OCR Text |
Show To Pupils, Patrons and Tax Payers. The schools of Box Elder County will open Monday,Sept- ember 19, 19.10, with a full days attendance, and it is hoped with a very heavy enrollment. Attention is called to tho President's Presi-dent's report printed in the issue is-sue of Aug. 25, Box Elder News, in which the financial statistical aspect of our schools is graphically set forth. By oven a hasty glanco through this report it is easily seen that a vast amount of school funds is wasted through non-attendance and irregular attendance upon the part of the pupils, o Evory child over tho ago of 15 in tho grades in the schools of Box Elder is a loss of $51.00 to the tax-payers and a loss to himself in his earning capicity of $100. The economics of the present school system may very well bo questioned; while it is true that through the purchase of largo quanitios of school supplies by a single board, a great deal better prico may bo realized, and many jobbers profit cut off. Yet it is also true that close check on supplies is very difli-cult, difli-cult, and almost beyond control of school officers; and parents, in n grent many instances, are not vigilant in their endeavor to save school supplins and books. Yet notwithstanding the great leakage which we have discov-ered discov-ered and are endeavoring to check, it is but the mote, tho ! beam is yet to be seen. The school course if it is worth anything at all,is of great ; importance, it is thought out and compiled by men whose ! experience Ifas especially fitted them for measuring the aver- 1 ago possibilities of normal i children, and it is presumptions on the part of any paront to think his child can covor in ono day what others do in two, or to accomplish in 4 days what others do in 5. It is unfair, un- just, unreasonable, untrue, aud tho hundreds of children in Box Elder County behind their grade are testimonies that it cannot be done. And other hundreds who have never completed tho primary school, who are over scliool ago, testify to tho same thing. If you desire your children to complete tho primary pri-mary school, you must allow, encourage, insist upon regular complete attendance. If you do this tho school system must bear the responsibility of failures. fail-ures. It matters not which years of the child's life aro broken into, it is Anally relegated to tho last and those are the years which are lost, and which we feel wo need so much. School officers are approached approach-ed each yeai with the following: havo a child who is 15, 10. 17, 18, as the case may be, and ho refuses to attend scoool any more unless he can go into tho tho soveuth, or the eight, or the High School, etc. Ho desires and decides he is entitled, to jump one class, (most of tho demands aro for one class,) although al-though sometimes w o havo thorn for two. Upon investigation investiga-tion it is frequently found that illness or some unavoidable occurrence oc-currence has interfered contin-oub contin-oub attendance and caused detention, de-tention, but iisnallv the record of such pupils is found to show irregular attendance or a very short period of attendance. It is not to be denied that there are strong excuses, and reasons for the absence of pupils pup-ils from school. But every paront par-ont and guardian of school childron should come to know that every dny a child is absent from school something irre-trioveable irre-trioveable is lost and gone for-over. for-over. Children do not exist ns a financial asset to parents and guardians, but as individuals, immortal souls, whose destiny tlioy themselves must determine, deter-mine, both here and hereafter. Tn conclusion let me reiterate non-attendance, irregular attendance, at-tendance, and short period of attendance, are the beams of extravagance whose devastating devastat-ing inroads wo have been slow to discern. H. W. VALENTINE, County Superintendent. |