USA > Pennsylvania > Lycoming County > Picture of Lycoming County, Vol. 2 > Part 5
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The entire system got its greatest test during Hurricane Agnes in 1972 and passed with flying colors. The city sighed with great relief when the dikes held firm, despite rumors to the contrary. Williamsporters were truly thank- ful that nothing more than some flooded basements and a few impassable streets had occurred. The alternative was too awful to imagine. Not even Agnes was strong enough to penetrate the flood fortificaitons which surround Williamsport like a mother's arms, serving as a tribute to those who sought their erection.
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QUESTIONS CHAPTER 5
1. Construct a time line showing the history of floods in Lycoming County beginning in 1936. Indicate the severity of each major flood.
2. Describe how each of the following locations was affect- ed by the "Agnes" flood of 1972:
A. Williamsport
B. South Williamsport C. Montoursville
D. Jersey Shore
E. Muncy
F. Montgomery G. Pine Creek
3. How was Williamsport spared from a major disaster in 1972?
4. Why was the building of dikes at Williamsport a con- troversial subject for Lycoming County?
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Chapter 6
EDUCATION: FROM ONE ROOM TO MANY
Only since about 1940 has education in Lycoming County en- tered the modern age. Even in that year there were still close to 100 one-room schoolhouses within the county. These were where rural and village children had their first en- counter with reading, writing and arithmetic. It was not until 1967 that the last two one-room schools closed for good in Lycoming County. By today's standards, the one- room schools were anything but modern. The introduction of electric lights was about the only amenity most of these schools ever acquired; only rarely did they possess run- ning water or indoor toilets. Usually these schools were heated by large pot-bellied stoves fired by coal, or in recent years, a coal oil fired stove conveniently located at the side of the room. The desks resembled church pews with a board for writing attached to the seat in front. One seat was often long enough to hold three pupils, and the seat itself was on hinges so that it could be folded up, making it easier to sweep the floors.
Pupils spent most of the school day doing arithmetic pro- blems, practicing writing or memorizing spelling words. The older students sometimes had to memorize the names of the presidents or the states and their capitals. Quite often there were up to eight grades in a single one-room school, which limited the amount of time the teacher could devote to each grade per day, even if some grades had only two or three students. The older pupils, too, helped with teaching the younger children. Recess was a time for play- ing "hide-and-seek" in nearby woods or touch tag in the school yard. When recess was over the teacher sent a pupil out with a handbell to announce time-up. Lunches were carried in a bag or lunch box, and a thermos of milk was needed, as none was provided. The meal was eaten at the desk where the pupils sat all day, and the teacher kept a watchful eye to make sure that no one left an untidy desk.
TOWN SCHOOLS
Schools in the boroughs of the county and in Williamsport were much advanced over the little country schools. The town schools themselves were, perhaps, not as comfortable as today's, but the classes were smaller than in the country schools, and children were placed in classes of a single grade. This meant fewer distractions and more time for individual instruction between teacher and pupil. Also, the borough and city schools provided kindergarten to in- troduce small children to the life and program of school -- though even kindergarten was only an innovation of the early 1950's in the town schools. The rural schools, on the other hand, could not offer kindergarten.
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At the secondary level, most of the high schools in the 1940's operated on the same basis as today. Students mo- ved from class to class, receiving instruction from teachers who specialized in a single subject. Students joined clubs, played on the football team or sang in the school chorus. Unlike today, however, students were offered a set cur- riculum with only a few electives or course choices avail- able, with some exceptions (the Williamsport High School, for example, offered a course in journalism as far back as 1924 ). Today, on the other hand, the curricula offered are broader in scope. Such courses as creative writing, astro- nomy, photography, and economics are commonly offered in high schools. Furthermore, many high schools formerly did not have libraries, and such facilities as plane- tariums, dark rooms, and swimming pools were unheard of in Lycoming County schools.
TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS
The organization of the schools in Lycoming County has changed beyond recognition since 1940. At that time the county school system was fragmented into separate school boards in each of the boroughs and townships. These in- dependent boards provided education for the children of their own municipalities. They saw that school buildings were maintained, books were bought and teachers were hired. Usually the township school boards operated within sharply limited budgets and could do little to abandon the one- room school concept which was a left-over from the 19th century .
Fortunately, the township school boards were not left to wander aimlessly on their own. As early as 1854 the Pennsylvania legislature created the office of county school superintendent, despite a great deal of opposition at the time. The superintendent's job was to provide pro- fessional supervision over the many scattered school dis- tricts in the county. The superintendent also saw to it that regulations mandated by the state were carried out by the local school boards. In 1854 these regulations in- cluded a minimum school term of four months and instruction in orthography, reading, writing, grammar, geography and arithmetic. Just since 1940 developments have swept away this picture of education in the county. The office of county superintendent of schools has been abolished and all the borough and township school boards have been conso- lidated into a total of eight within the county.
FORMATION OF JOINTURES
Most of the changes in the educational system were mandated by the Pennsylvania legislature. For example, in 1947, the legislature passed a law requiring all county school boards
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Newman School near Hughesville
in the state to draw up plans for the consolidation of the small borough and township schools into jointures. This meant, for example, that the Jersey Shore borough schools and those of surrounding townships were required to form a combined administrative unit. The same was true for the other larger boroughs of the county and their surrounding townships. Predictably, the 1947 Act was not a popular one. Many communities believed it violated the principle of lo- cal control of schools, denying them their democratic right to educate their children as they saw fit.
Yet the reasons for forming jointures were sound. Most townships and small villages already sent their high school students to the nearest borough high school. Thus, Fair- field Township sent its students to Montoursville High School, and Brady Township sent its students to Montgomery. The same pattern was true for the rest of the county, each township paying tuition to the borough where its students were sent. Prior to jointures, whenever a borough was forced to expand its high school or to build a new one due to overcrowding or delapidation, it was financially hard pressed to carry out construction without the assistance of the neighboring townships, who likewise benefited from a new school. Another reason for creating jointures was the intolerable condition of many of the one-room schools. The formation of jointures meant that not only high schools, but elementary schools, as well, would come under the ad- ministration of the larger school jointures. The jointures, therefore, improved the standards and condition of the county's schools and made building new schools economically feasible. Thus, many one-room schools were phased out and larger, better schools were built.
The seven school jointures created in the county after the 1947 ruling were: (1) East Lycoming Area, (2) Muncy Area, (3) Montgomery Area, (4) Montoursville Area, (5) South Williamsport Area, (6) Williamsport Area (including Loyal- sock Township), and (7) Jersey Shore Area. The William- sport schools had always been independent of the county school board, and this remained so under the jointure setup.
When jointures were formed, each township and borough school board chose one member to serve on the jointure board. The county school board and superintendent con- tinued to exercise their various functions. These in- cluded approving annual financial reports from each of the jointures; giving help and direction in the procedures for erecting new buildings; visiting every one-room school in the county each year; holding "teachers' institutes" to present and to discuss the newest teaching ideas and meth- ods; holding monthly "round-table" meetings for principals and supervising principals to voice issues of mutual con- cern; helping to estimate subsidy amounts from the State
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Education Department to the jointures; approving bus trans- portation contracts of the jointures; and finally, the rat- ing of new teachers in their first and second years.
SCHOOL DISTRICT REORGANIZATION
Yet, the creation of jointures was just a first step in the unification process. Final and complete consolidation, as we know it today, followed from the 1961 School District Reorganization Act. The Act held that school jointures should unify into single school districts under one board and district superintendent. It gave school districts au- thority to levy taxes and construct their own buildings. As a result of this reorganization, still more new schools were built and smaller one-room and two-room schools were abolished.
The two one-room schools to share the distinction of being the last closed in the county were the Rose Valley and Beech Valley schools of the Montoursville Area School District. Both these schools ceased to exist in 1967; with their passing an era in Lycoming County education passed, too. Except for some neighborhood schools in Williamsport and the boroughs, most children today in Lycoming County are bused to school; few children live close enough to walk, and some must ride distances of up to forty miles on the school bus. Many people may lament the passing of the former era in education, others may resent the centralized control of schools which the new era has brought, but like other institutions, the schools have had to move with the times to meet the needs of a modern world.
The 1961 School District Reorganization Act resulted in the present eight school districts in Lycoming County. They are roughly equivalent to the earlier jointures as listed above, except that the Loyalsock Township School District was formed out of the Williamsport Area School District. The Jersey Shore District -- largest in geographical area in the county -- also encompasses two townships from Clinton County. Five Lycoming County townships are part of school districts in other counties: Pine Township in the Wellsboro School District, Cogan House and Jackson Townships in the Southern Tioga School District, and McIntyre and McNett Townships in the Canton Area School District.
Another consequence of the 1961 School District Reorganiza- tion Act was the disbanding of the Lycoming County Board of Education in July, 1971. The school districts were large enough by then to perform most of the functions of the county board. The county school board and the county su- perintendent's office were replaced by a new school advi- sory unit for Bradford, Lycoming, Sullivan and Tioga coun- ties, known by the acronym BLaST. The unit is officially
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called Intermediate Unit 17, and is under the state Depart- ment of Education. It comprises 19 school districts and 3,950 square miles of territory.
Intermediate Unit 17 has no regulatory control over school districts. Rather, its assigned function is to provide services and advice in special education and vocational training. The Williamsport School District provides its own facilities in the area of vocational training and does not require the assistance of BLaST. BLaST also offers services in several broad areas. For example, it offers films and filmstrips from its audio-visual library; it has available the latest resources in teaching materials, and will assist school districts in curriculum development. School districts can receive management advice from BLaST, and also liaison between them and state and federal agencies which may have available special funds unknown to the school districts. Thus, the basic function of BLAST is to provide expertise in helping school districts make learning a happy and successful experience for children.
SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE SCHOOLS
Despite the radical effects of the consolidation of school districts in the size and sophistication of school buildings, other more subtle changes have occurred as a result of social rather than legislative developments. The schools have as- sumed a greater degree of responsibility for teaching sub- jects formerly confined to the home and family -- like cooking, sewing, physical hygiene, and sex education. Prior to school district reorganization, many smaller districts had neither the resources nor the staff to offer such courses; these were matters taught in the home, or not at all. But the increasing mobility of American life -- the fact that less time is spent as families -- and the growing phenomenon of both parents working has placed the teaching of social, moral and physical matters into the hands of the schools. The schools have assumed this responsibility par- tially because of government mandates and also as a response to the growing need.
Another consequence of school consolidation and altered so- cial conditions is the nature of the triangular parent/ student/teacher relationship. With less parent/child inter- action, and larger schools, parents are no longer as wil- ling to defer to teachers in disciplinary matters. Disci- pline has, thus, become another area in which education has changed. One illustration of this is the liberalization of dress codes in the local schools. Up until about 1970, girls were required to wear skirts to school; for boys there were restrictions on the length of hair and sideburns. All this changed with the 1970's, and exemplifies the attitudes of modern society regarding student appearance
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and behavior.
NEW TEACHING METHODS AND CURRICULA
As national trends in education began to change in the 1960's, the schools in Lycoming County sought to keep pace with the new teaching methods and curricula. A major watermark in this process was the year 1957 when the Soviet Union suc- cessfully launched a satellite named Sputnik into outer space. This event demonstrated to America that our edu- cational program in the sciences had to be stepped up if we wanted to keep ahead of the Soviets in technology. Schools throughout the country expanded science curricula. Larger more sophisticated labs were built, and mathematics became a core subject for all students aspiring to college admission. Today, the importance of science in the schools is exemplified not only by laboratories, but by plane- tariums, such as the one in the new Williamsport Area High School. The limit of science education in the public schools has, thus, literally become the stars.
Besides expanded curricula in the sciences and other sub- jects, the public schools have experimented with a new method of teaching known as the "open school" method. Ori- ginally begun in England and now widespread there, the open school method substitutes an informal, non-structured teaching method for the more traditional structured one. Even the classroom arrangement in an open school is in- formal, with students seated at large tables or in cell- groups rather than at individual desks arranged in rows and aisles. This method has nearly always been used in kindergarten classes, which began in the Williamsport School District about 1952, but the open school plan was an innova- tion when first used in the higher grades during the late 1960's.
Most school districts in the county experimented with open education during its early years. In the Williamsport Area School District the Lycoming Valley Junior High School was built to an open school plan, and the new high school was designed to accommodate such innovations as large group instruction and independent study. Yet, despite a strong move in the open school direction during the early and mid- 1970's, its impact has waned and the traditional structured method remains very much alive throughout the county.
The "team teaching" idea is another instructional method which gained credence in the 1960's. This technique, un- like the open school technique, was utilized primarily in the secondary schools. The idea is for two or three teach- ers to combine their classes so that each one can concen- trate on a specific portion of a subject rather than to have to teach the entire subject. Team teaching works
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Modern Schools in Lycoming County
Bishop Neumann High School
YSHOP HEVMAI
Lycoming Valley Junior High WASD
t
Locust Street Elementary Jersey Shore
Williamsport Area High School
Klump Academic Center Williamsport Area Community College
Lycoming College Academic Center
particularly well in the humanities, such as history and government, and is quite conducive to the use of audio- visual aids.
FEDERAL FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS
Though school districts receive their funding through local property taxes and subsidies from the state Department of Education, since the late 1950's and early 1960's federally funded programs have enabled school districts to finance innovative projects by submitting competitive applications in such areas as open education, the arts, and citizenship. The Williamsport Area School District, for example, funded the creation of a teachers' "Skills Shop" in 1972 through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Title III. Other federal programs provide non-competitive funds for basic adult education for adults without a high school diploma, funds for vocational education, and Impact Aid to school districts with children in low rent housing, in lieu of property taxes. All of these federal programs -- both com- petitive and non-competitive -- allow school districts to expand educational opportunities in innovative directions beyond the capacity of their normal budgets. Grants by the federal government to school districts is another change in education which has further affected the picture of public education in Lycoming County.
HIGHLY SKILLED TEACHERS
The days are gone when the school board of a country town- ship sat down to interview a teacher for their children or grandchildren. Gone, too, are the days when teachers were not required to have a college degree. In the late 1930's the state teacher's colleges changed their course of study from two to four years. At about the same time, the Teacher Tenure Law made a four-year college degree mandatory for all Pennsylvania teachers. But another impetus to the increase in the academic qualifications of teachers was the intro- duction in the 1950's of teachers' salary schedules which prescribed higher salaries for teachers with a master's de- gree or other advanced degrees. This encouraged teachers to seek higher levels of education in order to reach higher levels of pay. The consequence of all these factors was to raise the teaching vocation to that of a highly skilled pro- fession requiring many years of academic and practical train- ing.
In the face of so many new and far reaching developments in Lycoming County's schools, many things have not changed and seem perennially the same. Getting homework done on time, being accepted by a college, asking someone to the school dance, preparing for a band concert or football game, or choosing the right career -- these things have not changed
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even if many others have. The public schools have been for a long time the backbone of education in Lycoming County. Much has been done here since the 1940's by all eight school districts to insure the best and fullest education possible for all children in the county in the years to come .
PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS
While the education provided by the public schools is free and available to all children, some parents prefer to send their children to parochial or private schools. The oldest non-public schools in the county are the Roman Catholic schools at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bastress and at St. Boniface and Annunciation churches in Williamsport. All of these schools were founded in the 19th century. A fourth Catholic elementary school opened at St. Ann's Church in Loyalsock beginning with the 1968 school year. Up to the mid-1960's, Williamsport also had two Roman Catho- lic high schools -- St. Mary's on Penn Street, belonging to St. Boniface Church, and St. Joseph's at Annunciation Church on Fourth Street. These high schools were closed and replaced by Bishop Neumann High School, which opened in 1969. Built on the same site as St. Mary's School (formerly the site of the public school, William Penn), Bishop Neumann was originally intended to be the new St. Boniface elementary school. The Bishop of Scranton, how- ever, wanted it for Bishop Neumann, the regional Catholic high school, and thus, bought the building from St. Boni- face Church. St. Boniface then built a new elementary school on Franklin Street, which opened in 1970.
The Roman Catholic Church is no longer the only religious group in the county to run its own schools. In 1955 the Seventh Day Adventist Church in South Williamsport opened a parochial school which provides education through the eighth grade. And still a more recent occurrence in the county has been the establishment of so-called "Christian schools." These schools operate on the same rationale as the much older Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist schools -- to provide an education consistent with the reli- gious beliefs and moral teachings of the sponsoring church or religious group.
The first Christian school in the county opened in 1971 at Emmanuel Baptist Church on Four Mile Drive in Loyalsock. Today the school offers the full-range of grades from pre- school to twelfth grade. Three more Christian schools have opened since then: The Faith Tabernacle Christian Academy (also pre-school through twelfth grade), and in 1976, the Walnut Street Baptist School in Jersey Shore, with kinder- garten through eleventh grade, and the Wesleyan Academy in Muncy with grades kindergarten through twelve.
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The impetus toward the founding of Christian schools stems back to the 1962 U. S. Supreme Court ruling banning Bible reading and prayer from the public schools. This action, along with things like sex education in the public schools, caused some parents to organize church-run schools where the curriculum is based strictly on the Bible. Like the Roman Catholic schools, the Christian schools derive much of their operating funds from tuition charges; the remainder is ob- tained through contributions from sympathetic individuals and organizations.
AN . "ALTERNATIVE" SCHOOL
The only non-religious private school in Lycoming County is the West Branch School located on Moore Avenue in William- sport. It was established in 1971 by a group of local parents who wished to educate their childgen in the context of an alternative or "open school." The teaching methods are much the same as the open class method used in the public schools except that the West Branch School is com- pletely non-structured. There are no grade levels. Instead, children from the equivalents of first to sixth grades in- teract and learn from each other in "learning centers" de- voted to particular subjects. This format is intended to encourage children to investigate subjects on their own. The West Branch School has averaged about 50 students per year since its inception.
THE SCHOOL OF HOPE
In 1954 a unique educational institution, known as the School of Hope, got its start in Williamsport. The School of Hope was conceived and founded by the Lycoming County Society for Retarded Children for the purpose of providing day-school facilities for school age children who are "either not manageable enough for public school classes or are too handicapped physically to get into public school buildings." The School of Hope also provided sheltered workshop facilities for occupational training to develop the intellectual and coordinative abilities of retarded persons past school age, a kindergarten program for mental- ly handicapped pre-school children, and a custodial care program and other consultative and recreational programs for retarded children and their parents.
In 1974 the Lycoming County Society for Retarded Children merged with Enterprises for the Handicapped, another local service organization, to form Hope Enterprises. The School of Hope then became one of a larger number of rehabilitation and educational services for retarded and handicapped per- sons in Lycoming County. Today, besides the School of Hope on Catherine Street, Williamsport, Hope Enterprises operates a rehabilitation workshop in Williamsport's Industrial Park
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