The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-07-08
The BIG PROBLEM OF THE SCHOOLS


., The action of the Hendersonville school
board in voting, four to three, against sub
hitting to voters the question of levying a
supplemental school tax for tbs coming
year will be difficult to explain to school
patrons who wish their children to have
efficient instruction and are not quite
ready to ask teachers adequately prepared
and of long experience to do the work for
maximum salaries ranging from $46.66 to
S6222 a month.
The issue is even broader than that OF
Justice to teachers; and further eXplana-
tions may be in order when lack of fuel
supplies causes the Fourth avenue school
building and the high school gymnasium
to be abandoned when all white pupils
about 1500-are crowded into one build
ing, when inadequate janitOr service makes
strict cleanliness of the building impOs-
sible, when the practical absence of funds
for Institutional and other supplies handi-
caps pupils and teachers, when all secre-
tarial help is discharged, and when many
other retrenchments are made. Then will
it be too late to say:
The state set up an inadequate stand
ard for our schools and we should have
recognized our responsibility to supple
ment state funds to the utmost of our abil-
hy."
The city school board has the authority
under the new state school law to request
proper taxing authorities to call an cleo
ton for the purpose of deciding whether
teachers salaries and other costs should be
supplemented, and if the request were
made a call for an election to be held
would be mandatory. Regardless of the
result of the election, neither the school
board nor the taxing board would be re-
sponsible-the people alone deciding the
issue A levy of Is cents on each 500
valuation was under consideration, and 1T
was estimated that this levy would raise
sufficient revenue to make up about one
half of the salary cut ordered by the state
and then leave just about enough to keep
all the school buildings open and operate
them with degree of efficiency. 1t should
be explained that the board of county COM
missiOners would levy the tax for collec-
ton within the enlarged school city, and
that the suggested 15-cent levy would be
60 cents less than the levy for school
purposes last year, the levies then being
the states 10 cents countrywide tax on real
estate, IA cents countrywide for two months
of the nine-months term, and nine cents in
the city for the ninth month"; total of SO
cents.
The city school board has already been
notified that it will receive no more money
for the eight-months term than it received
for six months last year, and that as an
example of economy it has been allotted
$50 tons of coal when $50 tons were re-
CURED last year.
Thus it will be seen that the school city
of HendersOnville, including considerable
territory to be added when present boun-
DIARIES are extended, has to date concurred
IN the states decision to eliminate many
essentials and to pay it's school teachers
maximum salaries that are even lower than
the minimum wage being set up for textile
operatives throughout the South. The con-
tention here is not that textile wages are
too high, but rather that teachers salaries
are shamefully low. Even under low price
conditions it is difficult to see how any