Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-26

toned here, which cry out for remedy.
In most instances there is an made
Quate number of wash basins for the
pupils. The Peabody School, for ex-
ample, has only one wash basin for
204 boys and only one for 212 girls, and
this state of things is by no means
unusual
Auditoriums, In which all the pupils
of school building, or group of build
ingS, may assemble for school projects
that form today an integral part of the
| educational program, are lacking in
most school buildings in the District.
While all new buildings are designed
with this valuable room, auditoriums
in the old buildings are exceedingly
rare. In the entire seventh division,
which includes all the white schools Of
the southwest and southeast there are
only two auditoriums in use, both in
the southeast, although money for two
more In the southeast is available. The
new Bell School, for colored pupils,
Second street between Virginia avenue
and D streets southwest, has a good
auditorium.
Many Lack AuditOriums.
Auditoriums are more generously pro-
vided In various northeast and north
west communities, although even there
the majority OF the buildings lack
them.
Special rooms, demanded by the mod
ern system of education which caters to
the individual needs Of children In small
groups, are lacking in many Of the
school houses which Washington is still
using. The reporters found stairway
landings and cloak rooms being used
for coaching classes or health obser-
walton stations. INSTRUMENTATION
classes and others of similar nature
were often quartered in dark, one-win-
dow chambers designed for storage
space.
In the same category is the lack of
proper Office space for principals of
buildings. Some of these, confronted
statistics and administering the affairs
of as many as three buildings, carrying
on their work in cloak-room corners or
stairway cubby-holes.
Patterns for much-needed special
rooms are found, 1t is true, in the case
of some Of the more recently completed
buildings, but pupil congestion in some
of these has necessitated queer adap-
tions. A principal of 24-room school
unit. for instance, was found to be
Quartered in a ground floor Storeroom,
while her regular office was being used
as special class room.
Emergency rooms, or even plain rest
rooms, where children injured in play
or taken i'll in class, may be treated, are
entirely lacking in many buildings. At
the Kenilworth School, for example, If
a pupil is taken ILL., there is no place
where the child may be taken for rest
or treatment except a dilapidated couch
behind a screen in the second-hoor hall.
In many of the class rooms that still
are equipped with stationary furniture,
there are no chairs available for the
grouping of pupils for party instruction
in accordance with present-day prac-
tice. It was found that this lack in at
least one instance has been met by
parent-teacher association. Three dozen
chairs for this purpose, purchased by
the Parent-Teacher Association of the
Pierce School, Fourteenth and q streets
northeast, were discovered, and it was
learned that two dozen more have been
ordered by the association and will
soon be available for use.
And so it could go on-the good and
the bad of Washington's much maligned,
much discussed and intensely used
school system. But these are generah-
ties here, which, one by one. are the
strokes which paint the broad picture.
The details of the conditions under
which the children attend school in the
Capitals northwest communities, its
southeast communities and those of its
northeast and its southwest sections
will be reported In the forthcoming ar
ticleS Of this series.