Seattle Schools Bursting at the Seams
Superintendent Barnard struggles to accommodate a massive influx of new students while the Board of Education refuses to hire additional teachers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There is a small-sized cyclone blowing through the office of the board of education, and Superintendent Barnard is the center. He has worked night and day since February 1 to dispel the trouble, but has been only partially successful owing to the intricacies of the problem. In short, he is trying to fit room in already overcrowded schools for over 6-year-old pupils. In some cases he has succeeded very well, but in other cases there seems to be some doubt. If the number of teachers who have come to him with complaints about having too many children on their hands is any criterion, he is in hot water all day long. Whereas the rooms of the different schools are fitted up for forty pupils, there are now over fifty in each room. This conflict has arisen owing to the increase in pupils, irrespective of the order of the board of education to refrain from hiring more teachers or more rooms. Though the new building in the Denny-Fuhrman addition is finished, it has not been put in use, owing to the decision of the board not to employ any additional teachers.
“Whereas the rooms of the different schools are fitted up for forty pupils, there are now over fifty in each room.”
Seattle's struggle to balance rapid population growth with the capacity of its public infrastructure is a century-old tradition. Today's debates over school levies and classroom sizes echo the same tension between fiscal austerity and the basic needs of a growing city.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.