Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-23
School Opens.

School Opens.
It is the parent who whines today as
the schoolboy. with his satchel and
shining morning face, creeps like a
snail, willingly to school.
For this schoolboy is apt to be one
of five thousand or so children who will
attend part-time classes and from the
schoolboy's point of view there is
nothing to whine about there. But If
whining may be divorced from its
connotation as a state of suppliant
mendicity, the Washington parent. like
Shakespeare's schoolboy, is whining
aplenty over the opening of school. The
money he spends in taxes to build bird
and reptile houses at the Zoo and
otherwise to maintain the American
Capital does not stretch quite far
enough to furnish seats in classroon1s
throughout the day for all the children
who can I'LL them. 1t does not stretch
far enough to abolish the ancient port
able schools, seventy-two in number,
most of which were built in 1918 to
meet a wartime emergency, some OF
which were purchased as far back as
1911 and 1912. All Of these portables
have been pronounced safe" for oc-
cupancy this year after two inspections,
and that Is comforting. But the ma
iority will remain in use this year as
they have for the past ten years, some
of them with outside, unheated lava
tories; with cold floors, chilly rooms
poor lighting.
The parent may whine, and with
justification. His taxes have been IN
creasing, his money, collected by
Government that denies him right to
q voice in spending it, piles up million
dollar SURPRISES in the Treasury. But
he packs his children of to school to-
day with the knowledge that no more
classrooms are there to receive them
than there were last Spring. While
seventy-six new classrooms, represent
ing completed buildings, will be avail
able by February /, they will reduce by
only thirty-four per cent the number
Of new rooms needed to eliminate the
wretched portables, the part-time
classes, the undesirable rooms, the
rented quarters, and to bring Washing
toms school facilities nearer to meeting
the demand that exists for them. And
there are $500 more children entering
school this Fall than there were last
year, provided the normal and expected
increase is continued.
The parent may whine because the
five-year program, decided upon to an
ticipate. the demands upon the school
system, has not been carried out and q
proposed new five-year program has
been in the hands of the Commission
ers, awaiting their approval or COM
nent, since the latter part of 1928. In
the mean time, instead of being ahead
of the demand, the school system is be-
hind it. There are crowded classrooms,
part-time classes, makeshift portables
and a corps of teachers barely repre-
senting the minimum numerical
strength that should be provided,
This years enrolment Is expected
to set . new record, and last years
peak of $4,000 is expected to be in
creased to 10000. Next month q new
eight-room addition to the Burrville
School for colored pupils will be opened
and at about the same time the new
Francis Junior High School will be
ready for occupancy. Before the begin
ming of the next semester the authori-
ties expect to complete construction of
the Raymond School addition and the
new Ben w. Murch, Powell, Langdon
and Adams grade schools and the new
Paul Junior High School.
But evidence of overcrowding, in ad-
dition to that which exists in part-time
classes, overfilled schoolrooms, portable
schools, ETC., Is shown in the decision
to admit no new pupils to Western
High School who live east, Of Connec.
ticut avenue and Rock Greek Park.
Similarly, no new nonresident pupils
will be admitted TO Western until after
Washington children have been accom-
nodated. Before mary years have
passed school officials will have to con-
tend with the problem Of enlarging
Western or building a new high school
for Northwest Washington. Central, as
huge machine as that has come to
be, has been working at peak production
for several years. The new Roosevelt
High School, planned for Thirteenth
and Upshur, may solve the Northwest
high school problem for short time,
but it is being built to replace old Bust
ness High.