Macon beacon., 1917-06-01

school your school and on behalf
of the city officials, school trus-
tees and our taxpayers l invite
you to do this. A great many of
you have already done this, and
while we realize that we have not
given you a perfect school we
feel that those of you who have
made our school your school have
profted by it and we know we
have profted by you and your
children, This past session we
enrolled about sixty pupils from
districts outside of Macon. Near
ly every month a fourth of our
student body came from the coun-
try. Some of them came eight
or nine miles. All of those who
remained with us for the whole
session made progress. We in
vite all you to send your children
in next session.
Now, there are two plans which
can be worked to accomplish this
consolidation. One plan is to eX-
tend our school district, with your
consent, to take you in and charge
you the same tax levy that we
make on ourselves. Our tax
levy is about five mills for school
purposes. If you should consoli-
date with other country schools
you would have to pay this much
and more. This in the end is the
plan that believe will be worked.
1t will be a saving to you and US.
One consolidated district in this
county taxes itself about nine
mills for school purposes. If we
should take in enough territory
we would have enough to make
the necessary progress to give
our children the best advantage
and not raise the taxes above five
mills. believe we could lower
them. | hope we can get to-
gether and put this plan into op
Grafton some day.
However, conditions may not
be ripe for this step yet and there
is another plan which we offer
you. 1t is the plan which we
have followed this year with the
exception Of a change in the pay
ing for high school pupils. BY
provision Of law it is possible in
Mississippi for children of one
district to attend the school of
another with the consent of the
trustees and the county superin-
tendent is authorized to pay into
the treasury of the school they
attend the per capita cost of edu-
eating a child in the country. In
view of the fact that we felt we
could accommodate a fewmore
children in each grade without
extra teachers we threw open our
doors to county pupils this year,
and made no charges for any of
the nine months provided a child
enrolled in our school at the first
Of the session. Now this per cap
ita amount was only a little over
twenty dollars, though the actual
cost of educating our children is
away above that. However, we
understood this when we made
the offer.
But, later the county superin-
tendent received instructions of
a decision that no tuition could
be paid for high school pupils.
This cut our revenue short by
about three hundred and fifty
dollars and we received no pay
whatever from any source for
the county pupils above the
eighth grade. In view of the
fact that it costs us about sixty
five or seventy dollars per capita
for those pupils above the eighth
grade you can see our loss. Now
our plan for next year is to open
our doors to those county pupils
below high school. 1t will cost
you nothing to make our school
your school for your children be-
low the high school. For the
high school pupils, those above
the eighth grade, we are going to
make a charge of three dollars
fifty cents per month for the nine
months, or thirty-one dollars and
fifty cents for the session. This
is about half, or less than half of
what it costs US. These parents
who live outside of Macon but pay
taxes on city property will be
given credit on their children S
high school tuition for all they
pay into the school fund.
We invite every one-teacher
district within eight or nine miles
to consolidate with US by this
plan this next session. Now, we
want to decide at once so we can