The Portland survey; a textbook on city school administration based on a concrete study

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Contents

I. ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION Ceaptek I. The Legal Obganization of the Fostland School

District 3

School District 10

PART I Organization and Admtntstration

CHAPTER I»

THE LEGAL ORGANIZATION OF THE PORTLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT

STATE ORIGIN OF SCHOOLS

SCHOOL District No. i, of Multnomah County, Oregon, commonly known as the Portland School District, is a state, and not a city, creation and organization. Unlike the street and fire departments, or the park board, which are provided for in the city charter and are distinctively city institutions, the school department owes its origin to the state constitutional mandate and to the state's laws relating to education. The first provisional government for the Oregon country (1845) declared that "schools and means of education should be encouraged," and the constitution on which the territory entered the Union, framed in 1857, directed that " the Legislative Assembly shall provide by law for the establishment of a uniform and general system of common schools" for the state. To assist in the maintenance of such a state school system a state school fund was created, and its use and method of distribution were provided for in the new constitution.

Under this authority the legislature has since created a state school system. A State Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education have been provided for, to look after the interests of the state in the

■ Chapters I to VII inclusive were written by Professor EUwood P. Cubberley. Director of the Survey. — Editor.

matter of education; a body of School Law, controlling the school system in detail, has since been gradually evolved, and county school superintendents and district school directors have been created, to see that the state purpose is carried out locally.

THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND THE MUNICIPALITY

The school district has been made the unit of educational organization by the state, and the districts have been declared by law to be " bodies corporate, competent to transact all business coming under their jurisdiction," The boundaries of the school districts are controlled by a county txiard, known as the district boundary board, and the distinct organization of a school district is shown by the provision that its boundaries may be different from those of a municipality of which it forms a part, and that it may even lie in two counties. This difference for Portland is well shown by Figure i, which gives the city and school-district boundary lines as they were early in 1913. Even when the boundaries of a school district are one and the same as those of a municipal corporation, the intent of the law, and the decisions of the courts in a number of states, are that the school district is a separate and distinct corporation from the municipality, created for a different purpose. The municipality exists largely for local ends: the school district exists iargdy for the carryit^ out of a state purpose.

PORTLAND A FIRST-CLASS DISTRICT

In carrying out this state purpose the state of Oregon, for convenience in granting powers, has classified the different school districts of the state into three classes. The first class, to which Portland belongs, comprises all school districts in the state having ioc» or more children of school-census age (4 to 20 years). Such districts, largely because of their size and the larger volume of their business, are

Organization of Sckod DisMct 5

allowed to elect five school directors, instead of the three provided for other districts; may appoint a clerk, outside of their own membership ; may employ a superintendent of schools ; may prescribe their own courses of study ; may ex-

Fio. I. Oct and School-Distkici Boundakizs Cohpakeo

amine their own teachers; may provide evening schools; and may create an indebtedness. In 191 1 all school districts having 10,000 or more school children were permitted to create a teachers' retirement fund, and in 1913 all school districts having 20,000 or more school children were permitted to establish and maintain many types of special schools, and to adopt their own textbooks.

All these powers come from the state and not from the city, and all of them apply to any school district in the state of the same class or size. The district is numbered and takes its legal name from the county and state organization ; its powers all come from the state ; it could be dianged in form or purpose at any time by the state, and it exists primarily for the carrying out of a purpose which our American states long ago decided to be in the interests of the state. Whatever the state decides to be wise, in the matter of public education, it can thus order the Portland school district to do or to provide. The provision of education for its children is thus not left to local desire or local initiative, as is the case with street lights or sidewalks, but is required by the state in the exercise of its inherent right of preservation and improvement.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF STATE CONTROL

This control has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. It is much more likely that Portland will desire to advance more rapidly than the state, in extending its educational system, than that the state will outstrip Portland. This means that, from time to time, Portland must secure the permission of the legislature of the state before it can make much-needed educational advancement. For example, until the present time the Portland school district has been compelled to use the uniform state series of textbooks in its elementary schools, though these were adopted with the needs of the rural schools in view and were, in the judgment of the members of the Survey staff, in a number of cases wholly unsuited to the needs of any modern educational system. It would be hard to conceive of any city with a modem educational organization using such books as were forced on the city by the state. Another illustration is the retention, in a city of 250,000 inhabitants, of the old, outgrown system, in many states entirely abandoned, of holding an annual meeting of taxpayers of the school district to levy the an-

Organization of ScIumA District 7

nual school tax and to make needed appropriations for the schools. The only thing the meeting could do with any safety would be to follow the judgment of the directors, and if this is to be done there is no wisdom in holding the meeting. We were told that the tax is frequently voted by a mere handful of citizens. Such a situation is fraught with constant danger. If, for any cause, antagonisms should arise, it would be easily possible for a very few people to appear quietly and defeat the tax, and thus imperil the work of the schools for a year to come. A city the size of Portland should be given I^slative permission to abandon this outgrown country-school provision, and to substitute instead a modem method for levying the school taxes.

The state oversight and control has its advantages and disadvantages, also, in that it permits interested parties to appeal from the decision of the elected representatives of the school district and secure legislation of a kind which suits them. An illustration on the good side would be laws compelling the board of school directors of the district to establish vacation schools, to introduce instruction in domestic science, to provide proper playground facilities, or to establish proper sanitary conditions and health supervision. A good illustration on the other side is the 1913 lifetenure-of-teachers bill, which is considered more in detail in Chapter IV, and which was secured from an unthinking legislature by representatives of the elementary teachers of the city. Probably no legislation has ever been enacted in the history of the Portland school district which is more calculated ultimately to destroy the efficiency of the school system.

NEED OP A NEW CITY SCHOOT, LAW

The legal organization surrounding the Portland school district is in part a village organization, and the district needs a new educational charter. This could be secured in the form of a general law, applicable to any city in the state having 20,000 or more school children. The method of

8 The PorOand Survey

election, the size, and the organization of the Board of School Directors are good so far as they provide for a continuing body and permit a continuing educational policy, and had best remain as they are. The law should in addition provide for a good modem educational organization for such a city, and should specify the main powers of the board, the Super* intendent of Schools, the Superintendent of Properties, and the Qerk or Secretary. Certain powers and duties should be guaranteed to each, and each should be safeguarded in the e«ercise of them by law. The right of the district to make its own courses of study, to adopt its own textbooks, to set its own requirements for entering the teaching service, to contract with its own teachers, and to establish such schools and such types of educational activity as seem needed, should be included in the law as a matter of course. The right to determine the rate or the amount of school taxes to be levied up to certain maxima for buildings, equipment, and annual maintenance, oug^t to be given to the Board of School Directors alone, with the further right to submit the question to a vote of the people if, in their judgment, still larger sums are needed to meet emergencies or special educational needs.

In the Appendix to this Report ^ a suggested state law for the reorganization of the Portland school district is given. This proposed law is based in part on the present laws now in force, and in part on the best experience of those American cities which have recently secured a good administrative law for the management of their schools.

While the Portland school district thus has a distinct legal organization, separate from the municipality of which it forms a part, and derives its powers from the state rather than from the city, the schools are nevertheless city schools, and should answer primarily the city's needs. That education which is best suited to tlie needs of such a city will best answer the state purpose in requiring the maintenance of schools. The character of the population of Portland, the > See page 419-

OrganizaUon oj School District g

social and educational demands of its people, its actual and per capita wealth, and the industrial and commercial needs of the present and future city, all serve to modify the character of the school system which should be maintained and the type or types of education which should be provided. As the city grows in size and its social and educational problems increase in complexity, the state should grant increasing liberty to the city to enable it to meet its peculiar educational needs. What the state should be primarily interested in is seeing that certain minimum standards are met, not in limiting new efforts of communities. A too rigid interpretation of the old constitutional clause providing for " a uniform and general system of schools " for the state, or a too great interference by the legislature in matters largely local by nature, can in part defeat the very object for which the educational system was established. In the case of Portland, the legislature should provide the city with a legal organization suited to modem needs, after some such a plan as is suggested in Appendix A, and should then refuse tointerfere except in matters of fundamental importance.

Chapter II The Administrative Organization Of The Portland School District

coBbdination of authorities

THE Portland school district thus exists in obedience to state law, and its form and its powers are alike derived from the state. To carry out this state purpose of education for such children as live within the boundaries of the Portland school district, the state has provided for the election, by the property holders of the school district, of a board of five school directors. One new member is elected each year, for a five-year term, and on a day set by law for the annual school meeting of the district. The main powers of the board so elected come from the legislature, and have been formulated in the school law of the state. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the County Superintendent of Schools interpret this law, and apportion to the district its proportionate share of the income from the state permanent school fund and from the county school tax. The County Boundary Board regulates the boundaries of the school district, as for all other districts within the county. The County Superintendent of Schools sits as a member of the district (city) Board of Examiners, for the examination and certification of all teachers for the school district.

THE BOARD ORGANIZATION

The Board of School Directors so elected is charged with the maintenance of the schools required by law within the district. In carrying out this purpose they not only meet as

The Administrative Organization ii

a body, but have also subdivided themselves into eight committees for further work. The work of maintaining the schools is also further organized under two main departments, practically independent of one another — one for the business work, under the School Qerk, and one for the educational work, under the Superintendent of Schools. These relationships are well shown in Figure i.

An examination of this diagram, and a comparison of it with Figure 3, on page 28, showing a desirable reorganization, will prove both interesting and instructive. In Figure 2 the independence of the two main administrative departments, as well as the lack of coordination of the different city departments working at the educational problem, is seen ; in Figure 3 the unified educational organiza- ' tion is the prominent feature.

Business Department Organisation

The business department, as organized under the School Clerk, is further subdivided as follows:

School Clerk

1. Secretary

2. Truant officer

3. Cashier

a. Bookkeeper

b. Assistant bookkeeper

c. Checking clerk

d. Head stenographer

e. Assistant stenographer

f. Filing clerk

g. Telephone operator

4. Purchasing agent

a. Storekeeper

b. Delivery man

5. Superintendent of properties

a. Stenographer

b. Office boy

c Chief draftsman

( 1 ) Two draftsmen

(2) Structural engineer

(3) Heating and ventilating engineer

d. Inspector of grounds and buildings

(i) Carpenter foreman (2) Mechanics

e. Supervisor of electrical and mechanical plant

( 1 ) Plumbers

(2) Mechanics

6. Janitors

This department seemed well organized and quite efficiently managed throughout. The work seemed to be handled both expeditiously and economically, and an examination of the methods and forms used seemed to indicate that fairly good business methods were employed.^ In the judgment of the different members of the Survey staff, this department seemed to be the better organized and more efficiently managed of the two. This is perhaps only natural, as its work is perfectly definite, the principles of good business organization are well known, the personal element plays a much less important part, and efficiency in service is much easier to obtain and to maintain. It is the part, too, that the Board of School Directors are most capable of properly organizing and supervising; it is the part that, both by training and experience, they are best able to understand, and there is a constant tendency among school boards to overemphasize the importance of this side of the school organization.

As the books of the School Clerk are carefully audited each year, the honesty of the business office was assumed by the Survey staff, and no attempt was made to check up ■ See critidsm of reports and forms in Chapter XVL the finances or expenditures of the district. The annual financial reports are made according to the fonns recommended for use by the United States Census Bureau and the United States Bureau of Education, which is commendable.

Educational Department Organisation

The educational department, as organized under the Superintendent of Schools, is as follows :

Superintendent of Schools

1. Two assistant superintendents for general super-

vision

a. Special supervisors

( 1 ) Music

(2) Drawing

(3) Manual training

(4) Domestic science

(5) Sewing

(6) Physical training

b. Assistant supervisors

(i) Special teachers (manual training) c Principals of schools

( 1 ) Elementary schools

(a) Vice-principals

(b) Teachers

(c) Pupil teachers and substi-

tutes

(2) Hi^ schools

(a) Heads of departments

(b) Assistant teachers

2. One assistant superintendent for special and voca-

tional education a. Principals of special schools ( I ) Teachers

(a) School of Trades

(x) Day (y) Evening

(b) Evening* schools

(x) High

(y) Elementary

(c) Summer schools

(x) High

(y) Elementary

(z) Manual training

(d) Special summer instruction for

teachers of special subjects

(e) School for deaf

(f) School for defectives

3. Office assistants

a. Clerks

b. Stenographers

c. Teleirfione operator

The organization of the educational department is much the same as that found in many other cities. Unlike the business department, where a proper form of organization is well established, in the educational department the form of organization is less important than the spirit which pervades the organization. Personality, insight, and breadth of view count for much more here than in the business department. The work is far less mechanical and less of a routine nature, is much more difficult to organize by means of rules and regulations, and depends much more on the quality of the leadership at the top and the freedom given the leader or leaders to work things out in their own way, than upon any scheme of organization which can be devised. It is in this department that boards of school directors too frequently make the mistake of trying to overorganize and of trying to oversee affairs too minutely. A living and growing sdiool system, in so far as it relates to the educational department, cannot be a product of organization and routine.

VOLUME OP WORK UNDERTAKEN BY THE BOARD OF SCHOOL DIRECTORS

Two meetings of the Board of Directors were visited, and different members of the Survey staff examined the proceedings of a number of meetings. The work of the board was a matter of much consideration at the conferences of the Survey staff, as it was f eh that the work and the attitude of the board were, in a way, the key to the whole situation. In addition, the writer of this chapter has carefully examined the minutes of proceedings of all meetings held during three months of the present year. These were as follows:

Febniaiyao

Febnury 34

8»w p.iL

Special Meeting

February »8

Maxch

Regulai Meeting

Special Meeting as

S

Special Meeting

May

May

SK)OP.M.

May

May iS

May

Sum p.m.

May

May

'3

SxwP.M.

From a mere reading of the above list (Mie must be impressed by the large number of meetings held. When one remembers that the board also has eight different committees ; that each director is a member of four of the eight, and that the chairman of the board is ex-officio a member of all the eight; and that meetings of these committees, to consider matters referred to them by the board and to formulate reports on the same, must also have been frequent — one is led to wonder how anyone other than a man of wealth and leisure, or a young man of no particular business, could afford to accept membership on the Board of School Directors for the Portland school district. It must require a very deep sense of public duty for a man who must earn his living to do the work of a school director under the present methods of handling the public's educational business, and many a good man must be discouraged from serving on the board because he cannot afford the time necessary to attend to the business. Such conditions oiTer a constant temptation to the budding young politician or the busybody with no business, to seek membership on the board for personal rather than public ends. The different members of the Survey staff were much impressed with the devotion to the public interest of the members of the Board of School Directors, and in particular with the time spent on the work and the interest taken in it by the president of the board, and they consider it all the more remarkable that the district is able to retain the services of such men, under the present plan of doing business.

A reading of the minutes of the meetings is sufficient to show that the Board of School Directors attempts to handle in person far too many things, and to transact, through its committees and then by the board as a whole, many pieces of business which ought to be delegated to the heads of departments and other subordinates. The minutes show clearly that the board spends a large proportion of its time trying to handle technical and professional matters, largely relating to teachers and instruction, which no board is competent to handle alone and which ought to be referred to the educational department for attention. A reading of the i8 The Portland Swrvey

minutes further shows that the board also spends another large proportion of its time in receiving communications, referring them to committees, considering them there, reporting them back to the board with recommendations, and then formally taking action, when the matters considered are of such a special or routine nature that the communications should have been referred at once to the heads of departments for action. Many of the communications, too, should not have gone to the board at all, and would not if it were generally understood by the people that the proper heads of departments were in possession of power to act on such matters. Many other communications are referred to committees, considered there, and reported back with the recommendation that they "be received and filed." In most of the cases the very nature of the communications made such action the perfectly obvious course, and much time could have been saved if the chairman had so directed the clerk, on his merely reading the title. By a proper organization of the educational business, it ought to be possible to transact all the school business of the district by a meeting of an hour and a half once in two weeks. All such means of saving time are important, if citizens of ability and mature judgment are to be attracted to positions on the board.

TYPES OF BUSINESS DEALT WITH AT BOARD MEETINGS

The following tabulation, taken from the minutes above referred to, will give some suggestion of ways of saving time, expediting business, and at the same time improving the service, all of which might easily be put into efifect by the board. Practically all the following matters were referred to some committee for investigation and report, and then were acted on by the board as a whole at a subsequent meeting.

I. Numerous requests from principals, teachers, parents' organizations, citizens, clubs of various kinds, in-

The Adminislraiive OrganizaUon 19

eluding one from the parochial school authorities, asking permission to use school buildings or grounds for some purpose, usually of an educational nature. The action on all these was so nearly uniform that certain general rules for the use of school buildings and grounds could easily be formulated, and all such requests could then be turned over to the School Clerk or the Superintendent of Properties for consideration and action, the board delegating to them their authority to act In many cases the Superintendent of Schools would need to be consulted ; seldom would it be necessary to appeal to the board for specific instructions.

2. A number of requests from principals of schools for permission to hold entertainments in their buildings, usually to raise money for the purchase of books or apparatus for the school.

3. The Trade School asked permission to hold an annual exhibit of its work and to send invitations to parents.

4. The Trade School asked permission to send an exhibit of its work to the Eliot School.

5. A teacher of a 9B class asked permission to hold a litUe entertainment in her schoolroom, after 2.30 p. m., for the purposes of a class memorial.

These requests are all much of a class ; all are educational in their nature, and full authority in such matters should be given to the Superintendent of Schools. In cases 3 and 5, 5ie principal of the school should feel that he had full authority himself. If the Superintendent cannot handle such matters, the sooner the board gets a superintendent who can, the better, and if the principals cannot take and wisely use such responsibility, they ought either to be replaced by principals who can, or to have their salaries reduced to those of mere clerks. It is a waste of money to pay salaries large enough to buy judgment and discretion, and then not permit judgment and discretion to be used.

6. A principal asked permission to hold a meeting of a mothers' dub in his school building.

7. A principal asked permission to hold a meeting in his building at which could be reported to his neighborhood the results of the Human Welfare Congress, held at Reed College.

8. Two principals asked permission to hold school garden meetings in their buildings and to make announcement of them to their schools.

9. Two requests from a high school principal for permission to invite distinguished men to speak to the students of his school.

Full authority in all these cases should rest with the school principal, with perhaps advance notification of the Superintendent of Properties as to the use of school buildings at irregular hours. Th ^s^ho pls a ^ publi c, property, and the board should encourage. t.heir^use_as neighborhood centers and for an^ Jeg^imatepuhhp 4iurcose. If a school principal ^s to be muchofa neighborhood leader, he must feel free to invite his neighbors to meet with him at his school for any legitimate end. If the principal cannot use such authority wisely, his successor ought to be selected soon. In the case of the high school principal, it is foolish to pay three thousand dollars a year to a man who is not competent to invite proper persons to address his students.

10. Certam teachers requested permission to use a manual training center for their own instruction.

Authority to grant this request should rest with the principal of the school, or the supervisor of manual training. Such requests should be encouraged and should be granted without question.

11. The teachers' committee of the board brought in a report directing the Superintendent of Schools to instruct the schools to observe Peace Day.

The Administrative Organization 3i

The Superintendent, principals, or teachers should feel that they have authority to do this without being directed. Matters relating to instruction in the school should be left entirely in the hands of the superintendent of instruction.

12. The students of the trade school presented a petition, asking for the removal of an instructor in the school.

13. Groups of teachers presented recommendations in favor of their principal, for selection as an assistant superintendent.

14. Groups of teachers recommended the selection of certain other teachers in the system, as school principals.

Such a petition as 12 should not be received, except through the Superintendent of Schools. Such recommendations as 13 and 14 are com[4imentary and meaningless; furthermore, they are not good for the system. In any case the Superintendent of Schools and not the board should receive them.

15. The Superintendent of Schools asked permission to have a small eight-page folder printed, relating to the adoption of textbooks.

Evidently the Superintendent of Schools has no authorit>- to take the initiative in such matters. This is evident also from other minutes, relating to the Superintendent of Properties. In a school system tfie size of that of Portland some freedom of action in the matter of expenditures should be granted heads of departments. The Superintendent of Schools and the School Clerk each ought to be able, on his own authority, to incur an indebtedness up to one hundred dollars a month, and the Superintendent of Properties a still larger simi. A school principal ought also to have some limited authority in this direction. Probably no more money would be spent, as these officers are as interested as the board in using the school money wisely, but the trust and confidence reposed would lead to better service, and the board as a body and the members as individuals would be relieved of unnecessary attention to details.

i6. The principals' monthly property reports are presented to the board each month, and then referred to the buildings, grounds, supplies, and repairs committees for consideration.

The wisdom of requiring such reports oftener than once a year may be seriously questioned, thou^ reports as to special needs should be proper at any time. In any case, such reports should be received, tabulated, and filed by the Superintendent of Properties, and the attention of the board called only to such matters as involve important expenditures or the authorization of new work. The details as to the physical condition of the school property should be carried in the head of the Superintendent of Properties, and the board and its committees should not spend their time in going over minor details of little relative value.

17. The board spent two entire sessions, and parts of two others, in interviewing principals and special supervisors as to the efficiency of their teachers.

18. A communication was read and referred, from a man who desired to interview the board with reference to his employment as a supervisor of music.