with minutes of proceedings, to be kept at the office of the superintendent, and to be open for his inspection.1 The State board takes cognizance of questions that arise in the practical administration of the school system, considering, discussing, and determining them. It also prepares questions for the examinations of teachers, prescribes the time and manner of their use by county superintendents, and may grant State certificates of qualification to teachers who on searching examination are found to possess eminent scholarship, professional ability, and good moral character.3 COUNTY SUPERINTENDENCE. Each county in this State has a county superintendent, appointed by the assembled township trustees biennially, on the first Monday in June, to examine applicants for teachers' licenses and grant them to such applicants as prove their worthiness, for 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months, according to the ability to teach and govern displayed by the several ones applying. The 6-months license is merely a trialtest, and may not be renewed, while a 24-months one, run up at the next examination to one of 36 months, or 2 licenses for 36 months each in quick succession, may, if approved by the State board of education, issue in an 8-year professional license, good throughout the State. These examinations for licenses must be held by the superintendent at least once a month in open session, those granted to be limited in their operation to his county, except the 8-year ones approved by the State board, and all to be revocable for incompetency, immorality, cruelty, or general neglect of the business of the school. Each license granted is to be reported to the State superintendent, with indication of its grade, and with the name of the teacher to whom it has been given, distinguishing between males and females.4 The more general duties of the county superintendent are to supervise the schools of his county, visit each one of them annually, with a view to increase their usefulness, attend and preside at the county teachers' institutes, carry out the orders and instructions of the State board of education and State superintendent, and serve as a medium between the latter and his subordinate school officers: Provided, That city schools having a superintendent employed by the city board, may, at the request of said board, be exempt from the supervision of the county superintendent. COUNTY BOARDS OF EDUCATION. Each county superintendent, with the trustees of the townships in his county, and the chairman of the school trustees of each town and city in it, constitute a county board of education, which meets semi-annually on the first week day of each May and September, to consider the general wants of the schools and school property of which the members of the board have charge. This board, the county superintendent presiding, attends to all matters relating to the purchase of school furniture, books, maps, charts, and libraries. Text-books adopted by it since March, 1877, are, as a rule, unchangeable for six years. Uniformity of text-books is held to be desirable, but is not required. Adopted books, however, must be used." The county boards may each adopt a course of study for their district schools, with rules and regulations for the government of these, but not make rules for incorporated cities. Prescribed studies are orthography, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, English grammar, physiology, history of the United States, good behavior, and such other branches as the advancement of the pupils may require or the trustees direct. As a rule, these must be taught in English, but the parents of 25 or more children in a school may demand the teaching of German to their children. SCHOOLS IN TOWNS AND CITIES. Each civil township and each incorporated town or city in this State is a distinct municipal corporation for school purposes, the trustee of the township and the trustees of towns and cities being school trustees, and performing the duties of clerk and treasurer for their several schools. The trustees may employ a superintendent for their schools. The common council of each city, except Indianapolis, and the board of trustees in each of the incorporated towns, elect, at their first meeting in June, three school trustees to hold office 1, 2, or 3 three years, as determined by lot at the time of organization, and thereafter elect annually one such trustee to hold office for 3 years. These trustees constitute the school board of the city or town, organizing by electing, within 5 days from their call to office, one of their number as president, one as secretary, and one as treasurer. The treasurer gives bond to the county auditor, with at least two sureties not members of the board, for not less than twice the money that may come into his hands; the president and secretary, bonds with like sureties, approved 1 Sch. Law, edition of 1885, sec. 4420. Ibid., sec. 4421. Ibid., sec. 4422. 4 Code of 1885, secs. 4424, Ibid., sec. 4436, and appended decisions 2, 4, 6. Ibid., sec. 4497. by the auditor, for at least one-third of the treasurer's bond. The county auditor, accepting such trustees, must see to their sufficiency to secure the school revenues which their offices may bring them, as well as the township and other revenues. The trustees must receive these revenues, keep accurate accounts of their receipts and expenditures of them, and render to the county commissioners, annually, the first Monday of August, a clear statement of each one for the school year ended the 31st day of the previous July.1 In Indianapolis, instead of school trustees, there is a board of school commissioners, one for each school district in the city, elected by the qualified electors in the district, to levy taxes for the support of the city schools, not to exceed 25 cents on $100 for grounds, buildings, and supplies, or 25 cents on each $100 for paying teachers, with one-fifth of a mill on $1 for free libraries in connection with the city schools. By a committee or officer of this board teachers may be examined for positions in the city schools and be licensed if found qualified. The board may also purchase grounds and school supplies, construct school buildings, employ and pay teachers, appoint superintendents, disburse through its treasurer moneys for school and library expenses, and enforce regulations for the grading of the city schools, for a course of instruction in them, and for due government and discipline-the members all to serve without any compensation." The tax levies made by order of the board must be certified by its president and secretary to the city clerk, who must collect them as other city taxes are collected, and once a month pay them over to the treasurer of the board. Taxes for school purposes collected by the county treasurer must be paid over by him to the treasurer of the board of school commissioners, and so must moneys distributed by county officers to which the common schools of the city may be entitled; these payments to the city treasurer to be made also once a month to the treasurer of the board of school commissioners. ENUMERATION AND ATTENDANCE. In this State attendance on the public schools has thus far been a boon, not a compulsion. All resident children, ascertained by an annual census to be between the ages of 6 and 21, are, unless married, entitled to enlistment and instruction in the schools of their respective townships, towns, and cities. Transfers to an adjoining county, township, town, or city, are allowed if asked for at the time of the annual enumeration; but in such cases the school money of the child must go with the child to the new place of enlistment and instruction.3 White and colored children must be enumerated in separate lists, and may be organized in separate schools, having all the rights, privileges, and advantages of other schools of their township, town, or city. Should such separate schools not be provided, the colored children may attend the public schools with white children; and if a child attending a school for colored youth can prove, by examination and certificate of the teacher, advancement enough for promotion to a higher grade than that afforded by the colored school, the trustee or trustees must see that the child is permitted to attend a school of like grade for whites without unjust discrimination on account of race or color. TAXATION FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. A State tax is required to be annually assessed and collected, as State and county revenues are assessed and collected, for the support of a general system of common schools. The amount of this tax is 16 cents on each hundred dollars of taxable property, real and personal, and 50 cents on each taxable poll, without regard to the race or color of the owner. The trustees of townships, towns, and cities have also power to levy each a special tax for the construction, rent, or repair of school-houses; for providing furniture, school apparatus, and fuel; and for paying other necessary expenses of their schools, except tuition. No such tax may exceed 50 cents on each $100 of taxable property and a dollar on each poll, in any year. The income from such tax is termed the spe cial school revenue, Each county auditor must make the proper assessments of special school tax levied by the school trustees; must set down the amount of such tax on his tax list and duplicate thereof, as other taxes are set down, in appropriate columns; must extend such assessments to the taxable property and poll of persons transferred, according to the rate and levy thereof in the township, town, or city to which the transfers have been made; and such taxes must be collected by the county treasurer, as other taxes are collected, and be paid when collected to the treasurer for school purposes of the proper township, town, or city, on the warrant of the county auditor. To enable county auditors to assess this tax, county superintendents must report to the auditors the basis of the apportionment of school revenue for tuition, and a statement of transfers made for school purposes. Code of 1885, secs. 4439-4441, 4445. 2 Sch. Law, secs. 4457-4464. Ibid., 1883, art. 4, secs. 4472, 4474. 4 Ibid., secs. 4465, 4466. LOCAL AND SPECIAL TAXES. The trustees of civil townships or of incorporated towns, and the common councils of cities have power to levy annually a tax not exceeding 25 cents on $100 of property and 25 cents on each taxable poll. The funds arising from such taxes conie under the charge of the same officers, secured by the same guarantees, subject to the same rules, and applied in the same manner as funds arising from taxation for common-school purposes under the general laws of the State. They must, however, be applied in the civil township, town, or city in which they have been assessed and collected.1 A special tax to pay debts contracted against any township in the construction, repair, or completion of school-houses, or in providing furniture or apparatus for them, has been allowed, such tax not to exceed 25 cents on each $100 of taxable property in a year, should the legal voters of the township decide in favor of the tax. But as this affects only debts contracted previous to March 11, 1873, it is probable that the permission is now obsolete." EDUCATION OF TEACHERS. December 20, 1865, a legislative act required that there should be established a State normal school, the object of which should be the preparation of persons for teaching in the common schools of Indiana. In order to its establishment and maintenance 4 competent persons appointed by the Governor were to constitute a perpetual body corporate, with power to sue and to be sued, to hold in trust all funds and property provided for said normal school, and to be known as the "Board of Trustees of the Indiana State Normal School." The superintendent of public instruction was to be, ex officio, a member of this board.3 The conditions of admission to instruction were to be 16 years of age for females and 18 years for males, good health, clear evidence of moral character, and a written pledge, filed with the principal, to teach in the common schools of Indiana a period equal to twice the time spent in the normal school. The provision for its support was made, after the first year, $10,000 semi-annually, and $2,000 or less, annually, for warming, lighting, repairs, &c. The school thus established is still the chief means for the thorough education of teachers for the State schools, Indiana University aiding also in preparing teachers for high-grade work and Purdue University in preparing them for scientific instruction-the former chartered as a college in 1823 and as a university in 1839; the latter opened to students in 1874 as the State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. OTHER EDUCATION FOR TEACHING. The trustee of each township is required to hold, at least one Saturday in every month while the schools of his township are in session, a township institute or model school for the improvement of the teachers, and two such may be held each month, presided over by a teacher or other person designated by the trustee. The trustee must contract with every teacher to either attend on the full session of each institute or forfeit a day's wages for every day of absence, unless such absence be occa sioned by sickness. When present the teacher must take part in the exercises. The superintendent of schools in each county must also hold, preside at, and conduct the exercises of each township institute at least once a year, encouraging these and like associations, and laboring to elevate the standard of teaching and improve the condition of the schools.5 Under this last suggestion teachers' associations and teachers' reading circles have been extensively established, though not required by law. TEACHERS, HOW SELECTED. The school trustees of townships, incorporated towns and cities, may employ as teachers in the common schools only such persons as can present licenses to teach issued from the proper State or county authority, and in full force at the date of the employment. Any teacher who undertakes to teach a common school without such license forfeits all claim to compensation from the school revenue. But if a license held expire by its limitation within a term of employment, the teacher may complete the term within the then current school year." Trustees may not employ teachers whom a majority of those entitled to vote at school meetings decide at such a meeting that they do not wish to have employed. And if, after the opening of a school, a majority of such voters petition the trustee to dismiss a teacher, he must do it, but only on due notice, upon good cause shown, and with pay for the teaching service rendered. If persons attached to and forming a school district have, at their school meeting, designated other branches of learning than those in section 4425 of the school law, as what they wish to have taught in their school, the trustee, in employing a teacher, Sch. Law; secs. 4469, 4470. Ibid., secs. 4542-4548. • Ibid., article 8, sec. 4520. Ibid., sec. 4521. may require such teacher to be examined as to his qualifications to teach these other branches.1 TEACHERS AND TRUSTEES TO MAKE REPORTS. To enable trustees to make the reports required of them, each teacher, whether in township, town, or city, must, at the expiration of each school term, report by affidavit to the proper trustee the length of term in days; the teachers employed, male and female; their daily compensation; the pupils admitted, male and female, and those between the ages of 6 and 21; the average attendance; books used and branches taught; also the pupils in each branch. Until such report is filed no teacher may receive more than 75 per cent. of pay for services. This information given, the trustees of the townships, towns, or cities must annually report, on the 1st Monday of August, for the school year ended July 31, to the county superintendent, in tabular form, the following items: Number of districts, schools taught and their grades; teachers, male and female; average pay in each grade; tuition revenue at the opening of the year; amount received during the year from the county treasurer, and the balance on hand; the time of school in days; schoolhouses built, cost of them; number and kind before erected; estimated value of this and all school property; volumes in school libraries, and number used during the year; 'volumes added; assessment on each $100 of property, and each poll of special tax for school-houses, with full amount of levy; balance also of special school revenue on hand at the beginning and received during the year from the county treasurer; amount of such revenue expended and on hand; acres of unsold Congressional school lands, value of them and income from them, with such other information as may be called for by the county superintendent and superintendent of public instruction. Failure to make these reports is punishable by $25 fine and a witholding from the delinquent trustee of the money apportioned to his township, town, or city, till his report is duly made and filed. EDUCATION OF DEFECTIVE, DEPENDENT, AND DELINQUENT YOUTH. By special acts of 1844, 1847, 1867, and 1879 provision was made for the education, under State auspices, of the deaf and dumb youth of the State, of the blind, of soldiers' orphans, of feeble-minded children, and of boys who needed to be reformed as well as educated. The schools for the first two classes mentioned are located at Indianapolis; those for the second two, at Knightstown; that for the boys' reformatory, at Plainfield. IOWA. CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS FOR EDUCATION. The General Assembly shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, and moral improvement. The proceeds of all public lands devoted to commercial-school purposes, together with escheats, shall remain a permanent fund for the support of common schools throughout the State." Temporary funds for school purposes are such as shall arise from fines collected on account of penal offenses and the non-performance of military duty.1 All moneys for the support of the common schools shall be distributed to the districts in proportion to the number of youths between the ages of 5 and 21 years. The university lands and the proceeds thereof constitute a permanent fund for the sole use of the State university. The State university shall be established at one place, without branches at any other place, and the university fund shall be applied only to that institution." LEGAL PROVISIONS FOR EDUCATION IN IOWA. ADMINISTRATION. Besides a State superintendent of public instruction, each county has a school superintendent, each township and independent district has a board of directors, and each of the subdistricts, into which a township may be divided, a subdirector, these subdirectors forming a district township board. In addition to common schools the system includes high schools, State normal schools, teachers' institutes, State university, agricultural college, reform schools, and institutions for the defective classes. No person shall be deemed ineligible by reason of sex to any such office in the State." STATE SUPERVISION. The superintendent of public instruction is chosen at the general election in each odd-numbered year, and holds his office for the term of two years.9 1 Sch. Law, 1883, art. 8, sec. 4502. Ibid., sec. 4449-4451. Sch. Laws, art. 9, sec. 3. 4 Ibid.. sec. 4. 'Const., art. 9, sec. 11. He shall be charged with the general supervision of all the county superintendents and all the common schools of the State. By meeting the county superintendents in convention, he may try to secure a more uniform and efficient administration of school laws. He shall attend, when practicable, teachers' institutes in the several counties of the State, assisting in their instruction and management. He shall render a written opinion, relative to any school law, to any school officer asking for the same, and shall determine all cases appealed from the decision of county superintendents." He shall be a member, ex officio, of the board of regents of the State university, and shall receive an annual report from said board. The salary of the superintendent is $2,200 per annum, and of his deputy, $1,200 per annum.3 STATE FUND. The State fund arising from the sale or rental of the public lands and from escheats is distributed among the school districts proportionately to the number of youth from 5 to 21 years old.1 COUNTY SUPERVISION. Board of supervisors.-The board of supervisors, among numerous other duties, is concerned with a certain control of public-school matters. In each county the board consists of 3 persons, which may, however, be increased to 5 or 7. They are elected yearly by the qualified electors of their respective counties." They can levy taxes for the support of soldiers' orphans, for county high schools, and for common schools. They control the sale of school sections of public lands and manage the fund.6 The members of the board receive $4 per day for actual service and $2.50 when employed on committee service, together with mileage. In counties having a population of less than 10,000 they cannot exceed the limit of 20-days service, with pay, in one year; in counties having a population between 10,000 and 30,000 they cannot receive pay for more than 30 days; for 30,000 and over, 40-days service is the limit.7 County superintendent.-The county superintendent is elected in each odd-numbered year for the term of 2 years. He cannot be a member of a board of directors or board of supervisors. He shall examine teachers, issue certificates, hold normal institutes each year, conform to the instructions of the State superintendent, and report to him annually. He receives $1 for each day's actual service.10 COUNTY-SCHOOL fund. The county auditor apportions the county-school tax, together with the interest of the permanent school fund to which his county is entitled, and all other money in the hands of the county treasurer belonging in common to the schools of his county." LOCAL SUPERVISION. School districts.-Each civil township or independent district, organized as a school district, is made a body corporate, with powers to hold property, make contracts, &c.12 Board of directors.-The several subdistricts annually meet for the election of a subdirector.13 In all district townships comprising but 1 subdistrict the board shall consist of 3 subdirectors. In all districts comprising but 2 subdistricts the board shall consist of 1 subdirector from each subdistrict and I from the township at large.14 The board of directors makes purchases, payments, and sales to carry out the vote of the district, 15 fixes site for each school-house, 16 divides the district," audits claims, 18 visits schools and fixes rules for their government, 19 but has no jurisdiction over independent districts.20 Subdirector. The subdirector makes contracts for providing fuel, for employing teachers, and for making all other provisions necessary for the convenience and prosperity of the schools within his subdistrict." INDEPENDENT DISTRICTS. A city, town, or village may organize an independent district. An independent district is under the management of a board of 6 directors, chosen by the electors of the district. The board is organized by electing one of its number as president, and choosing a secretary and treasurer from outside the board: Provided, That in all independent districts having a population of less than 500 the board shall consist of 3 directors, who elect from their own number a president and secretary, but choose a treasurer from outside.23 |