Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-09-11
IN BAD CONDITION
Dieh School Pupils Crowded Iu'
 ie Assembly Ball.

The situation at high school in regard to room Is at present in a very serious condition and Principal 6. w. Wilby has very difiicult task on his hands in taking care of the number of pupils now in the build- Ing. A reporter of the Democrat went through the building to-day and was surprised at the existing conditions. In assembly hall were more than 100 pupils who could not be seated in the school rooms. In the hall there were two teachers. one trying to hear lessons in the front part of the hall while another was in the rear of the hall to preserve order. If 1t were not for the hall these children would have to be sent home.
 The seats are very unsuitable for school purposes and as there Is no desks the children find 1t very ins convenient to prepare lessons there. There seems to be little relief ih sight although conditions will be much better when the board ap- points more teachers as couple of recitation rooms can be pressed into service.
 The classes because of lack of teachers are by far too large and some of the rooms during certain periods are simply packed to the doors A couple of rooms which the reporter looked over were at the time crowded with pupils sitting three and four in double seat.
 At present there are four teach, CTS substituting in the building. James Grafton, teacher of Greek and mathematics, is in Boston i'll with ptomaine poisoning. Miss Ju- lia P. Hayes is taking care of his room. No successor has as yet been appointed to Mir Field and Edward Finn Is substituting in his room. Miss Margaret Croft was out to-day because of illness and in her stead was Howard Phipps, student of Yale. Lawrence Phipps, also stu dent of Yale is substituting for Miss Phillips, who has not yet re- turned from her vacation. Miss Etta Hagar of the commercial de- partment is also out of school at present.
 s. w. Wilby, principal, said that the school was badly in need of three or four teachers. With three new teachers we would be able to take care of many of these pupils properly" pointing to those in as. sembly hall. We would use the lecture room in the laboratory and this with one recitation room which xuf~ hnvy rn ncfn rn- move some of the congestion pro- viding we had the teachers. You know If we did not have this hall we would have to send the pupils home"
 The basement of the building is no longer, or for that matter never was suitable place for class rooms. The commercial department is locat- ed in the basement and although one of the rooms is all right, the other is very dark; so dark that the pu- pills have to do their work by artifi- cial light. Moreover these two rooms are within few feet of the toilet room and although the sani- tary system IS good, pupils should never be compelled to sit in these rooms.
 There is no getting away from the fact that the board of education should get together with the other boards and endeavor to do some- thing which will relieve the present serious situation. There is every req son for Superintendent of Schools B. w. Tinker and Principal s. w. Will by to feel worried. If the board de- lays building an addition for an- other year, the school will be simply swamped next September.
 The board of education claims, so 1t is said, that it cannot get the money for an addition while the f. nance commissioners maintain that the board has had enough for an addition if it had cared to turn it to that use. Whatever the hitch it | should be remedied for apparently ] things have reached a crisis at the high school.