St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1920-01-17

We have always had trouble In
keeping up an average attendance Of
thirty pupils at the Peace Grove
school at st. Tammany. and just re-
Gently Is pupils have moved away
from that community, making 1t
now, without doubt, impossible to
! keep an average attendance of 80,
and for that reason I have moved
the assistant teacher to the Savan-
nah Branch school where one teach
er had an enrolment of considerably
over forty.
| The White Settlement colored
school has been closed, and the
same teacher will open the coiored
school at Onville on Jan. 5th.
| The Beason school at the Salmen
Camp had to close at the end of one
months teaching on accoutn of the
resignation of the teacher, and l
have not been able to secure any one
for that place. At present, I have
vacancy in the sixth grade at the
| Covington High School, also at the
Vaudeville Junior High School, AMI
one in the Slidell school. The teach
er at the Bonfouca school in the 9th
ward was compelled to resign at
! Christmas on account Of her health.
land l do not know where l can secure
teachers at present for any Of these
places. In this connection, l may
say that the supply of teachers is
growing more scarce all the time
While attending the Convention Of
lSuperintendents held in New Orleans
Irecently, considered ourselves for
tunate in not being short more than
five or six teachers when numbers Of
Superintendents reported their short
age anywhere from six to thirty
/ teachers. l have recently heard of
six room schools that had not been
| opened during the year. One Sup
erintendent told me he had not beet
able to open a single one of his one
room schools. President V. L. Roy
of our State Normal School is my au-
thority for saying that the enroll
| ment in the State Normal Schools
| throughout the country is twenty-five
to tWenty-eight per cent less this year
| than it has ever been before, and
| this means a continued decrease in
| our supply Of qualified teachers. If
We pause for moment, we can not
| but understand that this is a natural
consequence when teachers are leay-
| ing for other occupations that pay a
larger salary, and few are taking up
| the work.
am sorry to report that our prin-
| cipal of the Folsom school has re-
signed to accept a commercial posi-
| ton that pays him more than double
what we were giving him. While
rejoice at his good fortune, still it IS
but another example Of the fact that
salaries must be increased more and
more or we will be without schools
entirely. The matter of salaries was
seriously taken up by the Superin-
tendents and School Boards Conven-
ton attended by me at your request
in New Orleans, and the minimum
salary scale was agreed upon at this
convention and will be recommends |
to the school officials throughout the
state. In few words, l may saw
certificates are offered $50 per month
with no annual increase. We are
now paying S45. Teachers holding
second grade certificates are offered
| $40, and We are now paying $50
Teachers holding first grade certifi-
Gates are offered $50 mouth for the
first year. We are now paying them
$50. Graduates Of normal schools
according to this new schedule, are
| offered $50 month for the frs
year, and we are offering $40. F
your information l have typed Oft
| copies of this schedule and will dis
tribute them to you to-day. There
are osme parishes in the state tina
have the finances to meet this sched-
ule, at present, but large majority
| OF them do not have, and this viii!
/ mean that hard campaign of edu-
| cation must be waged between now
and the opening of another school
year before the school authorities
will be able to pay aslaries even
equal to this minimum.
A most profitable teachers insti-
ute was held at Slidell on Friday
and Saturday, December 5 and i,
Mss Kate Evelyn Perkins of the
5ta'e Normal School, and Prof. C. C
Henson of the Isadore Newman Man
ual Training School, were present
an dtook an active part in the IN
ititute
Miss Perkins gave very instru:-
tive lesson in supervised study which
she discussed afterwards with the
teachers and answered such ques-
tons as they desired to ask. Mr..
Henson gave an excellent address en-
the needs and benefits Of school tests
and measurements and suggesting
ways OF improving instruction. Z
was more than delighted with the
response that the teachers who were
present made. I regret, however, to
report that considerable number