The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1891-01-08
THE NEW SCHOOL LAW.
An Interpretation Of the Measure Which
VIII Command Atteptton

VIII Command Attention
Whether the new school law should be
enacted or not was a question for the
Legislature. Now when it has become a
law It is entitled to fair consideration AZ
70 Its meaning, practieability and OBJECT
Its main features are that il abolisbes
county boards of education and sinner
visors, provides for county examiners Of
teachers, and restores town superintand-
ents and the former school year The
duties of the officers abolished are dis
tributed among those creatures and ne.
stored by plain and adequate provisions
not hasd 10 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 ''tlle Friday preceding the last
Tuesday of March," and the provision
that mo public money shall be distrib-
uted to a school district unless such dis
trict has supported school "a weeks
during 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 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
TINS respect is very incongruous That
the Legislature intended to require dis
tricts 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
language so compels.
Whether it must be so construed is an
Parently 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 pas
sage OF Act number nine of the laws of
lSSS.' What this school year is must be
learned from the laws in force at the
ume OF the passage of that Act. Num-
Der % of the laws of 1882 provided that
the selectmen in the division of public
money shall consider the school year as
commencing on the 2Oth day of March
ana ending on the 10Th day of March
to have been changed in 1884 or lSS6 80
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 effect on the first Tuesday of
March, and such 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 di-
rection 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 between the 10th
of March, 1890, and the Goth of 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 uni
form in each year. The school year is
made to end before the money is to be
divided, thus enabling the selectmen to
find how many weeks of school have
been supported by the respective dis
trlcts 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 and difficult; but
when the 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 its provisions, and not difficult of lust
administration.
This is matter of such general inter
est that, having no occasion to act about
it except as one of the public, make
these observations upon it for what they
may be worth, hoping to rather lessen
than increase the difficulties which have
arisen concerning it-Judge II. II.
Wheeler in Tie BrdttleborO Ph9nir