New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-05-30
New ORLEANS, Nav o. 1872.


To the City Council of New Orleans:
Your petitioners, the undersigned teach
ers employed under your administration
by the honorable the Board of School Di-
rectOrs for the city of New Orleans, beg
leave to call your serious attention to-
and to solicit your careful consideration
of their sufferings and priyatiOns during
the whole of the past session of lS7l-72.
Your petitioners have received but one
months full pay during the last eight
months, which, according to their contract
with the board, they have faithfully de-
voted to the education of 10000 of the
youth of this city-the sons, daughters and
wards of our citizens.
The scrip of, the honorable Board of
School Directors, based upon the approprIa-
ton authorized by the school tax. and
known as school certificates, in which alone
the teachers can be paid, is so seriously de-
preciated that ii realizes in good money
but a little more than two-thirds OF its face.
Unable to sustain such heavy discounts
on but moderate salaries, your petitioners,
in hope of better things, and to save some
portion of their claims, have applied thelr
scrip to borrow money, although at rates
calculated to make them feel and remember
the true character of such an accOmmOda-
ton.
This feeble effort to extricate themselves
has, however, but increased their burdens,
and your petitioners are now helpless and
hopeless.
Your petitioners would refrain from
placing before your honorable body even a
faint sketch of their true story, of their
privatiOns, losses and sufferings during the
memorable session now drawing to close.
Many of the teachers have been obliged
to borrow money from the Metropolitan
Savings Bank, paying four per cent a month
for but twO-thirds of the face of their GER
tifeates, then deposited in the bank as cob
lateral security for the ultimate payment of
the loan.
Is On the first certificates thirty-twO per
cent has been paid by the teachers for this
crushing accommodation. But when this
percentage is added to the loss sustained
by the sale of certificates, rendered impera-
tive by the crying necessities of the teach
ers, some true idea of the sufferings en-
dured may then be formed.
The total loss OF the teachers on the hrst
certificates issued is ffty-seven per cent; on
the second, fifty-three per cent, etc. Some
of our teachers have suffered from the want
of proper food, others have been turned out
of house and home for non-payment of rent,
and others have been glad, in their trials, to
accept the aid of charity. w
All these burdens, cruelty oppressive as
they are, have been long suffered by those
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to the public, and claim that return which,
if paid regularly, would have placed them
in position of honorable independence and
comparative comfort. -a
On former occasion, a few years ago,
when the city notes, in which the teachers
were paid, fell as low as the school certif-
Gates now stand, the Council came to the
relief of the teachers by a special apprO-
priation of thirty-three and one-third per
cent to cover the loss incurred.
At no time in the history of the public
schools has the financial position of the
board been so anomalous, so hard upon the
teachers. Your petitioners beg leave to
request that you will, in your wisdom and
justice, devise some immediate means by
which the straitened condition of your
teachers may be improved, and heavy
burden removed from public servants.
whose arduous duties, even in the best of
times, can never fail to command the kindly
consideration and sympathy of a generous
public.
And we remain, gentlemen, your obedient