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Show -11 k f w jf IBattle Creek With the clanging of the school bells stilled for the summer, the parents of 10,000 Alpine District school children are by this time feeling the full impact of the change. What to do with the youngsters for the next 15 weeks is the question pestering fathers and mothers throughout the area. It's a question that needs to be solved as quickly and intelligently as the law will allow. Even a lowly newspaper column-. column-. ist likes company. To raise one's voice in support of a new idea or public benefit takes courage of a sort; but when no one rallies to the call with comment either for or against, that's loneliness spelled with a big "L." About two years ago, this column col-umn went to the bat for a more profitable and intelligent use of the multi-million dollar investment in school buildings in Utah, and particularly par-ticularly in Alpine School District. As things stood then, the buildings, equipment and facilities were used only 36 weeks out of the 52 each year, or about 69 per cent of the time. As of now there has been no change. School closed this year on May 25 and will convene again on September 4, a shutdown of 15 weeks. When the plea first appeared, few of our readers said much about it. Since that time however, several articles have appeared in national magazines and state newspapers, bemoaning the waste entailed by our "part-time" educational program. pro-gram. In all of the editorials the point was made that there is no longer a need for the summer services of children in our specialized and mechanized modern way of life. In fact the thousands of children released re-leased from school activity for 14 to 16 weeks with little profitable to do have become a liability instead in-stead of an asset. Fortunately, communities in some parts of the nation are awak ening to the seriousness of the problem and are doing something about it. Strangely enough, it has been the lay citizens rather than the educators who have taken the initiative in the educational innovation. inno-vation. If any profession is hog-tied hog-tied with precedent and tradition, it's the schoolmasters. In Centerline, Michigan, they have a 12-month program. Teachers Teach-ers spend 11 months in professional profession-al teaching and one month on vacation va-cation with pay. And in Pacific Grove, California, more than 50 per cent of the children ' enroll for summer courses which emphasize a comprehensive program of regular reg-ular and remedial work. Closer to home, a group of Salt Lake City citizens have organized what they call the "East High Summer Program." It will be self-supporting. self-supporting. Despite the name, the program will be city-wide; and will include type, shop, sewing, cooking, science, mathematics, remedial re-medial English and' reading and driver education. Basically, there are two types of children who cohld benefit by such a summer program, the extra alert, intelligent and ambitious and those who are slow to learn and need extra help. Both of these specific groups are the ones neglected neg-lected in our middle of the road educational procedures. By means of such a program, the Johnnys who cannot read and the Marys who cannot "figure" could catch up with their classmates and cease to be a problem when September Sep-tember rolled around. In addition, we might be doing something positive pos-itive toward filling the critical need for more trained engineers, scientists scien-tists and professional people. Fifteen weeks is a lot of time for children to spend doing little that is constructive, while S8.000-000 S8.000-000 worth of buildings and equipment equip-ment stand idle in north Utah County. So long 'til Thursday. |