By A.B. Cameron, Superintendent
The Cameron School is now in the new building. This is a splendid building—a source of just pride to the citizens and patrons of the school as well as great satisfaction to the teachers and pupils who will be able to carry out their work much more satisfactorily under the improved conditions. This school has been working for a long time under the great handicap of a very inadequate building, but now they have one of the best buildings in the county.
The new building at Vass is making good progress towards completion and when completed will rank among the best of the modern, well arranged buildings.
The old colored school-house of West Southern Pines was burned a few weeks ago and the school has been suspended, but the new building is about completed. Furniture is now being installed and the school will begin work again about the first of March in the new building. This is another modern, well arranged and well equipped building that means a long felt need. There are about 300 pupils in that school. For the past two terms they have been forced to work in shifts, part coming in the forenoon and part in the afternoon, in order to get in. Under such conditions the work could not be satisfactory, but with completion of the new building the difficulties are removed and we are expecting good results to follow. The citizens of that community are to be commended for their liberal support and co-operation and for the pride they take in their school.
The schools are now on the “home stretch,” and we need the full co-operation of teachers, patrons, and friends of the schools to round out the term in good form.
The fall term was very satisfactory. There was but little sickness, consequently attendance was good with a correspondingly keener interest and better work. Since the Christmas holidays there has been a good deal of sickness in some sections. No outbreak in epidemic form as in recent years, but still enough to break into class work and cut down the daily average. But, now that the winter is practically over, with longer, brighter days and better road conditions, we trust that patrons and pupils will make a special effort to make up for what has been lost. We want especially to urge those pupils who have lost some time on account of sickness to take up the work again just as soon an with as much zeal as possible. Don’t give up because you have been hindered. Putting all you can into he remaining weeks of the term may mean that you make your grade while a little indifference and delay may mean failure, and failure means the loss of a year in your school course. In addition to the loss to the individual pupil, it may mean the loss of a teacher for next term. We hope that the patrons of each school will continually bear in mind that the number of teachers any school can be allowed will depend on the number of pupils in average daily attendance. Every day a pupil misses, cuts down the average. If your children or your neighbor’s children are out of school a single day that they could possibly be there, the children are missing what they should have, the school is crippled, your community progress is hindered and you are responsible.
Every year along about time for the schools to open, the Board of Education and the Superintendent are besieged with delegations asking for additional teachers. There are enough pupils in the district to justify the additional teacher in a great many cases, but we can’t grant the request. “Why?” “What’s the matter?” The law and the records are against you. The law specifies the number of pupils required in daily attendance during the preceding term per teacher to be allowed. The school record shows that the required average was not made. The trouble is that somebody has been careless or indifferent. More than enough pupils were enrolled but many of them attended irregularly. Out two or three days this week, two or three days next week and so on, and the average is pulled down below the required number.
There are many ways that patrons can help the school, and one of the most effective is to do your part, to have the full enrollment present every day. It’s your school and if it’s as good a school as it ought to e, it means more to your children and your neighbor’s children than any other. If it’s not as good a school as it ought to be, are you doing your part to make it, now is the time.
Carefully prepared statistics show, by comparing the average earning of educated men and women with the average earnings of uneducated men and women that every day in school is worth $10 to a child purely from the standpoint of dollars and cents to say nothing of the larger capacity for a life of service.
The parent who keeps his son out of High school robs that child of a chance even to be a skilled teacher, doctor, trained nurse, lawyer, cultured minister, well-trained home-maker, farmer or citizen. Don’t rob your child.
Progress Day for the colored students will e Friday April 10th, the colored Training School in Carthage.
Field day for the white schools will be a week or two later. The events and the general program will be approximately the same as last year. Tentative program will be sent out in a short while, but in the meantime, those who expect to enter the contests in spelling, story telling, reciting, declamation, etc., as well as those who expect to compete in the athletic events should be getting ready.
The North Carolina Flag is a trophy to be won by the school making the most points. Aberdeen now hold the flag. What School will hold it next year?
From page 5 of The Sandhill Citizen, Southern Pines, N.C., Friday, February 27, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92061634/1925-02-27/ed-1/seq-5/#words=FEBRUARY+27%2C+1925
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