The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1899-02-01
List Of Changes Has Been Modi.
fed Policy Of Economy to
Be Pursued to the End
by the Board.

is question that has not yet been salts
factorily answered.
Superintendent Webster is now busly
engaged in preparing for each interested
teacher the official notice of her transfer,
degradation in rank or dismissal from the
department. Mr.. Webster attempted yes
terday to expedite matters by giving a
few teachers special letters to principals
authorizing transfers. These personal let
tiers, as matter of course, were not rec
ognfzed in lieu of an official notification.
The official list, with the notifications
made necessary by the Superintendent s
oversight, Will, it is expected, be ready
to-day. The department will then con-
unue its course under the scheme of re-
organization. The official notification to
interested teachers will be the signal for
legal controversy.
Many of the teachers that have been
dismissed or have been degraded in rank
have consulted attorneys and have been
advised to resist the action of the Board
OF Education. This resistance will simply
be formal and will be no more than suf-
f1cient to constitute legal protest. Each
teacher has been instructed to refuse to
give up her roll book until forced to do
so by the principal of her school. This
action, Il is anticipated, will protect the
legal rights of the teacher. When teachers
are asked this morning to give up their
positions they will voice this formal pro-
test so as to have, if possible, a technical
advantage in the litigation that will fol-
low.
ing the action of the board, the general
community is praising the action of the
Directors in attempting to inaugurate an
economical administration of the schools
The board has promised that impartial
Justice VIII be shown to all teachers.
Superintendent Webster has admitted
that he made several mistakes, which will
be corrected. There remains, therefore,
no doubt that the scheme Of economy will
be carried out Independent of political in
huences.
grsf
Interested teachers will be based upon
the Kennedy decision. A meeting of dis
missed teachers will probably be held to-
day, when legal advice will be secured
one or the supreme tests that will be
maze VIII be In reference to the last three
meetings of the last Board of Education
II these meetings were legal nearly all of
the, work of the present board will have
70 be undone. If the last board had the
legal right to act as it did on the last
DAY OF december, the present board has
decessor accomplished. This will be the
critical question of the controversy
RESIDENTS of the Mission are not yet
reconciled, to the action of the board in
sending the commercial departments of
the Mission High School to the Polytech-
mic High School. While the efforts of Di-
rector Il. l.. Head to secure a reconsider
alton of the matter were in vain, the Mis-
sfonites intend to agitate the affair still
further. The board has, however, def
nltely settled the question and will hear
g. That the School Directors are true to
the 1aith within them is becoming evil
cent more and more. It was expected
that protests from the dismissed and the
unassigned would Immediately flow in,
and the expected has happened AS one
Director expressed it: IF we were to un-
and pay off the school fund deficit some
protest"
The fear of these objections seems. how
ever. TO roll off the board like water from
a ducks back, to express it in an Irish at
ucism. The board meets a protestation
with another abolition. Whatever its sins,
1t has to its credit the merit of sticking
together and to its text The Normal
school was abolished, and petition rep
resenting million dollars worth of prop
erty objected. Four evening schools, big
commercial school and several cooking
schools that got caught in the 'suctonS
went down. The passing of the CONNER
protest, and the School Department teach
ers and employees lost 20 per cent of their
January pay. Said wise young lady
friends! One more protest and there won't
be a school left in the city,"
Naturally the Withholding of por-
ton of January money is 20 per cent of
income clipped from the school teachers
who have been browsing on short grass for
three months. and they would protest,
go as far as possible, hoping that the day
OF abolition has likewise been abolished.
The sixty-eight or seventy thousand
ettng T tbe r g0 distance
If some stray injunction doesn't come
along before pay day: The board in
mediately, but the work Of extracting
that holdover 20 per cent from the ac-
count has delayed pay time till Feb
ruary g.
A few lawyers who are ever paving
and shifting for LITIGATION afar off are
arguing the illegality of holding back a
part OF an employees salary, on 'statu-
tory grounds"
The Mission people, though beaten, are
not cast down, and mass meeting. in the
near near future to which the whole warm
to the closing of the High School com
mercial classes. DR.. Clinton. ex-Super-
visor one of the leaders of the fight for
the despised department, is bitter over
the treatment accorded to the Mission
petition by the board last Monday even
Ing.
"These signatures represented our whole
populous district" said DR.. Clinton yes
terday; but no attention was paid to
them. While we were waiting for an OPP
portunity to save our school the ak was
swinging and other things were going
down. We received no notice nor cour-
tesy We were not even bowed out Our
fne building was emptied of its great
commercial class and the pupils told to
go across the city to another school,"
The disaster caused by the abolition of
the high school commercial class is not
from that school yesterday visited Prin
cipal Bush of the Polytechnic, who in
formed them that If thirty or more would
enter that school he could find room for
eighty-five and possibly the whole number
Q03). They could continue their old Mis-
sion High School course of instruction.
and be graduated in June. This was en-
tirely satisfactory, and the class will en-
ter the Polytechnic.
Principal Bush stated in an interview
that the commercial course of study of
the two schools was not materially diff
ferent from each other. The Pitman
system of stenography was taught at the
Mission, while the eclectic method was
a part of the Polytechnic course. The
pupils will be permitted to go on with
their Pitman shorthand in their new
school. In the Polytechnic business. Unit.
ed States history and several English
branches of study are taught and this is
the only difference between the courses
of the two institutions. 1t costs 500 per
year to graduate a pupil in the Mission
High and $45 in the Polytechnic The
change from one school to the other will
do away with the services Of four or five
teachers.
Relative to the proposed repairs on
school buildings, mentioned in the report
of the committee on building made Mon
day evening, Chairman Holbrook stated
yesterday that not single nail will he