Windham County Observer

East Putnam Plea Refused By Board; Fuss On Teachers
Putnam Educators Turn Down Petition to Reopen School.
Hire Miss Anne Hogan To Fill Commercial Vacancy.

After a lengthy discussion of all angles of the closing of the East Putnam school the Putnam Board of Education turned down a petition and motion to reopen the school and made another and vain attempt to complete its teaching staff. It succeeded in filling one vacancy at the high school, in the commercial department formerly taught by Miss Elizabeth Smith, and elected Miss Anne Hogan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Hogan of Tatem street, to fill the position. Further attempts were made to fill vacancies existing at the high school in the history department but no appointment was made, as the board adjourned after a scathing attack on curriculum changes by Mrs. Dorothy Bartlett.

The East Putnam school question was the first matter to occupy the board's attention.

Three residents from that section were present at the meeting. Mrs. Bartlett championed the reopening of the school and called the board's attention to the long list of representative petitioners, forty in number, who had signed for the reopening of the school. She told the board that she thought East Putnam's arguments were good ones and scored the long bus trip and the wait that children five and six years old had on the side of the road, as well as the two-hour noon recess. She attacked the board's argument that the closing of the school had been for economic reasons, stating that the transfer of the East Putnam pupils had required an additional teacher at the Israel Putnam school. Advantages of departmental education were contrasted unfavorably by her to the one room schoolhouse as she said that under the new system no one teacher felt herself responsible for the advancement of pupils.

The three East Putnam residents present told the board of cases where youngsters had been obliged to go without eating from morning until

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Free Dance
at the
General Lyon Hall
Eastford, Conn.
Friday, June 23