The Mena weekly star., 1921-12-08
ScrooIN NOrEs
ny w.H. AIoRDEN.


 have a great responsibility as super intendent for the county. We are be- hind you for bigger and better things educationally. Taxes are high, many people are poor and must make a sac. rifice to pay them; but we want good schools and need them. Stay behind the teachers and make every dollar spent buy a dollars worth of service.
 We call this mighty good advice, and such is so unusual that 1t causes us to think seriously. There are many ways in when dollars are not buying what could be bought with them if they were spent properly. A few eX- amples will Illustrates
 Suppose we are spending enough money to have a right good school III any particular district, but m this dls- trict there is poor neglected school house. When the weather is cold the 1 children are uncomfortable to such an extent that they must crowd around 1 the stove to keep warm. From eXpef- fence we know that at least half of the time of these children while they are in the school room is wasted in the confusion. The result is loss of very precious time on the part of the ehil- dren. If there are 30 children in the school it means a loss of time for 10 ] of them To be conservative count only three hours of study time a day and we have a loss of 45 hours a day 1 If this time were spent m actually earning money it can easily be seen that more is lost in the long run chan is spent for having the school Again suppose there are thirty chil- 1 dren in a school room, the building be- l ing so constructed that they must face windows while studying. The light in front of the eye is injurious to the sight, and will cause poor sight when | the child becomes old, and may result ! in blindness at some stage of life. Re- suits from this may not be seen now | but ia the long run it might be better l for the child in some cases not to have school at all than to have to sit day after day facing a bright light. We i have this situation in Polk county in some of the best schools.
 Another way we might not be get 1 ting as much for the dollar as we should: The teacher is a very import ant factor in the success of any school. Some go so far as to say, "As is the teacher, so is the school" Some teachers are cheap at S150 a month while others are expensive at any price. There is no reasonable limit | to the real worth of the right kind of teacher except our ability to pay. So | it may happen that a board in their anxiety to get along as cheaply as possible will employ the cheapest teacher they can find. The result may | be, and fear is sometimes, the dollar does not buy what it should buy. We 1 know of few boards that realize that they have had this kind of experience. l The teacher problem is with us in very serious way. The way to solve it is for the people to make the posi- tions as desirable as they can for the best teachers. That is all that may be asked of the people. The rest is with the teacher. She must do two things to improve the situation. She must work harder, and go to school to become more capable. We are try ing to get them to do both, that is how we are trying to see that the dollars go right.
 The Acorn school Is the first in the county to purchase a moving picture machine. They had it in operation on the night of the 3rd for the first time. We predict that it will be a great benefit to the community.
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 We had a peculiar question raised recently when a member of school board refused to permit the use of the school building for a Christmas pro- gram Our conception of the use of the school building and it's equipment most certainly includes their use for various kinds of programs for the good of the community and especially for the good of the young folks. These entertainments should always De under the supervision of the older people, but We think community without some kind of community ac- tivities for the upbuilding and train ing of the young as well as the old is mighty near a dead community, and we feel certain that the school house is the best place for these activities.
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 1t might be of interest to the few schools concerned to know about the grades they made in the spelling con- test, This test was given in seven schools by the county superintendent under the directions of the Bureau of Education at Washington, and is a part of the educational survey now going on all over the state We will not attempt to give the grades be- cause they do not mean much. The words are not graded with our course of study and it is hard to say just what any particular grade should make. We will name the schools in the order of their general average: Center Point, Acorn, Two Mile, Nun ley, Old Potter, Potter and Shady Grove Individual grades were from zero to a hundred.
 Out of this spelling test we can get two ideas. While they are not conclusive evidence there must be something wrong when one child will make zero while another in the same grade will make a hundred. Some worthwhile conclusion might be had from the fact that the children of all grades in one school spell twice as many words as the children of an- other school with the same grades This happened in the spelling contest.
 The county superintendent in CO., operation with the teachers will con duet some simple tests in Q larger number of schools We believe pa- irons of school might be interested tc know how their school would aver age with the neighboring school
 Official notice of the December ex- animation appears in this paper. It will be on Thursday and Friday of next Uaak