USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Reading > Town of Reading Massachusetts annual report 1934 > Part 15
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was given over to creative representation excepting that the sixth grade pupils made the Annual Poppy Posters for the local Legion Post. Also we made a final check up of all work done making sure we were measuring up to the work required by each grade as specified in the State Art Curriculum.
Generally speaking in September we carried on much the same work as in previous years. We emphasized color and certain art principles necessary in creative representation, lettering, etc., ending the term with a construction project of holiday interest. An exception was made in the new outline given to Grade 4 to fit specifically with their social studies text and program, and of the necessary revising of the outline of the several first grades who are now using the Bolenius reading method, since the outline was made more particularly to correlate with the Courtis-Smith text.
Let me say here that although each teacher is given a required list of knowledges to be learned by her grade within a given period of time, her suggested lessons need not be followed rigidly, but varied to meet the needs of her particular group. The elementary course of study in other subjects gives ample and splendid opportunities for art correllation and the teachers all feel free to call upon me, while I in turn am always glad to suggest and help in any classroom activi- ties. Art in the public school of today should not be classed as a subject apart from all else, but should be another language by which the children may express their ideas and their appreciation of knowledge gained in each and every subject taught in the school curriculum.
The Junior High School :
Since the Junior High School program is so arranged as to have all ninth grade classes meet during my teaching periods at the Senior High School, I am able to observe only classes of the 7th and 8th grades at work. But noting the splendid results of this upper grade, I feel confident that Mrs. Frost is giving them, as in these grades that I am able to visit, work interesting to them and making the art pro- gram of the Junior High School very worth while. The pupils have brought to their attention an appreciation of art as found in their every day life and are encouraged to exercise their imaginations and abilities in various artistic channels.
As we all know, last year the art classes were more than upset by frequent necessary changes in the teaching staff and from that alone unfortunately the pupil suffered greatly. At a date late in the year I feel we were most fortunate in securing the services of Mrs. Helen Frost to carry on and lead us out of the difficulties that had arisen. Since September work has gone on normally and the results are very satisfying.
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The Senior High School :
In the last few years, since the elimination of the High School Manual Training teacher it has been necessary for me to teach two divisions of mechanical drawing and two of free-hand drawing at the same time. I am still unhappy in the fact that none of these classes are getting the instruction as I feel they deservedly should. Under these circumstances the work in the Sophomore Fine Arts group must needs be very general, though they are given problems which involve the theories of color, spacing, lettering, and construction as well as many projects pertaining to school activities.
The first division in mechanical drawing work entirely in pencil while the second division complete each problem in ink. In general the work accomplished comprises lettering, the more essential problems in geometrical construction, projection, isometrics, problems in develop- ment and simple problems in mechanical perspective. Here in these classes, too, we try to apply our working knowledges as the opportunity arises to practical problems at hand.
The Junior and Senior Fine Arts students are applying all regular problems to the various historic periods of art, as their course this year is fundamentally a brief history of art through the ages. They too, have many problems of interest to them in connection with the social events of the school year which tend to make practical application of their learned facts and skills.
As in previous years several students have gone after graduation to art schools to further their education in this field and once more one of the students received a scholarship by competitive award. This time it was won by a girl who is now attending the Vesper George School of Art.
May I, at this time thank you, Mr. Pierce, and the members of the School Committee for the interest shown in my department and all the teachers for their helpful co-operation.
Respectfully submitted, Mercie V. Nichols, Art Supervisor
REPORT OF THE PRINCIPAL OF THE HIGHLAND, CENTER, AND UNION STREET SCHOOLS, 1934
Mr. Arthur E. Pierce,
Superintendent of Schools,
Reading, Massachusetts.
Dear Sir :
I herewith submit my report of the Highland, Center, and Union Street Schools for the year ending December 31, 1934. I shall report
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mainly about the organizations of these schools as Miss Wadleigh and the other supervisors will report more about the work in detail.
The organization of the Union Street and Center Schools is the same as in 1933. The Union Street School has two first grades and two second grades. The pupils in this school are those who live east of Main Street and some of the children who come on the Main Street bus.
In spite of absence due to an epidemic of mumps and measles, the results of the work accomplished was very satisfactory. In the first grades of seventy-two pupils, only five had to repeat the grade and four were given a half year promotion. In the second grades of seventy pupils there were four repeaters and five were given a half year promotion.
In the Center School there are six classes consisting of a first grade, a second grade, a third grade, a remedial class of third and fourth grade pupils and two fourth grades. The remedial class was a new feature last year and it has been a great success. Special methods are used with this group and much individual work is done. As a re- sult of this, many can make the grade instead of failing as they would do if placed in a regular group.
The appearance of the buildings has been greatly improved by painting them. This work was done by the E. R. A .. Metal ceilings have been put in the office and in one room at the Center School. More electric lights have been put in the rooms so now the lights are in the four corners of the rooms instead of in the center of the room. This is a great improvement.
During the summer three new rooms were made in the Highland School. This was done by moving the partitions, thereby making three rooms out of two large rooms on the first floor On the second floor two rooms were made, one at each end of the building, by moving partitions and taking space from the corridor. Now there are thir- teen rooms. Six rooms are used by the fifth grade and six rooms are used by the sixth grade. One room is used by a third and fourth grade. By this change the crowded condition at the Lowell Street School and the Center School was relieved. It made it possible, also, to have smaller groups in the fifth and sixth grades. The organization of the fifth and sixth grades was changed so that now we have four groups which are doing departmental work and two groups which are stationary and are doing remedial or special work. There are at present 196 pupils in the sixth grade and 211 pupils in the fifth grade. The remedial classes average thirty pupils and the others thirty-five pupils which is an improvement over former years when they aver- aged forty to forty-five pupils.
Miss Bauer, teacher of arithmetic and penmanship in the sixth grade
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resigned in June to be principal of the Parker School in Lexington. Miss Scullane was elected to take Miss Bauer's place and three new teachers were elected for the new rooms.
During the year the teachers have been working on a course of study for social science. The plan for the first five grades is com- pleted and the sixth grade plan is almost completed. The fifth grade is now using Kelty's, The Story of the American People. The fourth grades are using Dr. Wilson's Social Science Stories which has been revised so that now it contains only history stories instead of both history and geography stories. The second book of this series is also used in the sixth grades. The geography course of study is being re- vised to fit the new Winston Geographies introduced last year.
Special programs were given in all of the buildings during American Education Week, November 5 to November 9. Many parents visited the buildings at this time to see the regular work, also.
During the year, new floors have been laid in five rooms. Now all the floors are new with the exception of one room. We hope that this year the E. R. A. will lay one in that room and in the upper cor- ridor. Then all the floors will be new except the one in the assembly hall as the floor in the lower hall was new in 1933.
During May and June there were eight cases of scarlet fever in the Highland School. As a result of this, many parents took their children out of school for fear of contagion. No doubt many of these pupils are having difficulties this year due to this prolonged absence. It, also, prevented our having many activities which we usually have at the end of the year. Both the outdoor individual gym meet and the musical contest had to be omitted. This was a great disappointment to the children as they had been practicing all the year for them.
The musical contest is the outstanding event of the year. Each group in the school perfects two songs learned during the year. The fifth grade groups do two part music and the sixth grade groups, three part. The spirit of intermural competition and rivalry is keen, and the quality of singing that results is sometimes amazing. Banners are awarded those groups with the highest ratings.
The children are really summing up the principles of good singing that they have learned in their regular music classes. These lessons of tone quality, watching the director, enunciation, interpretation and balanced singing will be useful to them all their lives.
The judges this past year were to have been Mr. C. Francis Woods, Director of Music at the Salem State Teachers' College, Miss Ruth E. Meyers, Instructor at Boston University College of Music, and Miss Charlotte Hyde, Supervisor of Music at Chelmsford. Mr. Woods, who has been one of the judges for the past five years, has stated that the work done in these grades stands favorable comparison with
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many seventh grades in neighboring towns.
I cannot close this report without speaking of the excellent work being done at the Opportunity School. This is the happiest group under my supervision. This is due to the spirit of co-operation and the feeling of success which comes from the fact that they are "learn- ing by doing."
They have just finished an Indian project which was very well done. After it was finished, they gave a program for an assembly at the Highland School. This program included Indian songs, poems, games, and dances they had learned.
The Indian suits were made from burlap grain bags. With the exception of the cutting, in which Miss Nichols, the drawing super- visor, helped them, the work was done entirely by the children. They had Indian symbols painted on them and fringe, which they cut, sewed on, and painted.
Their headbands had Indian symbols drawn on them with colored crayons and feathers in them which they had painted. Beads were made from cut macaroni, dipped in paint and then strung.
They made raffia and reed baskets of different shapes and sizes. They learned the meaning of the Indian symbols so as to be able to read and write stories in the Indian picture language.
A small model of an Indian village was made.
The Indian work was correlated with other studies and a book- let made in which there are pictures, stories and spelling words.
With approximately eight hundred children under my supervision, I consider their welfare should be my first consideration. With that in mind, I welcome any suggestion or plans whereby the work may be improved, the children made happier and more self reliant, and better prepared to meet life's problems.
Respectfully submitted,
M. Grace Wakefield
REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT
December 31, 1934
Mr. Rudolf Sussmann, Director
Agricultural Department,
Reading High School. Dear Sir :
The following is a brief report of the activities of the Agricultural Department for the past year.
Total enrollment, 1934-35 39 Graduates, October 15, 1934 8
This is the largest number of graduates for more than ten years.
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The present senior class consists of four. There are nine juniors, five sophomores and one special student.
There was more difficulty last year in finding summer jobs for supervised practice than ever before, also the home projects which the boys were able to start and complete were smaller than usual so that the total earnings for the class were only $4033.00.
It takes quite a bit of capital to start a poultry project or prepare and plant a sizeable garden and this capital could not be found by many of the boys, and, as stated above, jobs were scarce.
The school has been represented by fruit, poultry, vegetable and. livestock judging teams and individuals at Topsfield, Brockton, Massa -ยท chusetts State College, Horticultural Fruit Show and Boston Foultry Show. At Brockton, the poultry team made the second highest score but placed fourth because of a triple tie for first. There is considerable teaching value in these contests between the best schoolboy judges of the state. The lessons learned in competition stick and seem to be an incentive to better work. Several times the Reading boys have out- ranked the teams from the big county schools.
Garland and Dewhurst entered birds of their own raising and se- lection in the Reading Metropolitan Poultry Show and won a first and a. fourth respectively in strong competition. Robert Watson has won quite an array of cups, medals and ribbons with his carrier pigeons and is a keen showman. Richard Downs placed third in the Worcester- Reading-Jamaica Plain Public Speaking Contest and went as alternate to the State Contest at Hatfield. Jack Blaisdell did an outstanding job in converting an old truck into a powerful and practical tractor.
From time to time the monotony of class room study has been broken by field trips to notable local farms and greenhouse plants and places of special interest such as John P. Squires, Hood's Milk Plant, Frost Insecticide Company, The Waltham Field Station, Farm Bureau Warehouse at Waltham and Boston Poultry Show.
The Reading Chapter of the Future Farmers of America, com- posed of agricultural students, has a membership in the Middlesex County Farm Bureau. The members of the chapter are planning an agricultural show of their own next fall.
Last winter we had a special course in woodworking under Mr. Alfred Boehm. This winter the seniors and juniors have a course in auto mechanics and repair under Mr. Ralph Foster, in which there is great interest.
While major subjects are specified for each year of the course it seems necessary because of the diversity of projects and interests, to review thoroughly all of them, so, in season, as far as possible, we strive to cover Livestock, Poultry, Market Gardening and Fruit Grow- ing, also to keep in touch with the economic and political aspects of
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agriculture from bulletins, newspapers and other sources. As yet we have no facilities for teaching plant propagation and are still hoping for that small planthouse which would be a benefit to both the classes in agriculture and in biology.
Respectfully submitted,
HERMON T. WHEELER, Instructor.
REPORT OF DIRECTOR OF HEALTH
Mr. Arthur E. Pierce,
Superintendent of Schools,
Reading, Massachusetts.
Dear Sir :
I herewith submit the report of the health department for the year ending December 31, 1934.
The organization and personnel of the department has remained the same as last year. The department has continued to function on a one nurse basis since the dropping of the assistant nurse in June, 1933.
A clerical assistant in the form of a CWA worker was used to ad- vantage as the nurse's assistant from January to April, and served to demonstrate the value of this type of assistance. Miss Josephine Tur- ner was employed by the school committee for a period of six weeks this fall to help with the health examinations and the clerical work in- volved in getting out the defect notices.
Medical and Nursing Service
There have been no changes in the functions of the school physi- cian the past year. Consistent with his duties prescribed by law, Dr. Henderson has continued to make annually a careful and separate ex- amination of the pupils through the senior high school. This examina- tion, supplemented by a careful check of eyes and ears, has made it possible for us to know the individual health needs of each pupil. The aggregate findings indicate the points of emphasis in our preventive and remedial programs. While the advisability of such a complete check-up each year is sometimes questioned, because of the expenditure of time involved, the results obtained in our own particular case seem to justify the continuance of the practice.
A sharp rise in the number of scarlet fever cases last spring neces- sitated the daily inspection of certain classrooms at the Highland, Ju- nior High and Lowell Street Schools during the latter part of May and the month of June. Cultures were made on all suspicious cases and two cases, that showed the presence of streptococcus germs in the throat, were isolated pending the removal of their tonsils. This was done at the close of school last June. It is now recognized that immunization is more effective measure of prevention and control of scarlet fever. It is hoped that Reading will have the benefit of a scarlet fever preven-
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tion program as soon as the State Department of Public Health is in a position to offer such a service.
The past year also saw an increase in the measles rate which re- quired special attention for detection and control during the month of February. Here again, it is recognized that inspection is an ineffective method of prevention and control in view of the infectiousness of the disease before the symptoms appear. Emphasis in measles control should be placed upon isolation and the protection of the younger children in the home because of the more serious effects of the disease in this age group. It is generally agreed that any health work that raises the physical status of children is an effective means of com- bating this disease inasmuch as the sequelae of measles are most likely to occur in the underpar, malnourished group.
Such inspections for the control of specific diseases, together with the regular inspection for cleanliness and deviations from normal by the nurse, the daily check of suspicious cases by the doctor, and the morning inspection of the pupils by the teacher, have helped to pro- mote and maintain standards of cleanliness and to keep contagion at as low a level as possible throughout the year.
Follow-up work incident to the health examination and the work of the various clinics has continued to claim a large share of the nurse's time. The number of corrections of physical defects that have been obtained has been unusually good, especially in view of the present economic situation. The work which the Reading Dental Clinic has done in caring for cases financially unable to have dental care, and the help which the various organizations and the Welfare Department has given in defective vision and hearing cases have made corrections pos- sible in spite of unfavorable economic conditions in the home.
As valuable as remedial work is from the point of view of the in- dividual pupil, our greater responsibility lies in the protection and promotion of the health of all the pupils. To this end, increasing em- phasis is being placed by the department upon the maintenance of health standards throughout the school system.
Efforts to secure adequate lighting for all classrooms have been made this fall through the use of a sight meter to determine deficien- cies. While the survey has not yet been completed, there is sufficient evidence to show that some of the classrooms are below standard, es- pecially in regard to artificial lighting. A detailed report of the survey will be submitted to you at an early date.
Evidence of this same type of preventive work is to be seen in the adjustment of the pupils' seats and desks by the physical education de- partment.
Your enthusiasm for the maintenance of health standards in our school buildings is a source of satisfaction to this department, and gives an assurance that faulty conditions will be remedied as soon as possible.
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One of the most worthwhile projects in the way of preventive medi- cine that the health department has ever undertaken is the dental- nutrition survey now in progress. In co-operation with the State De- partment of Public Health, the health service is attempting through this program to attack the problem of tooth decay from the standpoint of nutrition. To date, only the dental survey has been completed, but plans have been evolved whereby each case selected at the time of the survey will be given the opportunity for nutritional supervision and advice by a nutritionist from the state department of health in addition to adequate dental care by the family dentist or clinic.
The dental survey, which is the only item of the program that in- volves expense, was paid for by the Reading Good Health Committee, and was conducted by the dentists of the dental clinic. The project has the co-operation and active participation of all the dentists in town.
The ACH index method of determining the nutritional status of children was used for the first time this fall in the elementary grades. This method, which consists of measuring the arm, chest and hip girth, has been developed by the American Child Association. It is advocated as a more reliable index of nutritional status than that determined by the former method of age, height, weight tables. The ACH index and the annual growth record from the basis of our selection of children that require special supervision and care.
Adequate provision for handicapped children, especially the hard of hearing group, is still lacking in our school system. There are, at the present time, approximately ten or twelve children who have been definitely recommended for lip reading instruction. These children plus many more, whose hearing loss according to the audiometer indicate the advisability of lip reading, form a sizeable group. Consideration of these children is urged as soon as financial conditions warrant.
The registration of children entering school for the first time in September was held March 6 and 7. There are indications this past year that parents are beginning to value this type of pre-entrance-to- school survey as a means of better preparing their children for school. There was noted over the results of other years, an increase in the number of children registered, a marked increase in the number who had the recommended examination, and a small but noticeable increase in the number of physical defects corrected before school entrance.
There is still much to be done before our children enter school physically fit. A survey of the physical records of first grade pupils show a high percent of children with defective teeth, enlarged tonsils and other physical defects that hinder their school progress. A more active participation on the part of the Parent-Teachers' Association in getting the child ready for school is suggested as a worthy and needed community project.
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Clinical Services
Of great value in our remedial program are the various clinics that are maintained and operated by the Reading Good Health Committee, the State Department of Public Health and the school. A discussion of the activities of these clinics follows: The first two clinics are main- tained by the local organization, the latter two by the state department and the fifth by the school itself.
Reading Dental Clinic
After eight years of service, Dr. S. Maxwell Beal found it neces- sary to sever his connections with the clinic. Dr. Frederick Haley, who had acted as Dr. Beal's assistant for the past five years, was placed in charge, and Dr. Arthur Slingsby, who had served as substitute for three years, became Dr. Haley's assistant.
The clinic has continued to work under difficulties in the form of a too heavy case load and in the reduction by more than half of the fees collected at the clinic. Because of the increased number of child- ren that have had to be cared for at the clinic, it has prevented a sys- tematic return of each child within a six month or one year period. This is most unfortunate from the point of view of providing adequate dental supervision. While the collections at the clinic at any time have contributed only a small amount toward the support of the clinic, their falling off has meant an increased burden on the committee, and has caused the diversion of funds that otherwise might have been used toward the extension of clinic time.
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