River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1923-12-06

room the coming year will be very
much overcrowded. 1t will be neces-
sary to temporarily rearrange the
seating of this room in order to give
seating capacity. You may be able
to provide classrooms for most of the
work next year by shifting of
teachers from one room to the other.
The ventilation of the old part of
your building is very poor, in fact
there is practically no ventilation
whatever. Your present structure
consists of really three distinct parts.
The old part of the building and the
part added to it on the east was
formerly heated by furnace that
provided ventilation through grav-
ity system. This system has been
taken out of the building for heating
purposes and new heating plant
which heats and ventilates the junior
high school in a very satisfactory
manner has been installed. This
ventilation system does not function
in the two older parts of the building.
The foul air duets near the floors in
practically all of the rooms were
| closed and an attempt was being
made to force the fresh air into these
rooms without taking any out. 1t
was found that the air in these rooms
was very foul. The ventilation of
this part of the building depends upon
the heating of the large smoke stack
which is now practically out of COM
mission except as stack for small
stove used to heat water for the
shower bathes.
In the grade rooms the condition
is extremely bad with reference to
physical conditions. In addition to
this the problem is added 20 by an
| overcrowding of the rooms. This is
particularly true in the fifth end sixth
grades where it was found that over
so pupils were seated in room alto
gether too small. AS pointed out tie
ventilation of this room was extre
mely bad and the pupils were forced
to face window on the east side Of
the building. An additional teacher
should be provided to carry on the
work of the elementary grades that
are now housed in this building as it
should be done.
AS pointed out at the meeting the
absolute need is better housing con-
ditions. This was thoroughly realized
by the persons present. The interests
of the City of River Falls and those of
the normal school run parallel. The
welfare of the one is certainly tied
up with the welfare of the other.
Every possibility to carry on practice
work should be provided the normal
school. If they are able to get a
model department from the state it
is believed that the work can be or
ganized with a critic teacher to pro-
perly supervise the work of each
grade. Under any condition believe
that at least two elementary grade
rooms should be provided in connec-
ton with your high school building
to eliminate any difficulties that
might arise with reference to attend
ance al the model department of the
normal school.
The following suggestions were Of
fered with reference to improving
the equipment and effectiveness of the
school. Some provision should be
made to supply an entire class section
with a good weekly magazine of the
type of the Literary Digest or the
Independent. If 80 copies were pro-
vided, at least five classes during the
week could make use of such mater
ial. The modern history class, the
American history, citizenship and
economics classes could all very wal