News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-01-01
The New School Law.
An interpretation of the Measure
which will Command Attention.

I n
which will Command Attention.
From the Brattleboro Pheni2.l
Whether the new school law should
be enacted or not was question Tor
the legislature. Now when it has be-
come a law it is entitled to fair con-
sideration as to its meaning, practl-
cability and effect. Its main features
are that it abolishes county boards
of education and supervisors, pro-
vides for county examiners OF teach
ers, and restores town superlntend-
ents and the former school law. The
duties of the officers abolished are
distributed among those created and
restored by plain and adequate pro
visions not hard to be understood.
The basis of division of public money
among districts remains the same as
before, but the time of division IS
changed from July to 1.-The Friday
preceding the last Tuesday fMarch,
and the provision that mo public
money shall be distributed to a
school district unless such district
has supported a school "a weeks dur
ing the school year. is left among
those in force. Some persons seem
| to 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 therefore no dis
tricts but those which have supported
schools "a weeks within that nine
months will be entitled to any share
in the public money at the next di-
vision. If this is so the law in this
respect is very homogeneous. 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 it's
language so compels.
Whether it must be so construed is
apparently an important question
to many districts. 1t provides, in
Section Is, that: School districts
shall hold their annual meeting on
the last Tuesday in March in each
year, and the school year shall begin
and close as before the passage of
act number nine of the laws of 1885,"
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 pro-
vided that the selectmen in the divis-
ion of public money "shall consider
the school year as commencing on
the Goth day of March and endingOn
the 10Th day of March next follow
ing" 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 90 into effect 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 to consider to be the
school year in the division of the
public money The school year of
the law of 1888 will be abolished,
and this will be the only direction
they will have. Their duty would
seem to plainly be to divide the
money on the basis required among
the districts that have supported |
schools of the required standard be- |
tween the 10Th of March, 1890, and |
the Goth of March, 1891. This will
include the spring or summer terms
of 1890, and give a full year for the
"a weeks. Compliance with the law
will be easy, and its effects uniform in
each year. The school year is made
to end before the money is to be di-
vided, thus enabling the selectmen to
find how many weeks of school have
been supported by the respective dis
tricts within it; and the money will
be divided before the annual meet
ings of the districts, thereby enabling |
them to act with reference to their
shares. This supposed incongruity |
has been held up as the most glaring
and difficult; but when tiIe 'law is
carefully examined it does not seem
to exist. Whether the law is wise or
not, it appears to have been drawn |
with care, to be harmonious in it's |
provisions, and not difficult of lust |
administration.
This is a matter of such general in |
terest that, having no occasion to |
act about it except as one of the pub |
lie, ! make these observations upon |
it for what they may be worth, hop |
ing to rather lessen than increase the |
which have arisen concern
ing it. H. H. WHEELER,