USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Fairhaven > Town annual report of the offices of Fairhaven, Massachusetts 1916 > Part 4
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Schools re-open Legal holiday Schools close. Mid-winter vacation Schools re-open Patriots' Day Legal holiday Schools close. Spring vacation Schools re-peon
Memorial Day Legal holiday Schools close Summer vacation Schools re-open
Columbus Day. Legal holiday Schools close. Thanksgiving recess [noon |
Schools re-open
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No School Signals.
For the benefit of those who have difficulty in remember- ing the significance of the no school signals, the following is submitted for reference :-
The signal at 8.00 a. m. indicates no school for grades one to three, inclusive.
The signal at 8.15 indicates no school for all grades.
The signal at 12.30 noon indicates no school for grades one to three, inclusive.
The signal at 12.45 noon indicates no school for all grades.
Note.
Schools are often in session when weather conditions make it unfit for some children to attend, in which case parents must make their own decisions. At such times the schools are available for those pupils who wish to attend.
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REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS.
To the School Committee of Fairhaven. Mass.
Gentlemen:
Herewith is submitted my fifth annual report, the twenti- eth in the series of superintendent's reports since the formation of the union with Mattapoisett and Acushnet.
Maintenance of schools is compulsory, made so by the people. To the School Committee, directly, to superintendent and teachers, indirectly, is delegated the task of operating the schools owned by the people. In some measure praise or censure for the success or failure of the schools belongs to school officials; in equally large degree, at least, the people themselves are responsible. This is true, not only because the spirit and interest of the people in education are reflected in the schools by their children, but, also, because teaching, school buildings, equipment and facilities cost money, and the quality of these sesentials of success in a school system depends largely upon what can be paid for them. Schools are expensive. In a growing and progressive town the num- ber of children to be housed and taught increases and, at the same time, there is a demand for better schools. To meet the absolute necessities greater expenditures must be made ; to respond to the demand for better schools, still more money must be expended. It is the important problem of the voters to determine whether the essential conditions of success shall be unfavorable favorable or most favorable in quality. The intelligent solution of this problem requires information as to the cost of schools. knowledge of the conditions under which work is done, and the recommendations of school officials relating to the future; in short, it requires reading of the annual school report.
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Finances.
In the following table the total expenditures of the year for grade schools, including those from the various funds, are classified. The head- ings are those used in the State system of accounting.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT of FAIRHAVEN SCHOOL COMMITTEE
For the Fiscal Year, January 1, 1916 to January 1, 1917.
Amount
Total
General Control
Superintendent
$1666.62
Clerk
147.50
Attendance Officers
61.75
School Census.
60.00
Miscellaneous
65.57
$ 2001.44
Expense of Instruction
Teachers' Salaries
16057.21
Text Books
397.16
Supplies
438.30
Expressage
13.32
16905.99
Operation of School Plant
Janitors' Salaries.
1920.00
Fuel ..
1317.67
Light, Water and Janitors'.
Supplies
408.82
3646.49
Maintenance
Repairs
482.86
New Equipment.
249.90
Telephone .
27.56
Care of grounds
29.75
790.07
Auxiliary
Transportation
1875.50
Agencies
Medical Inspection
150.00
2025.50
Miscellaneous
Printing, Record Forms,
Expenses
Disinfectants, Floor Oil,
Toilet Paper, Cartage etc ..
429.78
Total expenditures for Grade Schools, 1916. ...
$25799.27
CREDITS.
Balances from 1915
$ 858.63
Appropriation, 1916.
20000.00
Rogers Fund, 1916.
4416.64
Edmund C. Anthony, Jr. Fund, 1916 ..
404.00
Pease Fund, 1916
305.34
County Dog Fund, 1916
700.97
Total Available
$ 26685.58
Total Expenditures.
25799.27
Balance 1916
$ 886.31
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The total expenditures are less than those of 1915 by $108.86. Close economy has been exercised. Anticipating a rise in prices, the chief supplies for the year were bought last March. This saved several hundred dollars. It will be impossible to make this saving next year. Arithmetic paper purchased for sixteen cents per package now costs thirty eight cents;composition paper bought for twenty-eight cents sells for sixty, and all through the list of supplies there is a marked advance. It is truly not the cost of high living but certainly the high cost of living that confronts the School Department in the coming year.
Over twenty per cent of the expenditures for grade schools comes from the various funds. Not taxed to maintain its high school, with this assistance for the grades, Fairhaven is a fortunate town. Its citizens ought not to complain overmuch at the cost of schools. A few do, nevertheless. Why? Because they are not vitally interested in schools and because they do not know what schools ought to cost. How does the amount Fairhaven expends for grade schools compare with that of other towns nearly equal in size? In the State Report for this year five towns, nearly equal in size are grouped together and expenditures compared. The fol- lowing table contains a few facts regarding the group of towns in which Fairhaven is included.
STATISTICS FOR 1915-1916.
General Control
Expenditures for support of grade schools exclusive of general control
Expenditures for Teachers Salaries
*Expenditures for support of schools from local taxation
TOWNS
Population Census-1915
Average membership
of grade schools
School Committee and
Business Offices
Superintendents Salary
and Expenses
Amount
Per Pupil in Average
Membership
Amount
Per Pupil in Average
Membership
Amount
Per Pupil in Average
Membership
Fairhaven
6277
870
$147.80
$1622.20
$23638.
$27.17
$15908
$18.29
$20370.98
$18.79
Needham
6542
1036
413.88
2269.61
37487.
36.18
26577
25.65
53889.56
44.76
Franklin
6440
1006
469.39
1543.38
29954.
29.78
17783
17.68
39923.78
32.97
Wellesley
6439
815
1199.27
2108.44
43456.
53.32
29450
36.13
62104.13
,60.24
Ipswich
6272
734
878.34
1872.92
29649.
40.39
16860
22.97
40464.95
43.94
.
*Total appropriation for support of Schools.
ยท
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Including the funds, Fairhaven expended for the support of grade schools less by over six thousand dollars than any town in the group. In explanation it may be said that the town is less wealthy than the others. It is true that Fair- haven has the lowest valuation of the group, but what ex- penditure from local taxation did it make per thousand of its valuation? It expended $4.53 last year and less this, Needham spent 5.98, Franklin, 7.88, Ipswich, 7.08, while Wellesley with a valuation of over $20,000,000, spent $3 per thousand for support of schools. Fairhaven ranked 278th among 353 towns and cities in Massachusetts in its valuation per pupil in the average membership of its schools, while it ranked 264th in its expenditure per thousand of its valuation for school support. A town ought not to tax itself merely to secure higher ranking in the State Report.
The question is, are the children receiving the best the town can afford? There are too many children per teacher, no provision is made for special work with exceptional children, there are too frequent changes in the teaching corps, books, maps, and equipment need to be bought more liberally, a more effective system of health supervision needs to be deve- loped. Expenditures are not large enough to provide the type of schools the town ought to have. In the face of the higher cost of everything connected with their maintenance, and of a growing school population, the standards of the past cannot be maintained without larger appropriations.
The School Department expends more money than any . other single department. Financial tables clearly indicate directions of expenditure; unfortunately it is impossible to exhibit all received for the money. Roads made and repaired, sewers constructed, streets lighted, property protected from fire loss, present physical evidences of value received. Schools are concerned with the development of children. Books, maps, and equipment, pleasant and sanitary buildings, the quality of teaching,-these things influence life and character. For two hundred days each year, for eight years at least, the school through the teacher is the most important single
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agency, outside the home, in moulding the life and character of practically every child in the community. What are the results They are certain and infinitely valuable, but they are intangible. If they could be materialized to the voters and stand forth in their real importance, money would wil- lingly be spent on the public schools.
ATTENDANCE.
Since 1912 the membership of the schools has steadily in- creased. The following tables give the facts in this connect- ion.
Membership for School Year. Sept .-- June.
Year
Total Membership
Average Membership
1912-13
1005
870
1913-14
1081
947
1914-15
1167
1014
1915-16
1282
1083
Average annual increase in total membership 69
Average annual increase in average membership 59
The above table includes membership of all schools. Tax payers will be especially interested in the increase of pupils in the grades.
Membership of grade Schools for School Year Sept .- June
Year
Total Membership
Average Membership
1912-13
829
703
1913-14
893
775
1914-15
974
832
1915-16
1051
870
Average annual increase of total grade membership 55
Average annual increase of average grade membership 42
The average grade membership for the month of Decem- ber of this year was 950; for the same period of last year it was 868, an increase of 82.
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Buildings.
In the report of 1915 it was stated that if the rate of in- crease in membership of the schools continued, more room would be necessary in the near future. It has continued. There has been more than an average increase this year. Your grade buildings will accommodate 1000 pupils; there are in them now 950. Because pupils cannot be distributed irrespective of grading and location of rooms, conditions at the Center are now far from what they ought to be, and unless additional room is provided soon, they will become extreme- ly poor, if not intolerable.
The Rogers School has a present enrollment of 350, the capacity of the building, if ordinarily good teaching is to be done. Every room has a membership of over forty, too many if standard results are to be secured. It is reasonable to ex- pect more pupils next year. What can be done with them? If the number is not too large, it may be possible to distri- bute them in the grades of the building, increasing the large enrollment per teacher. If this is not done, what next? Seven of the eight rooms at Oxford are filled. Only one room has less than forty pupils, and it seems certain that the remaining room will be needed next fall for the children of that section. It seems likely now that one of the grades at the Rogers School will have to be housed in the spare room at the old High School next year. This would relieve the Rogers School but conditions at Washington Street are all but intolerable. It will be impossible to accommodate more pupils there next year. Present conditions should be remedied. I cannot speak too strongly in this connection. The rooms of this building are unusually small. A maximum of thirty- five small children is as many as should be placed in the larger rooms on the upper floor. Adequate air and seating space for more is lacking. Each of two upper rooms has at present nearly fifty pupils. The number of cubic feet of air space per pupil is about 130 in one and 150 in the other. The minimum standard for schools is 200 cubic feet per pupil.
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With the rather defective ventilating system of the building, the lack of air space is more appreciably evident. In each of the two other rooms on the upper floor the enrollment is over forty, making them crowded. In order to provide seating space for the children of the second and third grades it has been necessary to double promote a number of children, sending some from the second to the fourth grade at the Rogers School, and others from the first to the third grade. In some cases this has been distinctly disadvantageous to the children. With the problem of housing at the Rogers School, this practise cannot be continued.
Each year for several years the School Report has em- phasized the need of better working conditions for the first grades at the Washington Street School. It is pertinent to touch upon the matter again in this connection. Any parent, interested in the progress of his child, who knows what ought to be accomplished in the first year, must be dissatisfied with the results being secured. The half-session plan prevails because the lower rooms have not seating space for all the children of the grade. Children who attend school in the morning have a daily session of two and three- fourths hours, which, excluding the time for recess, entrances and exits, nets two and one fourth hours in school. Those who attend in the afternoon are not so fortunate. During the fall and spring terms the daily session nets them one and three-fourths hours, while in the winter when schools close at 3-30 P. M., the time of real work is reduced to one and one-half hours daily. Admitting that the hours for the first grade ought not to be the same as for higher grades, yet, when two-thirds of the children are six years of age before entering school, as is the case at Washington Street, a session which nets from one and one half to two and one-fourth hours daily is distinctly too short.
The children go forward handicapped by insufficient preparation in the subjects taught as well as without the train- ing from seat work. There would be less ground for complaint if there was opportunity in the second and third grades to
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compensate for this lack of preparation. There is not. The schools are too large. The result is that many children never have the thorough grounding in the beginnings of reading, writing, number and language work, which it is the important function of the primary school to give.
It is not creditable to Fairhaven to have schools with educational and hygienic conditions like those at the Wash- ington Street building. This statement is not a criticism of the building as a building. The "Annex" is all right but it is being overworked. The small rooms and the relatively small playground were never planned to accomodate the number of children attending there at present. Remove the two third grades, having a present membership of over eighty pupils, and six schools with an average enrollment of thirty pupils would be left. Two-hundred pupils is as many as the building ought to house. It is reasonable to expect that number in the first and second grades next year.
The time has come when additional school accomodations at the Center are necessary. Two more rooms ought to be available now, if ordinary efficiency is maintained. Next year, judging from the past, the enrollment will be larger. With a normal increase the capacity of your buildings will be reached: with an abnormal increase conditions will be in- tolerable. Plans for a building ought to be initiated.
Teachers.
The school report usually includes an accounting of the number of changes in the teaching corps during the year, a lament that they have been so numerous, more or less elo- quence regarding the importance of the teacher's work, and an exhortation that sufficient money be appropriated to ob- tain and retain good teachers. Like the annual valedictory addresses of springtime graduates, Mr. Average Citizen regards such sentiments, if he reads them, as entirely fitting but not to be taken too seriously. This attitude is wrong. of course. Good teachers are immeasurably important to
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the community. Viewed in right perspective, it is a public calamity to lose one. Every man and woman who thinks, believes this. Parents who try to give their children good home training know the importance of the teacher's influence. Whose duty is it, then, to make this knowledge more than a thecry. not merely for the children who have good home training, but also, for the benefit of scores of children whose home training is defective? It is not the duty of school officials only; it is also that of Mr. Average Citizen, who ought to realize that the higher ideals he has for his town, the better schools it must have, and that no really good system can be developed without a relatively permanent corps of strong teachers.
Thirty per cent of the grade teachers have resigned since the last report, with one exception, to accept higher sa- laries elswhere. This statement is practically true for every year in the last ten. I can think of only one condition re- latively less favorable, viz., to have thirty per cent of the teachers so permanent in their positions that they had ceased to feel the necessity of growth.
Organization.
In September, 1914, plans were initiated looking toward the elimination of the ninth grade. In June. 1915, seventeen, and in June 1916, twenty-four pupils entered the High School direct from the eighth grade. This does not mean necessarily that all pupils of the present or any other eighth grade can go direct to the High School. All may do so, but if for any any reason unprepared to do the work. they will need another year. Two divisions of the eighth grade will be maintained hereafter, one especially for those who at the end of the seventh year definitely plan a high school course; the other for pupils whose school life will be very likely to end with the grammar school. At present the requirements for high school entrance must be kept rather high. Owing to the relatively small teaching corps at the high school, it is impossible to give much special aid to backward first year pupils.
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A new type of school organization is rapidly displacing the traditional eight years, one-teacher-one-grade, four-years- in-the-high-school, plan. It propesesthe
A new type of school organization is rapidly displacing the traditional eight years, one-teacher-one-grade, four-years- in-the-high-school, plan. It proposes the application of the six - three - three plan. It is claimed that six years are sufficient to place the child in possession of the working tools of knowledge, such as reading, writing, spelling, and the elements of arithmetic, and that the remaining two years of the elementary course are relatively inefficient. It or- ganizes the seventh, eighth and first year high classes into an intermediate school, called the Junior High School, leaving for the high school proper a three year's course. It is believed that the old plan does not take into consideration the changes in children at the beginning of adolescence, nor does it enable the school to meet the changed social and economic conditions of the times. In the Junior High School there is departmental teaching like that of the regular high school and there is a differentiated course of study to meet the needs of pupils with different tastes, capacities and aims. Pupils are given more liberty of action and choice, as in the senior high school and, not having the constant direction of one teacher, a greater degree of self reliance is cultivated. Under this plan pupils are thought to be better prepared for the senior high school. It closes the gap between the elementary and high which admittedly exists at present.
The Junior High School is given passing mention in this report because it is one of the important educational move- ments of the day. Many such schools have been established in the West. Even in conservative Massachusetts, Boston, Chelsea, Somerville, Springfield, Beverly and other cities have established them, while such smaller communities as Arlington, Reading, Plymouth, Canton, Ipswich, Franklin and Easton have either fully developed junior high schools, or they have adopted the plan of segregating the seventh and eighth grades in separate buildings with the idea of giving
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them differentiated courses of study and departmental teach- ing. There are many indications that the old eight-four plan will be generally displaced.
High School.
The present enrollment at the High School is 258, an increase of 29 over the number last year. The graduating class in June numbered 37, the entering class in September, 113. The total enrollment is now 81.6 per cent higher than that of the first year in the new building. The membership from Fairhaven is 175, almost exactly two-thirds of the total. Up to 1912-13 there was no increase in the number of pupils from town; since then, due in part to the change in grade organization, the increase has been very rapid, nearly sixty per cent more local pupils attending than in 1913-14.
A revision of the course of study is in process, that of the first year being practically completed. The modifications are in the direction of greater elasticity in order to serve better the interests of individual pupils. Algebra, English history and a foreign language are no longer required subjects for the first year. The present course of study is made up of both required and elective subjects. A few facts regarding the distribution of the pupils in the courses and subjects may be of interest.
131 pupils are taking the general course.
126 pupils are taking the commercial course.
57 pupils in the general course are preparing for college.
34 pupils are preparing for normal school.
Manuel training is required of boys during the first year, after that it is elective. 71 out of 114 boys take manual training.
Mechanical drawingis required for one year, after that it is elective. 78 out of 114 boys take it.
Printing is entirely elective. 44 boys take it.
All girls are required to take cooking two years, after that it is elective. 112 of 144 girls take it.
Sewing is elective and cannot be taken until after two years of cooking. 26 girls takeit.
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It is now trite to say that ideals of what a high school education should accomplish for boys and girls have broad- ened considerably in the last decade. The application of the newer ideals has been bery rapid. Formerly the dominant purpose of the high school was preparation for college; now this is an incidental aim. It is indeed fortunate that the founder of the new Fairhaven High School, and those who worked with him in planning it, had breadth of vision. Al- though ten years have elapsed, the school is still abreast of the times educationally. From the beginning it has been recognized that there is more than one kind of educated man, hence more than one type of high school training. The school has been a doorway to college, normal and technical school, but it has been more than that; it has aided in their preparation for life the large percentage of its students who could never attend these institutions. Side by side with Latin, mathema- tics, ancient history and other college preparatory studies, the commercial subjects, woodworking, cooking, sewing and printing are taught. These latter subjects are cultural as well as the former ones but they have additional purposes One of these is to give each pupil some insight into the form of service in which he is interested and for which he may be fitted. To classify the college preparatory subjects as "essen- tials" and the rest as "frills and fads" reveals a misunder- standing of what universal education means.
There are those who claim that because the school tries to do so much, it fails in the traditional type of education, Does it? There have been 250 graduates in the last ten years; of these 51 have attended college and 42 normal school, Twenty-one per cent of all graduates have gone to college, seventeen per cent to normal school. Nearly forty per cent have entered either college or normal school. This is a high record when the fact is considered that less than six per cent of high school pupils, the country over, enter college.
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Health Supervision.
The schools of many towns and cities in Massachusetts failed to open in September on schedule time owing to the epidemic of infantile paralysis. Fairhaven was fortunate in having only one case and that not in the schools. Other diseases have been prevalent. In the spring measles, chicken pox, and whooping cough, especially the latter, caused many absences, and this fall an epidemic of scarlet fever occurred. Owing to its mild form the diseases has been difficult to check. Parents have failed to recognize it, children not ill enough to have a doctor have been sent to school, and, ming- ling with others and infecting them, the disease has been spread before it has been discovered. Undoubtedly more cases would have occurred if school nurse and physician had not been very alert. The former made almost daily visits to the schools when the epidemic was at its height, children were examined and all suspicious cases referred to the school, physician.
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