Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1911-10-27
BELLOWS FALLS NEWS
School Affairs.


The number of pupils attending school
in this town during the last five years
is as follows: 1907, 1879; 1908, 1867; 1909,
1893; 1910, 1917; 1911, 1899. This year there
are $50 boys and 593 girls enrolled.
There are eight teachers in the high
school, 81 in the village grades, and five
in the rural schools. With the three
special teachers, two substitutes and an
athletic director, who now has a place
in the roster, the number of teachers
employed by the town is an even 80.
The salaries paid last year amounted to
$21, 79i.05, and they average $1.95 per
month more than a year ago, when the
salaries paid our elementary teachers
were $12 per month less thai paid by
the city of Montpelier. 1t seems to be
a fact that our best teachers are con-
tinually being drawn away by the at
traction of larger salaries paid in other
places. The department of manual
training is making a very creditable
showing. This town was one of the
very earliest, if not the earliest, of any
in the state to establish this branch, and
it is easily leading all other towns in
this department. There are 22 pupils
in the high school this term. OF the 967
pupils over seven years of age whose
eyesight was examined last year in ac-
cord with the state law $50, or 26 per
cent were found to be defective. The
percentage of girls found defective was
q and the boys %.
The tuition rate for pupils coming
here from other towns is $25 to towns
sending over % students, while to other
towns the rate is $50. The records of
the high school show that it costs $4S
per year per pupil to sustain the school,
and the question might be well asked
if the rate charged should not be in
creased. superintendent Collins thinks
II ChnI111 hn of 1aaCf II mad 20 cOl
There is not now in the roster of the
teachers any one who has not received
training for teaching in some high
er institution of learning, while a few
years ago a large proportion were merely
graduates of high schools or not even
that. The school tax of 1910 was So
cents on the grand list, amounting to
$29, 445. 65, while the total income of the
school department from all sources
amounted to $36, 81. &c. The list of grad
yates of the high schol for 1910 number
ed 80, and in 1911 it was 40, the largest
number in the history of the school.
There is talk of organizing an evening
school for the coming winter to allow
the large number Of those who are
working days to have the advantages of
better education, and this would es-
pecially be of great service to the large
number OF foreigners who are just learn
ing our language.
Arrangements have already been made
for a teacher-parent training associa-
ton to hold its sessions at each of the
buildings in Bellows Falls. The purpose
is to get the teacher and parents to-
gether, using the school building as a
meeting place, to talk over those sub
jects in which both parents and teach
ers are jointly interested. 1t ought to be
made a success.
The superintendent of schools express
es much disappointment at the seeming
lack of interest in the schools exhibited
by parents and citizens, and urges an
Improvement in this regard. The i'm
portance of the schools to the welfare
of the place calls for the interest and
cooperation of all citizens, whether
parents or not.