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TOWN MANAGEMENT.

The prime difficulty in the way of good schools is that our system of school administration is not efficient. The cause of this inefficiency is found in the separation of the municipal and school organization. The town, the unit of municipal organization, is not the unit of school organization.

The fact that the defects of our present system are not universally acknowledged, and many are satisfied with things as they are, calling decrepitude repose, does not furnish reason for regarding this state of things with complacency. Testimony is formidably plentiful that the whole State and especially the smaller communities are experiencing or are threatened with practical inconvenience and loss. Some children can go to school 200, and others only 120 days. If the instruction in both cases is good, the latter receives 80 days or 16 weeks less instruction than the former. If, as is likely to be the case, the 200 days cover good instruction and the 120 days poor instruction, no fancied freedom from interference or enjoyment of traditionary routine, balance the monstrous inequality. These schools fix the intellectual character of the children, and here are formed the public sentiment and public policy of communities which they will in a few years control The history of every individual and of the town and State is here begun.

If schools are short and poor and form themselves at haphazard, will not the offspring of such schools come short of that intellectual standing which their more favored neighbors attain ?

There are, moreover, glaring inequalities of expense and of taxation, abuses of examination and appointment engendered by the removal of school affairs from the light of public discussion and the pressure of public sentiment. There is confusion and weakness, and though properly an educational agency, the system is concerned in doing as little as possible, and doing that little without regard to the best interests of children.

The public schools are a necessity. School organization is a necessity, and this organization based upon municipal unit tends to efficient management of schools. Such a system would

attract public attention, stimulate interest among intelligent people. It would inspire respect and confidence, because there would be a body of men in every town upon whom responsibility could be fixed.

Below will be found a bill prepared and introduced at the last session of the General Assembly, together with remarks upon the same by Hon. E. B. Bailey of Windsor Locks, and by Hon. George G. Sumner of Hartford. The bill does not differ in plan from the present law permitting the town system, but details which experience has suggested are incorporated.

Proposed Act relating to Town Management of Public Schools.

SECTION 1. Every town in this State shall, from and after September first, 1887, assume and maintain the control of all the public schools within its limits, and for this purpose every such town shall be a school district, and shall have all the powers and duties of school districts except in so far as these are inconsistent with the provisions of this act.

SEC. 2. All business concerning the public schools, including all heretofore necessary or proper to be transacted in district meetings, shall be transacted in town meetings. The annual town meeting shall be the annual school district meeting.

SEC. 3. At its next annual town meeting, every town which now has a board of school visitors composed of three members shall elect, by ballot, three residents of the town as a school committee, and every town which now has a board of school visitors composed of more than three members shall elect, by ballot, nine residents of the town as such committee, who shall by lot, if necessary, divide themselves into three classes, to hold office from the time of their election till the expiration of one, two, and three years respectively from the sixteenth day of the next July. At this election, no one shall vote for more than five persons as members of this committee. At every subsequent annual town meeting, one-third of the committee, namely, one or three members, as the case may be, shall be elected by ballot for the term of three years, to begin on the sixteenth day of the ensuing July. If the number to be chosen be three, no person shall vote for more than two. The said school committee shall have power to fill vacancies in its membership until the next annual election, when such vacan

cies shall be filled for the remainder of the term by the town, by ballot. From the first of September, 1887, until the next annual town meeting, the school visitors and the chairmen of the committees of the districts within each town shall constitute a joint board, having the powers and duties of the school committees created by this act. After the aforesaid date no boards of school visitors shall be elected and no district committees except in districts which retain their organization in the manner hereinafter provided. Any town may at any time vote to make the number of its school committee either three or nine, and at each subsequent election one-third of the new number shall be elected in the manner above provided, but those theretofore elected shall remain in office until the expiration of their terms, provided, however, that in every town now constituting a union school district the school committee shall be of the same number, and shall be elected in the same manner as at present.

SEC. 4. Said school committee shall, in general, have all the powers, and perform the duties both of district committees and boards of school visitors, except in so far as such powers and duties are inconsistent with the provisions of this act. Especially they shall maintain in their several towns good common schools of the different grades, at such places and times as in their judgment shall best subserve the interests of education, and as shall give all the scholars of the town as nearly equal advantages as may be practicable; they shall have charge of schools heretofore organized or maintained by their respective towns; they shall appoint a chairman and secretary, who shall respectively perform the duties and exercise the powers now pertaining to the chairman and secretary of the boards of school visitors; they shall appoint one or more acting visitors, or a superintendent to exercise, under their discretion, a supervision over schools; they shall have the care and management of buildings, lands, apparatus, and other property used for school purposes; they shall determine the number and qualifications of the scholars to be admitted into each school; they shall employ a requisite number of qualified teachers, but shall make no contract for a longer period than one year; they shall designate the schools which shall be attended by the various children within their several towns, and shall make such provision as will enable every child of school age residing in the town, who is of proper physical and mental condition to attend some public day school, at least six months in each year, but they may arrange,

if they see fit, with the committee of an adjoining town for the instruction therein of such children as can attend there more conveniently; they shall report in detail to the annual town meeting concerning the expenditures on the schools of the town during the year ending on the fifteenth day of the previous July, and also concerning their doings, and the condition of the schools under their superintendence; and they shall perform all lawful acts necessary to carry into effect the powers and duties granted by this act.

SEC. 5. The town clerk and the treasurer of each town shall have, in addition to their other powers and duties, all the powers and duties, respectively, of the clerk and treasurer of a school district, except in so far as such duties are rendered unnecessary by the provisions of this act.

SEC. 6. The records of the school districts heretofore existing in each town shall be handed over to the town clerk of the said town, and shall be preserved by the town.

SEC. 7. All property heretofore held by school districts shall vest in the towns in which such districts were situated, to be held by such towns for the same purposes. All debts, obligations, or pecuniary trusts of any school district existing at the passage of this act shall remain in force against the town in which such district was situated, and shall be paid and performed by said town, except as hereinafter provided. The assessors of each town shall, on or before the thirtieth day of September, 1887, appraise the property of each school district within its limits. At the next annual town meeting after the passage of this act, an equalization tax shall be levied upon the grand list of the whole town, such as would in every district of the town raise an amount of money at least equal to the value of the property of the district less its indebtedness, and there shall then be abated to the tax-payers of each district so many mills of the said equalization tax rate as upon that part of the grand list of the town taxable within that district would yield an amount of money equal to the appraised value of its property, less the amount of indebtedness of the district. Any district shall have power to determine that any stated amount of its indebtedness shall not be devolved upon the town, but shall be owed by such district exclusively, as heretofore, and any town shall have this same power regarding the indebtedness of any district situated within its limits; provided, that if action is taken both by the town and by

the district having such indebtedness, the vote stating the larger amount of indebtedness to be separately retained by the district and not devolved upon the town shall determine said amount; and provided further, that this amount of indebtedness thus separately retained by the district shall not be deducted from the appraised value of its property in fixing the amount of the equalization tax to be abated for its tax-payers. Every school district shall remain separately and solely liable for any indebtedness or liability by it incurred previously to September first, 1887, unless the amount of such liability or indebtedness shall be deducted as aforesaid from the appraised value of its property in fixing the amount of the equalization tax to be abated for its tax-payers. For the purpose of distributing the effect of the equalization tax upon its tax-payers over a number of years, any school district may borrow and pay to the town any part of the sum of money which the equalization tax rate would raise upon that part of the grand list of the town taxable within said district, and the sum so paid to the town shall be added to the appraised value of the property of the district in calculating the number of mills of the equalization tax rate to be abated to its tax-payers. The provisions of this section shall not apply in any town in which the parties in interest shall, before the first day of September, 1887, agree upon any other mode of equalizing the differences in property and indebtedness between the several districts of said town.

SEC. 8. In the case of any school district, the fractional parts of which belong to different towns, the selectmen of such towns shall have power by mutual agreement to appraise the property of said district, and to apportion the property and debts of said district between the towns, and find the balance due from either of said towns to the other of said towns. Such agreement, in writing, shall be final and binding upon such district and such towns. Whenever such selectmen fail thus to agree before the twentieth day of July, 1887, then upon the application of either town, or any tax-payer of said district, any judge of the superior court shall appoint a committee which shall finally decide the matter on which the selectmen have thus failed to agree, and shall lodge their decision with the respective clerks of such towns, from which time their decision shall be binding upon such districts and such towns. The appraised value of the property, and the amount of money thus acquired by any town,

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