190 
American Agriculturist, September 22,1923 
Community Plan in Rural School Bill 
No Forced Consolidation—More Local Control—Equal Opportunity 
I N accordance with our promise in last 
week’s issue, we are giving here the first 
of a series of articles about the New 
York State Rural School Bill. It will 
be remembered that this bill, containing the 
suggestions for rural school improvement 
made by the Committee of Twenty-one after 
a long study, was introduced into the New 
York State Legislature last year, passed by 
the Senate and laid over in the Assembly. It 
will without doubt come up again for con¬ 
sideration this year and, therefore, these 
articles are written in order that our people 
may have a clear understanding of just what 
is proposed in this law and what may be ex¬ 
pected from its operation if it is passed. As 
there is much misunderstanding about the 
bill, due largely to the fact that a large 
amount of misinformation has been pur¬ 
posely published about it, we hope that every 
farm family will reserve their de¬ 
cision and remain open-minded - 
until they have taken every op¬ 
portunity of studying the bill and 
learning all of the facts in re¬ 
gard to it. The vital interests 
of generations of farm children 
are involved. 
In a later article we will dis¬ 
how the Committee of 
should pass, not a single rural school could 
he consolidated with any other unless a ma¬ 
jority of the people in that district voted, for 
such consolidation. 
Furthermore, no one not a resident of your 
own local district could vote or have any 
power to consolidate or not consolidate your 
own district. All of this talk about transpor¬ 
tation of pupils long distances, over winter 
roads has no point so far as this bill is con¬ 
cerned because if your district did^not want 
to consolidate and have such transportation, 
it could not be forced to by any outside 
influence. 
A majority of those who recommended the 
Rural Education Bill are farm people. They 
fully recognize that there are districts in 
New York'xState so situated because of 
weather, roads and mountains, that transpor¬ 
tation during the winter months of small 
Which Is Better ? 
cuss 
Twenty-one was organized, who 
was in it and how they were ap¬ 
pointed, and the methods by 
which they arrived at their sug¬ 
gestions and recommendations 
for the rural schools. But after 
all, the committee itself is of 
minor interest. What farmers 
are chiefly interested in is the 
main provisions of the bill and 
how these provisions will work 
if the bill passes. 
How the Community Unit Would 
Work 
The most important provision 
of the bill is for a community dis- • ■- 
trict for school administration. 
This is defined as follows in the bill: “A 
community district shall, so far as may be, 
comprise school districts which are connected 
by lines of transportation or are related by 
social, commercial or other similar condi¬ 
tions and which are grouped around some 
center of population, trade or social life.” In 
the formation of these community districts 
no attention would be paid to town and 
county boundaries, but such factors as topog¬ 
raphy, roads, electric lines, railroads and 
existing trade and social centers would be 
considered. 
These community units would be estab¬ 
lished or laid out in each county by a local 
temporary commission appointed by the 
board of supervisors. This commission would 
consist of four members, two of whom must 
be from the rural districts and two from the 
villages. The county commission is only 
temporary and would go out of business as 
soon as it had established the boundaries of 
the community units. When establishing the 
community units, the commission would hold 
hearings in communities affected. 
Each community unit or district would be 
governed by a board of education. This 
board must contain at least one member from 
each school district in the community dis¬ 
trict. Members of the board would be elected 
at the annual meetings held in the different 
districts in the community unit. The duties 
of the community board of education are 
practically the same as those now had by 
trustees and boards of education of common 
and union free school districts. 
Now get this next point, because it is the 
one that is most misunderstood. If this bill 
U NDER the present New York State Rural School Law, the dis¬ 
trict superintendent of schools can, if he v/ishes. dissolve any 
district or districts in his jurisdiction and combine or consolidate them 
with other districts. This consolidation can be and has been made 
without the consent of the school patrons affected. Their only redress 
is an appeal to the State Commissioner of Education. 
On the other hand the proposed Rural School Bill reads as follows: 
“After this act takes effect, such districts (common school districts 
and union free school districts having less than 4.500 population) 
shall not be dissolved or their territory annexed to other districts 
without the consent of the qualified electors (voters) of the districts 
expressed as prescribed in this act. 1 ' 
In other words, under the present law. your district school can be 
taken away from you without your consent. Under the new law, 
this would be absolutely impossible. This article on consolidation in 
the new Rural School Bill is only one of many ways by which the 
farmers on the Committee of Twentv-cne provided for more local con¬ 
trol in their recommendations for better rural schools.—The Editors. 
children would b,e difficult, if not impossible. 
Those who best know 7 whether consolidation 
is practical are those who would be affected 
by it; that is,' those who live in the districts 
to be consolidated. 
The bill does provide for a larger unit of 
administration. On the board of education 
of this unit every district must be represented 
by an elected member, but even this elected 
board has no power to consolidate any of the 
districts in the community unit. On the 
other hand, any district may keep its local 
school open and still have the privilege, if it 
wishes, of sending the older boys and girls 
to high school without paying tuition. 
For Equal Opportunity- 
One of the gravest educational injustices 
to farm children in America is the old plan 
whereby those older boys and girls who live 
in villages and cities can easily obtain a 
high-school education free of charge, while 
thousands of country boys and girls must go 
without it because they or their parents are 
unable to pay the tuition and other extra 
charges. 
One of the best things about the proposed 
bill is the equalization of educational oppor¬ 
tunity. Under this bill you can, if you wish, 
keep your small children near at home in the 
district school and without extra cost, give 
the older boys and girls, whom the local 
school can no longer help, a high-school edu¬ 
cation free of charge. Whether or not you 
believe in more than a common school edu¬ 
cation for your children, you certainly will 
agree that your children ought to have the 
same opportunity as all others in obtaining 
that education if they wish it. They do not 
have such opportunity now. 
One of the chief reasons why the cider 
children so often tire of school is that there 
are usually only a very few of them in the 
upper grades of the district school, almost 
all of their associations are with the younger 
kids, and they become bored, dissatisfied and 
get the notion that education is a sort of 
“sissy” business, good only for small children. 
In the way of administration, the Rural 
School Bill provides also for an intermediate 
district, which corresponds approximately to 
the territory now under the control of the 
district superintendent. The intermediate 
district will consist of several community dis¬ 
tricts and also will be under the control of a 
board of education. This intermediate board 
will consist of one member from each com¬ 
munity district within the intermediate dis¬ 
trict, to be appointed from the 
■ community board from among its 
members. The board of educa¬ 
tion of the intermediate district 
will elect the district superin¬ 
tendent and he wall be responsible 
to them. This board also has 
certain other minor duties which 
will be discussed later. 
Under the present law, the dis¬ 
trict superintendent is chosen by 
school directors, who are elected 
by the people at the general elec¬ 
tions. These directors have no 
control whatever over the super¬ 
intendent. He is responsible to 
the State department of educa¬ 
tion. Under the new law, the 
people themselves are given much 
more local control through the 
district superintendent being di¬ 
rectly responsible to the inter¬ 
mediate board of education. 
Next week we will discuss in 
detail, with examples, how the 
Rural School Bill will affect the 
■ farmers’ school taxes, and will 
show how this bill will actually 
give better rural schools at lower taxes than 
a majority of farm people obtain now. 
We will run also a series of questions and 
answers on important points in the bill. If 
you have some question that you would like 
answered, feel free to write us and we will 
answer it to the best of our ability. We also 
have obtained a supply of pamphlets explain¬ 
ing and discussing the Rural School Bill. We 
will be glad to furnish these free upon re¬ 
quest as long as they last. 
Going to Dairy Show 
Special excursion trains are being planned 
on all of the different roads to carry the 
host of farmers and dairymen to the Na¬ 
tional Daily Show at Syracuse, October 5 
to 13. On October 10 special trains from 
many of the cities in southern Pennsylvania 
will carry the members of the Dairymen’s 
Cooperative Sales Company and the Pitts¬ 
burgh District Dairy Council. Other trains 
will arrive from Philadelphia and Harris¬ 
burg with farmers of the Interstate Milk 
Producers Association. Special automobile, 
tours from northern New York counties, 
Erie County, New York, and McKean 
County, Pennsylvania, and other sections will 
carry delegations to the great exposition. 
* * * 
At a recent Guernsey Field Day in Sus¬ 
quehanna County, Pennsylvania, two-thirds 
of the men present signified their intention 
of attending the show. Wayne, Bucks and 
Blair Counties of Pennsylvania are all plan¬ 
ning big delegations. 
