes.
In 1945 Weymouth had two school nurses for 4600 pupils. A third nurse was added in 1946. As of September, we will have five and one-half nurses plus an additional nurse who does the vision and hearing testing in all schools. This frees the regular nurses from this time-consuming work which the tester can carry on more efficiently when not interrupted by emergency cases. The corps of 61/2 nurses results in a ratio of one nurse for about 1,650 pupils; the recommended ratio is one nurse for 1,200 pupils.
New or Expanded Programs
The establishment of Junior High Schools has made possible a big expansion of our programs in Art, Music and Physical Education by ca- pable, enthusiastic, specialized instructors. And this has been done at no additional cost, because when pupils are in these classes it is not neces- sary to provide academic teachers for class work or study hall supervision. Since 1950 the number of art teachers has grown from 3 to 9, the music staff from 2 to 8, and the physical education instructors from 6 to 14. In the same period the number of industrial arts teachers has increased from 1 to 7 and the household arts staff from 2 to 9.
Each Junior High School has a full-time librarian and a well-stocked library which serves as the cultural and information center of the school. In addition, five of the elementary schools located some distance from Tufts Library, or its regular branches, have branch libraries located in the schools which supplement the school work and greatly increase the number of books read annually by the children. Special library rooms were provided in the new Homestead and Nash Schools and a library room was provided at the Pond School when the first addition was added in 1953.
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An audio-visual program was begun on a small scale in 1947, when one of the high school instructors was freed part-time for this work and for initiating a driver instruction program. The next year he devoted all his time to these programs and since 1953 he has been a full-time director. The program which has been developed gradually over the years is now an outstanding one with a centralized office and work room in the high school, servicing all schools with a variety of visual services from films, film strips, to models and collections of various types. A delivery service of three times a week is made to all schools. Most of our schools have a full complement of projectors, record players, etc.
The introduction this year of television programs for school use opens up a new field for audio-visual education. The program, in a different subject area for each of the six elementary grades, are being integrated into our elementary curriculum. The audio-visual director serves as co- ordinator with the Metropolitan Area Committee which is sponsoring the programs in cooperation with Channel 2. Television sets have been bought for nearly all the schools by Parent-Teacher Associations, with a few schools using town-owned sets purchased for high school use when pro- grams become available at this level.
We are planning to use a portion of the federal funds which should come to Weymouth under the National Defense Education Act to establish a modern language laboratory at the High School. Because of the double sessions, a classroom can be spared for this purpose. It will be divided into partially screened individual booths in which the pupil with the aid of earphones can hear the language spoken on records or tape. The stu- dent can also on occasion record his own spoken words in the foreign tongue and then listen to the playback. This set-up should aid greatly in the teaching of conversational French and Spanish. A few colleges and schools now have successful laboratories in operation.
The School Committee has voted to establish a summer school at the High School this coming July. The program the first year will consist mostly of make-up courses with the probable addition of personal type- writing and driver instruction. It is hoped that in future years academic courses can be added which the student can take for enrichment of courses taken during the school year and perhaps new courses for which credit will be given for graduation. Tuition will be charged to cover most of the costs. Many students are now attending out-of-town summer schools which charge relatively high tuition fees. This is one way to ex- tend the school year and to make some use of our school plant which stands idle all summer.
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