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Show Know Your Schools .... Efficiency & Economy In Our Schools In What Ways Can We Organize Our Schools More Efficiently And Economically? By Farrell J. Humphreys District Counselor NOTE: This is the second topic to be included on the agenda for the White House Conference on Education to be held in Washington, Washing-ton, D. C. during November. Sound school organization affects af-fects the type and quality of experience ex-perience that can be given students stu-dents in our schools. Any decision concerned with efficient and economical eco-nomical organization mast of ne-nessity ne-nessity consider the quality of educational experience desired. Utah is in an enviable position when one considers the present organization, where there are a total of forty school districts in the state. The state of Nebraska, for example, has 5900 separate administrative ad-ministrative units, and the U. S. average is 1,259 per state. It may EDITOR'S NOTE Elsewhere in this issue of your home town newspaper another special feature fea-ture will be found. Annually the school boards of each Utah district dis-trict are required by law to publish pub-lish their financial statement. To better acquaint school patrons pat-rons and taxpayers on where your "tax dollar" is being spent, through the cooperation of the Duchesne School Board and Union Un-ion High School Board, several feature stories and photographs will be found in connection with the statement. We suggest each reader study carefully Section B of this paper and become better bet-ter informed about your schools. , be possible to further consolidate districts in our state, but the geography geo-graphy of the districts needs to be considered, and in many instances in-stances it is doubtful that further consolidation would bring about operational savings. However, in some instances the quality of education may be improved im-proved through consolidation. When discussing organization, it is extremely important to consider con-sider the organization that will best lend itself to the provision of a high type and quality of education ed-ucation for our children. In Duchesne County, for example, exam-ple, it is very difficult to have teachers concentrate in the fields of their specialty. One teacher once remarked, "My main problem prob-lem in teaching is to remember what I was trained to teach." In our smaller schools many teachers, teach-ers, of necessity, are required to teach subjects in addition to those they were trained for. Class size directly affects educational edu-cational quality and one teacher to thirty students is often thought of as a good ratio. In the first few (Continued on Back Page) KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS. . . . (Continued from page one) grades, thirty students would be a full' load for any teacher, and might be considered as a maximum maxi-mum figure. However, further study needs to be made in order to arrive at the best number that can be economically handled by a teacher and still provide the best passible education. In the election of new members to the Board of Education, does our present law where three members mem-bers are elected one year and two members on alternate two year period, lend itself to the best school program. On the local base the old law, changed by the special spe-cial session of the legislature, made it possible for a person to be elected to the Board of Education Educa-tion and have time to become acquainted ac-quainted with the problems of the district and then serve a reasonable reason-able length of time before he has to leave the service of the district. With the mounting costs of things in- general, It seems to be assumed that there is no escape from expanding school budgets. In our county this raises a particular particu-lar problem. To change in the tax law that requires the local area to stand more of the school' costs has placed a burden upon the property pro-perty owner at a time when property pro-perty income has fallen off. Perhaps a study needs to be made in order to see if a change in the tax base from that of property pro-perty to some other source whereby all people will pay a fairer share of the school costs can be found. Maybe the legislature legisla-ture can be convinced of the necessity ne-cessity of changing the law so our local area will not have to stand such a heavy load. In short we now need to plan the organization of our schools for the future. After all we will spend the rest of our. lives in the future. " |