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right 

 ■ixth. 



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Mn. Blciina Erhardt who driTSS one o{ 



the school buses, supervises the loading 



oi her charges. 



It's recess time at the Bolin school and 



children take to the playground swings. 



This picture wasn't posed; they always 



wait in line like this. 



but the three districts in the northern 

 area with a fairly good attendance were 

 not entirely convinced of the merits of 

 the merger. A demand grew in the Two 

 Mile, Bolin, and Business Knoll districts 

 to withdraw from the new district setup. 

 Folks in each of these districts voted on 

 the question of withdrawing, and as a 

 result, one of the districts, Business Knoll, 

 had sufficient votes to withdraw. That 

 left five districts in the new district No. 

 3 as it is now being operated. 



In the first year of operation of the 

 new district, 1942-43, the first four 

 grades were housed in the Two Mile 

 school, and the upper four grades in the 

 Bolin school, with one teacher for each. 

 Routes were worked up to pick up the 

 children and bring them home from 

 school with one large sedan used as the 

 school bus. 



At the close of the 1942-43 school year, 

 attendance in the two schools of district 

 No. 3 was on the increase and the pt^s- 

 pects for the 1943-44 school year indi- 

 cated a fairly large number of beginners. 

 With this outlook, the school directors 

 decided to bring one more school into 



FEBRUARY. 1944 



operation, and the sixth, seventh,, and 

 eighth grades were placed in the Purvis 

 school at the start of the present school 

 year. It also was necessary to increase 

 the number of buses from one to two. 

 Here's the current enrollment by grades 

 of the Purvis school: 6th grade, 8; 7th 

 grade, 5; and 8th grade, 7; in the Bolin 

 school; 3rd grade, 6; 4th grade, 8; and 

 5th grade, 6; in the Two Mile school, 

 1st grade, 13, and second grade, 10. 



Whati do the pupils and parents think 

 of the new district.' Mrs. Earl Freese 

 who has a 10-year-old daughter in the 

 Bolin school reports that she likes the 

 idea of grouping the grades so that the 

 pupils will be in a smaller age range 

 than in the setup^ eight grades all to- 

 gether. Last year her daughter attended 

 the Two Mile school and she had to 

 meet the bus earlier in the morning than 

 she does this year. 



Mrs. Victor Landers, who has a son in 

 the Bolin school, also has a good word 

 to say about the new district. "I didn't 

 think it was such a good idea at first," 

 Mrs. Landers says, "and I used to tell 

 some of the directors what I thought. 

 Now the only objection I have is that I 

 miss the smaller group meetings we used 

 to have in the school. I haven't been to 



the meetings this year." The Parent- 

 Teachers' Association for the district al- 

 ternates its meetings between the three 

 schools, and sometimes the school build- 

 ings are rather small for the large at- 

 tendance. 



Fred Seelo, a parent who has one pupil 

 at each of the three schools, says that his 

 only objection to the setup is the trans- 

 portation. Because of the bus route, his 

 oldest boy is late getting home to do the 

 chores, but Seelo says he is willing to go 

 along with any plan that the majority 

 wants and any proposition that is an im- 

 provement of the school system. 



Directors of district No. 3 are frank to 

 admit that the transportation plan is not 

 ideal. They have worked it out as best 

 they can. They also point out that the 

 entire district No. 3 program is not a 

 final one, but they believe they are tra- 

 velling in the right direction. After the 

 war, a the people of the district want it, 

 they plan to build a moderate cost cen- 

 tral school of four rooms. This would 

 eliminate many of the difficulties en- 

 countered in transportation. 



Joe Pound, farmer and rural mail 

 carrier who has a boy in the Two Mile 

 school, is very positive in his approval 

 , (Continued on page 19) 



Pupils oi the third, fourth and fifth grades 

 study in the pleasant surroundings of the 

 Bolin school taught by Mrs. Margaret Gil- 



mer of Coles county who attended a one- 

 room school of eight grades when she was 

 a farm girl. 



First an4 second graders of the Two-Mile 

 school enjoy a hot lunch of scrambled 

 eggs, lettuce, oranges, green beans, and 



milk. Miss Helen Turner, teacher, dele- 

 gates second grade pupils to help serre 

 each day. 



\ 



