Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1906-02-28
SETTING OUT TREES AND
FENCING GROUNDS.

Section 27S7 of school laws says !:
"The board of each school corporation
shall cause to be set out and properly
protected twelve or more shade trees
on each schoolhouse site where such
trees are not now growing. The county
superintendent in visiting the several
schools of his county shall call
attention of any board neglecting to
comply with the requirements OF this
section to any failure to carry out its
provisions. "
l trust the voters at the meetings
this spring will arrange to have
carried out the above provision con-
corning shade trees.
Chapter SS, Laws of Goth General
Assembly, Page 80 school law of 1902,
says: sit shall be the duty Of all
boards of school directors in school
districts where the school house site
adjoins the cultivated or improved
lands of another to build and maintain
a lawful fence between said site and
cultivated or improved lands. Section
2e17 of laws of 1902 says: Barbed
wire shall not be used to enclose any
school buildings or grounds, nor for
any fence or other purpose within ten
feet of any such grounds. Any person
violating the provisions of this section
shall be punished by fine not exceed
ing twenty-five dollars. -
DISTRIBUTING LIBRARY BOOKS.
The law providing for rural school
Libraries clearly states that in school
townships the secretary shall dis
tribute the books selected for the
schools to the Librarians (sub-director.
or the teacher when school is in
session. among the several sub-dis-
tricts, and at least semi annually col
lect the same and distribute others. -
notice in some townships no ex-
change of the books of the different
sub-districts has been made for one or
more years.
Since in several townships there are
but six or seven months of school and
often only eight or ten weeks school
between the spring and September
meetings of the boards. have asked
the secretary to make the exchange an
nually between the September meeting
and the early part of the winter term
of school. This seems the best that
can be done under existing conditions.
LENGTH OF SCHOOL TERMS.
1t is within the province of the
voters to ask for more months of
school in the year than is at present
provided. have received number
of reports from the country schools
which show an attendance of not more
than thirty five days in some instances
and from this on up to the eighty days
provided by the four months winter
term. 1t should be remembered that
this thirty-five days is all the school
that many pupils receive in the year.
The causes for this limited attendance
are hard to determine. In many
cases the pupils live off the main road
and often when snow comes there
are several days when the road is not
broken out. And too. the distance is
often considerably over mile and a
half or two miles and in the winter
the weather is too cold for small
children to go so far. Then when the
thaw OUT comes as it has in the
past two weeks, the roads are often
for children on foot, so
the term soop ends and many of the
children find when their attendance
record is made up it shows more days
absent from school than days present
This condition renders 1T unprofita-
BILE for the district, for the teacher is
paid so much per month to teach
whatever number of pupils attend,
it be five or twenty five.
am very strongly in favor of eight
months school in the year. If this
plan were followed we could have the
year nicely divided into three terms.
| think by having ten weeks in the