St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1913-02-05
A Long Felt Need

OF the NlI1age, DuL nave QOn0 every
thing possible to avoid building.
The above arrangements were made
in the interests of economy, that we
| might utilize all available space in
| all our present buildings and avoid
the expense of new building.
In the meantime our numbers
had increased at st. Johnsbury Gen.
ter and, after hiring a room outside
for one year, the town voted three
years ago to enlarge the school
building at the Center where we now
have an excellent three room school.
All children who had previously
been allowed to come from the
Center to Summer street school are
now we'll taken care of at home.
Everything has been done to re-
lieve the over-crowded conditions in
the way of utilizing our present
equipment, but the children contin-
ue to increase. All our village
school buildings are now full and
the buildings at Summer Street, al
ways the congested spot, are again
over-crowded.
Overcrowding of Grades
People who make education a
life study agree that teacher can
do her best work and get best re-
suits with a group of about 80
children and that under no circum
stances should. a teacher be called
upon to handle over 40 children in
one room Following are the en-
rollment figures at the Summer
street schools today
Grade 1, At; grade 2, 80; grade
8, Al; grade 4, As; grade 5, &c;
grade 6, 81; grade z, So; grade
o l. a 4n1
Congestion at Summer Street
1t is evident from the foregoing
that school children increase most
rapidly in the central part of our
village, in the territory nearest 10
Summer street schools. We have in
town today $50 pupils who would
naturally and most easily attend
schools at Summer street, but be-
cause we have not enough room, we
send part of them to- Paddock Viii |
Iage and Portland Street. We also
have SO children at Maple street. |
Why are we continually crowded at
Summer street? Simply because
people continue to crowd into this
section of the village. We have NOV
ed children from the west side of the
Passumpsic River to the Portland |
street school and in many cases fam
lilies have afterward moved to Sum-
merville rather than have their
children cross the railroad track
and river, but after all our transfer
ring, we find today $50 children in
this crowded section. Of these
children 375 live on or west of
Main street, 214 live between Main
street and the. Passumpsic river.
Closing of Rural Schools
We haYe been asked If this
crowded condition is not due to the
fact that the directors have closed
rural schools and transported child
rem to the Summer street schools.
The answer to this is emphati-
caIly, no. The only children which,
have been transported to the Sum-
mer street schools in all these 20
years who could have been accom-
modated in any other school are
seven children from Clay Hill.
That fact will doubtless surprise
many. Only seven children who
could attend any rural school in
ST. Johnsbury are being transported
to the Summer street schools. Now
Just a word about closing rural
Your directors have at va
rious times in the 20 years closed and
rural schools. When the
of children drops below ten
it is inadvisable from both an edu-
cational and financial standpoint TO
continue such a school. In such
cases the directors transport the
children to some other school where
they can have better advantages at
less expense to the town. Take
the Clay Hill school as an illustra
81 &c in 1 |
was $421.05. We found we had
only seven children at this school
last fall. The average yearly cost
per child if we had kept this school
open would therefore have been
S6O.15. We closed it and are trans
porting the seven children to Sum-
mer street at a cost of about $3.50.
The transportation cannot be fig
ured exactly in advance for the rea-
son that the state pays a large part
of the transportation expense based
on the tax rate of the various towns.
AS our average yearly cost per
pupil in the whole town for the pre-
vious year was only $26.6O, the
economy of closing such schools as
Clay Hill will be easily observed.
Want to Keep Expenses Down
In conclusion let it be remember
ed that all of your school directors
are real estate tax payers and there
fore as anxious as other taxpayers
to held down expenses. But the first
duty of these directors is to the
school children. The school directors
are elected to provide suitable
schools for the children Of the town.
We believe our schools are second
to none in the state. We have been
handicapped for room for several
years. We have overcome the crowd
ed conditions as far as possible by
children from one
school to another and have thus
provided some kim of school accom-
for all. 1t appears that
we have now reached our limit. At
ter exhausting every other resource
the directors feel that new build
ing IS necessary If we are to con-
tinue the present excellent standard