Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1890-12-26
CURRENT AFFAIRS.
THE VIEW SCHOOL LAW.
An Interpretation Of the Measure which
will Command Alteration,

An Interpretation of the Measure which
will Command Attention.
Whether the new school law should be
enacted or not was a question for the legis.
lature. Now when it has become a law il
is entitled to fair consideration as TO its
meaning, practcability and effect Its
main features are that it aboishes county
boards of education and supervisors, pro
vides for county examiners of teachers, and
restores town superintendents and the form
er school year. The duties of the officers
abolished are distributed among those crea-
ted and restored by plain and adequate pro-
visions not hard to be understood The basis
Of division of public money among dis
tricts remains the same as before, but the
time Of division is changed from July TO
the Friday preceding the last Tuesday of
March, and the provision that "no public
money shall be distributed to a school dis.
trict unless such district has supported a
school "a weeks during the school year, " is
left among those in force. Some persons
seem 10 think that the current school year
began, under the act of 1888, on the first day
of July, and will end under the new law
with the last day Of March and that there
fore no districts but those which shall have
supported schools "a weeks within that nine
months will be entitled to any share in the
public money at the next division If this
is so the law in this respect is very incon-
gruous. That the Legislature intended to
require districts to put as much schooling
INTO these nine months as into the whole Of
other years or lose the whole of their shares
Of public money is not to be presumed. and
the act should not be so construed as TO
work such an absurd result unless its Ian
guage so compels
Whether it must be so construed is ap-
parently an important question to many
districts 1t provides, in Section ~, that
School districts shall hold their annual
meeting ON the last Tuesday in March in
each year, aud the school year shall begin
and close as before the passage of act mum
her nine of the laws Of 1883" What this
school year is must be learned from the
laws in force at the time Of the passage of
that act Number % of the laws of 1882
provided that the selectmen in the division
OF public money shall consider the school
year as commencing on the 30th day of
March aud ending on the lgth day of March
next following This does not appear to
have been changed in 1884 or 1886 so far
as has been now noticed, and seems to be
the school year restored by the new
school law for this purpose The law is to
go into elfect on the first Tuesday Of March.
and such a school year will then be the
current school year and such a one as the
selectmen will be required 70 consider to be
the school year in the division Of the public
money The school year Of the law of 1883
will be abolished, aud this will be the only
direction they will have Their duty would
seem toplainly be to divide the money on the
basis required among the districts that have
supported schools Of the required standard
between the 18th of March, 1870 and the
2Oth # March, 1891. This will include the
spring or summer terms Of 1890, and give
full year for the a weeks. Compliance
with the law will be easy, and its effect un-
form in each year The school year is
made to end before the money is to he di-
vided, thus enabling the selectmen 10 find
how many weeks of school have been sup
ported by the respective districts within it:
and the money will be divided before the
annual meetings Of the districts, thereby
enabling them to act with reference to their
shares This supposed incongruity has
been held up as the most glaring aud diff
cult but when the law is carefully exam
ined it does not seem TO exist. Whether
the law is wise or not, it appears 10 have
been drawn with care to be harmonious in
its provisions, and not difficult Of Just ad-
mnistration.
This is a matter of such general interest
that, having no occasion to act about it ex-
cept as one of the public, make these OBJ
servations upon it for what they may be
worth, hoping to rather lessen than increase
the difficulties which have arisen concern
ing it. H. H. WHEELER.