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Show THE RURAL SCHOOL Holcomb's Consolidated School A Model for Rural Communities Adequate educational opportunity opportu-nity Is a major desire of all American Amer-ican parents for their children. The American system of public schools was designed because of that desire, de-sire, and, it remains a dominant factor In the continued maintenance and Improvement of the system. Because of sparse population that often entails special difficulties in providing financing, of housing teachers and transportation of pupils, the rural school system has been the slowest to develop. A model of what the rural community com-munity can do to meet Its problems prob-lems is the Holcomb community in Finney county In southwestern Kansas. Kan-sas. For 30 years the community has been building an exceptional rural consolidated school The village of Holcomb is situated eight miles west of Garden City, the county seat. It has a population of 200. Transcontinental highway 50 and the main line of the Santa Fe railroad pass through it. The consolidated school is the dominant institution. There are an alfalfa-dehydration alfalfa-dehydration plant, a post office, and two filling stations, one of which carries a small stock of groceries. There is no church, no bank, no general store. For the services of these institutions, the people go to Garden City. On January 6, 1920, three districts dis-tricts voted for consolidation of a school at Holcomb. On July 23, 1921, another district petitioned to be admitted to the union district At various times since 1921 additional addi-tional districts have joined, the latest additions occurred in 1946. These additions brought to nine the total number of districts to come in and brought the area of the consolidated con-solidated district to 210 square miles. During the past 30 years the Holcomb Hol-comb school has developed a full curriculum, including insiruction in the elementary grades, from the kindergarten up, and in the high school lull courses on every subject, sub-ject, including vocational agriculture agricul-ture and vocational homemaking. By 1950 the school owned 12 buildings and 20 acres of land. The buildings included the main school structure, a grade school, a vocational voca-tional agriculture building, a teacherage, a bus garage, and seven teachers' cottages. THE VISITOR to the Holcomb community soon senses an attitude at-titude of community pride in the school and a marked popular solicitude solici-tude for the school's welfare. The solicitude extends not only to athletics ath-letics and other extracurricular activities but also to courses offered and to the maintenance of good academic standards. The visitor gains the Impression that the community, com-munity, for all its enthusiasm for athletics, would feel much less disturbed dis-turbed by a "disastrous" basketball basket-ball season than by a reduction of the school's rating by the state department de-partment of education from Class A to Class B. The public created the school and the public has stood behind it The Holcomb community was one of the first in the state to place a program of rural school consolidation consolida-tion into effect and it has proven to be an experiment of note to the entire country. In the school's 30 years, there have been 715 graduates gradu-ates of the eighth grade and 361 graduates of the high school. Faced thirty years ago with conditions con-ditions that might well discourage a rural community regarding school facilities for its children, the people of the Holcomb district through the exercise of courage, ingenuity, enterprise, and group loyalty, have met their situation successfully and in a way that may well be an example ex-ample to many other rural communities. |
