USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Saugus > Town annual report of the officers and committees of the town of Scituate 1952-1954 > Part 14
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
teaching in terms of what is outstanding, and, to that end, we need to be willing to adopt what is new if it will help in the education of our youngsters for the lives that they will lead.
Frankly, I think that we have good schools. By that I mean we have a better than average teaching staff which can make itself outstanding. But we need to stir ourselves constantly so that self- complacency does not corrode the potential.
We need more housing. We need the projected 12-room primary school on the Jenkins site. By 1957 we shall need another addition to the junior-senior high school and by 1958 we shall need another 12 rooms on the Hatherly site or on another site, depending on the findings of our educational consultant, Dr. Wil- liam K. Wilson.
Such construction should be and must be low-cost housing, but we must keep before us the fact that we want low-cost housing and not cheap housing. Low-cost housing is that which is easy to maintain, inexpensive to maintain and heat, but for which the price-tag is low. Cheap housing is housing aimed at a price-tag only. Heating is then expensive, maintenance is expensive, and longevity is at a minimum. Cheap housing saves no money; in fact, it costs more money over the years. Low-cost housing may not be quite so inexpensive at first, but over the years it costs less.
CHANGES IN PERSONNEL
There are few teaching changes this year. With only four replacements and three new positions, only seven new teachers came to us this past year.
John J. Kelly, Jr., Assistant Principal and 6th Grade teacher in the Central School, resigned to accept an executive position in the Fitchburg State Teachers College. Mr. Kelly has been replaced by Royal S. Graves, Principal of the Duxbury Elementary School. Mr. Graves teaches in the 6th Grade and is Assistant Principal in both the Central and Hatherly Schools. He is a graduate of the University of Maine and received his Master's Degree in teaching from Harvard.
Mrs. Barbara Allen Jennings, fourth grade teacher, resigned to accept a position in Virginia where her husband was assigned on armed forces duty. She was replaced by Mrs. Grace Haig Lull, teacher in the Dunstable, Mass., Elementary School, and formerly a teacher in Scituate. Mrs. Lull is a graduate of the Keene (N. H.) State Teachers College.
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Miss Dorothy Anderson, science and social studies teacher in the Junior High School resigned. She was replaced by Richard Hands, instructor in the Duxbury High School. Mr. Hands is a graduate of Boston University School of Education where he also obtained his master's degree.
Miss B. Christine Anderson, with ten years' experience as a first and second grade teacher, comes to us from North Brookfield. She is a graduate of the Gorham (Maine) State Teachers College and is taking graduate work at Boston University. She replaces Mrs. Elizabeth Snedeker Thompson who resigned to accept a posi- tion in the Brookline Schools.
Herschel Benson, graduate of the University of Illinois where he also obtained his master's degree in Physical Education, comes to us from Topsfield, Mass. He is Director of Physical Education replac- ing Mr. Stewart who now gives full time to administration and to academic teaching. Mr. Benson also teaches Algebra II.
Mrs. Barbara Gullich Sargent, graduate of Bridgewater State Teachers College, comes to Scituate from Walpole, Mass., where she had taught for two years. She takes a new fifth grade position necessitated by increased enrollment.
Mrs. Grace Grassie of Scituate, who had been a substitute teacher and bed-side teacher for incapacitated pupils, is a new first- grade teacher. She is a graduate of the Hyannis, Mass., State Normal School, and formerly taught in the Cohasset schools.
Mrs. Frances Cole, for three years a part-time teacher of mathe- matics and French, did not return this fall. She was unable to devote full time to the position. Her courses were taken by Mr. Benson and Mr. Stewart.
Mrs. Ann Page Freeman, Assistant Instructor in Physical Education in the elementary schools, resigned December 23, 1952. Mrs. Freeman had taught part-time in the Scituate schools for two years.
Mrs. Flora D. White, Scituate, was employed this fall as School Nurse in Grades 7-12 and will work in guidance with the girls in the high school. Scituate has long needed someone to supplement the work of Miss O'Donnell who has been over-worked more and more as enrollment increased.
Deepest sympathy is extended to the family of Mrs. Thelma Sylvester Hayward, for several years secretary to the High School Principal. Mrs. Hayward died in December following an illness
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which made it impossible for her to return to her position in the fall. Mrs. Hayward performed her tasks with never-failing good humor and kindliness which endeared her to every member of the personnel.
Mrs. Jean Strzelecki, Scituate, replaces Mrs. Hayward as secre- tary to the High School Principal.
Mrs. Mary Driscoll, requested leave of absence effective Decem- ber 23, 1952. This was granted by the School Committee. Mrs. Driscoll has served for seven years as secretary to the High School Principal and to the Superintendent of Schools. She has done an outstanding job in every way.
Judson R. Merrill, graduate of Bowdoin, and presently working toward his master's degree at Suffolk University, is the new secre- tary to the Superintendent of Schools. Mr. Merrill will teach one class in Commercial Arithmetic in the high school next fall as well as doing his work as secretary.
Miss Faith A. Simpson, Scituate, member of the Class of 1952, Scituate High School, has been employed as clerk in the office of the Superintendent of Schools.
Thomas Woods replaces Lewis Newcomb as Janitor of the Hatherly School. Mr. Newcomb, who has given many years of faithful service, resigned in July 1952.
Chester R. Gurney, Scituate, was employed in November 1952 as part-time janitor in the Junior-Senior High School.
In September, John Jakubens sold his bus route to William Steverman of Elm Street.
SCHOOL BUILDINGS
As I have stated, we need more school-rooms in which to house our increasing school population. During the Christmas vacation fifteen new pupils enrolled in our elementary schools. By Septem- ber 1953 our enrollment will have increased to over 1500 pupils from the present 1412.
To meet the increases, these things must be done:
(1) September 1953, abolish all kindergartens for one year. This move will give us the three additional rooms which we must 'have and which we otherwise will not have. The School Committee and the Superintendent unanimously believe that this curtailment is preferable to double-sessions in Grades 1 and 2, the alternative.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
(2) Double-sessions in Grades 7 through 12 for at least the first half of the school year 1953-1954. Grades 7 and 8 will attend school approximately from 1 to 5 p.m. The other grades will attend approximately from 8 till 12:30. There is no alterna- tive. Just when the High School addition will be completed is not certain. The contract calls for twelve months. If it is completed in twelve months, the rooms will be ready by November 1953. However, winter weather may well delay the project until past January. Even so, the changes neces- sary in the existing building will curtail student activity in it from September until the project is completed.
(3) Additional rooms for primary grades (K-3) housing by Septem- ber 1954. The projected primary school on the Jenkins site together with the Central and Hatherly schools should care for our expanding needs at least through 1955. This new school will have twelve rooms, a combination auditorium- gymnasium-cafeteria, office, and nurse's room, and will serve neighborhood needs for community gatherings as well as edu- cational housing needs in the Scituate Harbor area. A special Town Meeting will be called probably in April or May at which time a bid price will be submitted to the Town. By this procedure, coming back for more money is obviated. The plans for this school will be submitted to the people by the Building Committee, Dr. William K. Wilson, educational con- sultant, Harry J. Korslund, architect, and Edward K. Chace, Superintendent of Schools so that the people may have a part in planning the building.
(4) Eventually, there will be a need, probably before 1958 for an- other such school on the Hatherly site, thus completing the ten-year long-range building program in elementary housing. Both the projected primary schools will be low-cost housing, built to curtail maintenance and heating costs, as well as initial cost.
(5) By 1957, we shall need to add from four to eight rooms to be added to Junior-Senior High School to accommodate the 650 pupils which will then fill it.
Items 4 and 5 are subject to change depending on the recom- mendations of Dr. William K. Wilson, Educational Consultant, who is making a long-range survey of the needs of Scituate school hous- ing. However, these points are based on predictions in enrollments as forecast by John Marshall, Chairman, Massachusetts Building Assistance Commission.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
TEACHERS AND TEACHERS' SALARIES IN SCITUATE
The national picture of teacher supply is not good. There is a shortage of qualified teachers throughout the nation. This is especially true in elementary education where the shortage is ex- tremely acute. Most communities must resort to lower standards of teaching competence.
Scituate has been fortunate. Last year, Scituate was one of the very few communities in the Commonwealth, if not in the East, which had more qualified applicants than it had jobs. Each of our replacements and each of our new teachers was an experienced teacher. We had to do very little seeking. Teachers are now seeking Scituate. The reason for this change is two-fold: we have a salary schedule which is attractive to qualified men and women teachers with experience, and Scituate is a delightful place in which to live.
Further, actually we had no teachers leave because they were dissatisfied. One left for advancement in executive work, two left because the new positions they accepted were better suited to the homes of their husbands, and one left because we advised it.
With higher salaries comes, as a matter of course, an expecta- tion on the part of the community of superior service. If we are to pay superior salaries, to state the same thing in a different way, we have a right to expect superior teaching. We recognize, of course, that teachers' salaries are lower than the salaries in other profes- sions, but it seems to us that the burden of proof now rests with the teachers throughout the nation to improve teaching through in-service education, professional advancement, and graduate courses.
FINANCIAL
During my first full year of operation of the Scituate Public Schools the expenses have been reduced by obtaining bids on maintenance items, supplies purchased, and items of capital outlay. As a result, money has been saved for the Town. In the past all school supplies were purchased f.o.b. the place of shipment. This year our supplies were shipped f.o.b. Scituate, thus saving a large amount of money.
The annual appropriation for 1952 was $333,350.00 to which is added $410.00 from Federal Funds, making a total of $333,760.00.
Of this we spent only $325,488.50 and thus were able to return to the Town unexpended an amount of $8,312.50 to be placed in the E. and D. fund.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
During the year the Commonwealth has returned to the Town amounts of money in the form of state school aid:
From Chapter 70 $17,042.96
Transportation of Pupils 22,779.77
Maintenance of Household Arts Classes 2,889.76
School Construction Grant, Central School
7,704.20
Evening Practical Arts Classes
300.00
Miscellaneous Collections
204.45
$50,921.14
To the $50,921.14 should be added the $8,311.50 returned un- expended, thus giving a total of $59,232.64 returned to the Town in 1952.
Subtracting this amount from the $333,350.00 appropriated we find that the net cost of the schools to the Town was $274,117.36.
However, the Town pays the cost of the bonds on the Central School, a figure which does not show on the Public School expenses. If the annual cost of interest and debt repayment is shown as part of the cost of the schools, as it is in most states, the cost is higher. The interest and repayment amounted to $10,000.00 in 1952.
The principal items of increase in the school budget are found. in transportation and repairs and replacement. In the past too little has been spent on repairs to buildings and replacement of equipment. Hence, we find ourselves with many repairs needed at once. Much of our shop equipment is in non-operative condition or is so badly worn as not to be worth repairing. Our home economics refrigerator ran 50 minutes and switched off for ten and was so ancient as to present the danger of leakage of noxious fumes at any moment.
The high school roofs and parapet walls are in need of repairs to stop leaks. The roofs over the Kindergarten and Cafeteria in the Central School leak badly. The roof of the Administration Build- ing is so porous that one may look at the sky through it. The walls of high school rooms have not been painted for many years and window shades are worn out. A replacement schedule and paint- ing schedule have been set up to care for these items.
Every effort is being taken to reduce expenses.
JANITORIAL SERVICE
Scituate is fortunate in having a superior janitorial staff. It has, until recently, been understaffed. Increased enrollment means
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
increased work. Rooms with fifty seats are more difficult to clean than rooms with thirty. Continuous use of all rooms and cafeterias means there must be more cleaning during shorter intervals.
Such items of maintenance as our men can do have been done. We believe that small jobs should be completed by the janitorial staff because this procedure saves the Town money and provides extra income for our men.
Under the direction of Donald Quinn, Head Custodian, the janitors have done an excellent job during the year.
SCITUATE SCHOOL HEALTH COUNCIL
The Scituate School Health Council has been reactivated and meets bi-monthly in the office of the Superintendent of Schools. Members are, besides the Superintendent of Schools, George A. J. Froberger, principal of the Junior-Senior High School; LeRoy E. Fuller, principal of the Central and Hatherly Schools; Dr. Max D. Miles, school physician; Dr. Willis B. Parsons, school dentist; Mrs. Flora D. White, R. N., nurse, Grades 7-12; Miss Margaret O'Donnell, R. N., nurse, Grades K-6; Herschel Benson, Director of Physical Education; Mrs. Mary Bauer, Supervisor of Physical Education in the Grades; and Mrs. Norman Dickinson, Dental Hygienist.
The council has set up a testing program through all the grades. Vision is to be tested by means of the Massachusetts Vision Test and the new Telebinocular in Grades 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 as well as for all those without adequate sight records. Hearing will be tested in Grades K, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 as well as for all those without adequate records.
Complete physical examination will be given by the School Physician in Grades K, 2, 5, 7, 9, and 11, as well as for all transfers and children returning to school after five or more consecutive days of absence and those referred because of frequent unexplained absence. Children planning on participation in competitive athletics are tested annually.
At present, the examination of teeth, under the supervision of the Board of Health and not the Scituate Public Schools is limited to Grades K and 1. The program of correction of tooth troubles at fifty cents a treatment for all pupils in these grades makes further testing impossible.
The results of testing in the high school have been most gratifying. The use of the Telebinocular, the cost of which was borne equally by the Parent-Teacher Association, Scituate Nursing
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
Service, and the Public Schools, has uncovered eye dffiiculties hitherto unsuspected. Youngsters who have been tested and who have visited oculists or ophthamologists state in class, "Why, I can see the teacher clearly for the first time!" or "I can actually see what the teachers put on the blackboard!"
The eye and ear testing, completed in the high school, and now under way in the elementary school, should be of great assistance to teachers and parents in determining the cause of poor academic work and failure.
ACADEMIC PROGRESS
Only fifty percent of our high school graduates go on to college or to other educational institutions such as business schools and schools of nursing. The question naturally arises: what happens to the other fifty percent? Unfortunately, we know too little. Some go into the armed forces. Others take jobs in the community or nearby. Some go to trade schools or take evening vocational courses. But what preparation for actual living in the community do we give these boys and girls who do not wish to go to college and who should not go to college?
Scituate High School has two courses of study: `college pre- paratory and business education. The enrollment in business edu- cation decreases each year. A few others graduate with "general" diplomas. Such diplomas mean merely that the pupil has not completed the requirements of either course but has spent four years in high school taking the academic or business education sub- jects in a pattern which is not orthodox.
What do we do for the pupils who fit into the category of "the other fifty percent"? What do we do for the pupils who enter high school and who quit before they finish? Why do they quit?
We need a third course of study designed to give these pupils preparation for the lives they will live in the community, a curricu- lum which will contain such subjects as Family Living, Family Finance, Home Maintenance, Cooking, Sewing, Personal-Use Type- writing, Personal-Use Short-Hand (High-Speed Longhand), Con- sumer Education, Salesmanship, Personnel Relations, Practical Prob- lems in Democratic living, Local Government, Home Nursing, and the like.
We need, perhaps, to set up a fourth course in Practical Arts for Boys-a pre-industrial course with Shop Mathematics, Practical Science, Wood-Shop and Metal-Shop Practice, Industrial Drawing and Blue-Print Reading.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
These things we can do when we have the new addition and more room. Pupils who will live their lives as tradesmen, store- keepers, and the like will not benefit greatly from Latin, Algebra, Plane and Solid Geometry, Academic Physics and Chemistry, or French. In any community whether it be Scituate or Boston a large percentage of the boys and girls do not want college, nor do they want office jobs. Yet the high schools persist in making them take the Academic or the Business Education Courses.
Our Business Education course must be expanded so as to give the boys and girls who take it actual preparation for actual jobs. There should be no need for a graduate of this course taking a course in a business school. He should start his employment in the second half of the senior year, earning and learning at the same time. He should be employed before he graduates. Employer after employer has come to me pleading for names of boys and girls to whom he will offer good office positions. Yet we graduate fewer qualified Business Education pupils each year, and most of those whom we graduate evidently believe that further education is neces- sary before they take jobs.
Our college preparatory graduates do fairly well in colleges. I have studied the college marks of the graduates of the high school rather intensively. We suffer because we have hopelessly inadequate facilities. We have no laboratories for general science, biology, physics, or chemistry. Our pupils cannot meet the competition they meet in college. We have no library worthy of the name. Our library contains a collection of discarded sample textbooks plus a few good reference books and a few works in drama, history, etc. It just is not a library. When you stop to consider that the college freshman should have read at. least thirty books a year for four or more years BEFORE he enters college, we wonder how our pupils can meet competition. Obviously, they depend on the Town libraries or family libraries-or they just are not prepared to meet the competition.
These criticisms are not aimed at our science teachers or our librarian. None of them can do better jobs with the miserable equipment at hand. We know that the new addition with its two laboratories: general-science-biology and chemistry-physics, and its full-time library will improve a bad situation. We must put more money into the library. $200 a year or even $500 a year is hope- lessly inadequate. I have listed $2,000 for 1953. This is no more than enough when one realizes that we are tampering with the preparation of our boys and girls who are trying to compete with the best prepared high-school minds in the country.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
We need to re-evaluate our criteria of college preparation in terms of what the colleges actually want from our seniors, and then to teach from that point of view. We need to bear down and make our boys and girls work harder because college work is tough and only the tough and the well-prepared survive. We need to prepare them for the utter freedom of college where no one will say "Now, Freddie, you must study tonight!" or "Mary, don't go to the movies until you have done your homework!" In college one must be his own judge of when to study and when to play, when to work and when not to, when to date, and when to devote time to study, yet the preparatory schools each year send to the colleges boys and girls who are no more fitted for the complete freedom of the campus than would be a ten-year old. That's why so many flunk out.
The homes must cooperate in this training for freedom-from- home-and-school-ties, but the school must show the way.
College teaching is wholly unlike high school teaching. College freshmen are confused by it. They should be prepared for the lecture-method of classroom procedure, they should be trained to take notes, they should know shorthand and typewriting, they should be trained for college-type examinations, they should know how to use source material, how to write coherent, unified, paragraphs, and, above all, how to use facts. This last is learning how to think.
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
We need a Junior High School Program embracing Grades 7, 8, and 9. Our Junior-Senior High School does not have anything resembling a junior high school program. We actually have two elementary school grades in a high school building. The Junior High School should have an exploratory curriculum. It should be a place where boys and girls under much guidance decide what they wish to do in the Senior High School, and in life. It should be a place where a decision is reached on what course of study one will follow -- but the decision should rest on accurate testing, personal guidance, and careful study of the individual. Too often pupils arc in courses of study because Uncle William took it, or because there was no choice. Neither is a valid reason.
With the added room it is to be hoped that we shall have a separate junior high school program for our three lower secondary grades with integration between the junior and senior high school programs as well as with the 6th grade.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE REPORT
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
We have come a long way in the Elementary School but we have further to go. Our reading consultant, Miss Methyl Bates, has done a fine job. It is not easy for a reading consultant to come into a school system as she did. Parents expect miracles over- night. Teachers have followed their methods for many years. Where should she start? She has taught demonstration classes, she has worked with groups of slow readers, she has planned with teach- ers on grade levels, she has motivated here and steered there. We believe that our pupils will be better readers because of her assist- ance, or, shall we say, because the teachers now see more clearly the over-all picture of teaching reading from Grade one through Grade six. Never in any school system will all pupils read equally well. So long as there are individual differences, there will be dif- ferences in reading readiness, and in reading progress. Some will always be retarded. If the retardation comes from eye or hearing deficiencies, we are equipped to detect these defects. If the retar- dation comes from a multiplicity of causes related to reading readi- ness, too-large classes, or other reasons, we are equipped to detect these troubles through testing. We are equipped to help the others too.
There is no open-sesame to reading problems. All teachers must work together on all facets of the problem at all times. We have one goal-education of the individual, and all teachers must work cooperatively toward it.
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