The Madison Daily Leader

WILL IMPROVE THE CITY SCHOOLS
PETITIONS WILL BE CIRCULATED FOR GRADE SCHOOL BUILDINGS
The citizens of Madison will be asked to pass judgment upon the advisability of building and re-building of grade schools in Madison at this time. In the neighborhood of 200 women representing the combined force of the Parent-Teacher association of the city are taking definite steps towards securing better educational facilities for the 400 children under twelve years of age in the Madison schools.
The executive officers of the four Parent-Teacher associations met at the high school yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock. They were in consultation for two hours as to the conditions, needs and probable improvements which Madison should undertake at this time to give sufficient room in the grade buildings. It was decided that a petition should be circulated in every district to discover the opinion of the citizens as to the advisability of asking the board to call an election of voters for issuing bonds for grade school improvements.
It was shown in this meeting that the average number of pupils per room in the Washington school is 48, in the Lincoln school 44, and in the Garfield school 38, when the standard of education is 30 to 35 pupils to a teacher.
It was shown that this congestion of pupils has been leading to retardation which is costing the citizens a good many hundred dollars each year which may be avoided through relief of the congestion.
It was also pointed out that the Madison schools receive in the neighborhood of $10,000 each year as its share of the interest of the state funds. That this sum was primarily intended towards perfection of the schools and development of efficiency and that this sum within a period of eight to ten years would put the grade school buildings of the city on a level with the grade school conditions in other cities.
It was also shown that $5,000 per year out of the state fund will take care of the bonds and interest on bonds until the expense of improvements has been paid for.
Some of the items of conditions within the grade schools to which parents have called attention are the lack of ventilating systems; lack of adequate water supply, no provision for kindergarten training, no possibility of mid-year promotion, no means for manual-training in the fifth and sixth grades which is common in good schools. The Washington building has been quite generally condemned as unsafe, and no suitable provision is made for assembly of patrons in the various districts. All of these conditions are generally recognized as a part of the modern school and necessary for efficiency in education.
The school board has recognized for some time the pressure on the part of a number of citizens to secure better housing conditions for the grade schools and have recently informed those interested that if sufficient number of citizens will sign petitions asking for these improvements that they would feel impelled to submit the matter of bond issue to the people in the near future.
There seems to be a strong sentiment among patrons of the schools for the improvements.