Why Halifax County Needs a Consolidated School, April 2, 1920

From the front page of the Roanoke Rapids Herald, April 2, 1920

Reasons Why Schools of Halifax County Should Be Consolidated

Benefits to the Children

Children that live too far away from school to walk and have no way to ride will be taken to school on trucks.

Where you have a big school with a teacher for every grade, with music and domestic science and agricultural teachers, they can teach the children better than they can in small schools, where one teacher has to teach from three to seven grades.

You can get better teachers to come to a big consolidated school, where they can do the children justice, than you can to come to a small school.

The teachers have more time to give to the children.

Many children in the country will never get beyond the sixth or seventh grade unless they have a school of this kind to go to, because they are not able to go off to some outside school. Then there are children away off in the country that are very timid and have never mixed with other children much. If they had a big consolidated school to go to, their timidness would be worn off by mixing with other children.

Benefits to the Grown Folks

It would be cheaper to pay the teachers of one big school than it would to pay the teachers of about a dozen two- or three-teacher schools.

It would be cheaper to keep one big building in repair and the fires going than it would be several small schools.

It would be cheaper for the fathers and mothers that are financially able to send their children to an outside school, after they pass the seventh grade to keep their children at home until they finish the eleventh or twelfth grade.

Then there are a lot of people in the country that do not have much education. They couldn’t help by learn right much if there was a school of this kind in the community.

Benefits to the Community

It would be a great benefit to any community to have from 11 to 15 well-educated men and women to come into its bounds.

Having a big consolidated school in a community will give people progressive ideas and make them get to work to keep up with the school.

Having a big school in the community, the people will naturally come together there and mingle with their neighbors, and this will develop a good community spirit.

If the children of a community are well educated, you will naturally have well-educated men and women, and therefore a well-educated community.

If we do not have a good school in the country all of the best people will move to town so they can educate their children. So if we want to keep our best people in the country, we will have to have consolidated schools.