1874-1966 Ninety-two Years of History DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICTSs i s AO OS MAP OF DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT DALLAS, TEXAS Revised August 1965 to Bring School locations and Designations up to date.FOREWORD The Public School System of Dallas, since 1947 the Dallas Independent School District, is approaching the century mark. This book relates to most of the important steps in the attainments, present status, and magnitude of oper- ations of the schools. The School System will continue to expand and grow, meeting the responsibilities of public education for the young citizens of the community. In time we anticipate that a second volume of Education in Dallas may be written with a view to maintaining a current and complete history of this great public institution. W. T. White VIPART I THE EARLY YEARS 1874-1899 Uncertainty as to Beginnings 1874-1884 CHAPTER 1 Exact times and dates of the beginning of the Dallas Public Schools are difficult to set, Volume I, page 1 of the Minutes of the Board of, Education shows the inscription, “On June 16th, 1884, in the office of R. D. Coughanour, the Board of School Trustees organized.” This terse statement, beautiful in its brevity, makes a good beginning and is amplified by the School Report of 1885 by Superintendent Boles addressed to the “Hon. Board of Directors, Dallas Public Schools,” which begins with the phrase, “I herewith submit to your honorable body the first Annual Report of the Graded Pub- lic Schools of this City.” Succeeding reports identify 1884-1885 as “the first year of the Dallas Public Schools.” This should rather neatly and nicely set the date of June 16, 1884, as the beginning of the Dallas Public Schools, were it not for the Reports referring statistically to days which went before. On July 21, 1884, Mayor W. L. Cabell ordered “That all former Ordinances in relation to the city public school are hereby repealed.” Schools of some sort existed prior to the 1884 organization. Mr. Boles, Superintend- ent for the year 1884-1885, reports the fol- lowing enrollment statistics Year Enrolled 1880 1218 1881 1351 1882 1453 1883 1760 1884 2537 1885 3204 The record for the year 1883-1884 showed receipts from the County Fund of $598.40 and from the State Fund $7920.00 for a total of $8518.40. Further- more, it is reported “that the city owns six public school houses — four devoted to white and two to colored children,” all acquired before 1884. Dallas was concerned with the education of its children prior to 1884, but the depth and substance of this concern is con- jectural. All references to the year 1884 appear- ing in the Annual Report are made to the act of “organization.” That schools existed prior to 1884 in quasi-public form is ap- parent, but the Dallas Directory of 1873 “regrets to say that there are no public schools in Dallas.” This publicity, even though adverse, produced almost immediate results, for the Directory of 1875 proudly proclaims that “the schools are near perfection.” Something happened between 1873 and 1875 to identify the year 1874 as the year of the beginning of the public schools in Dallas, with some reservations, perhaps, as to the exact day and furthermore as to the use of the word “public” as it is understood today. Schools in their development respond to their social, economic, and cultural envi- ronment. The forces of community life beat in on the process of education and tend to shape it. Contrariwise, the educational urgehas a strength of its own, and in its own right beats back in an effort to condition and shape the destiny of the community. With mud when it rained, and dust when drought-stricken, and with rival railroads uniting to double the population periodi- cally and the industrial potential, Dallas took time to plan its schools. When Texas “came in” in 1870, it was, in the words of Robert T. Hill, “the darkest field educationally in the United States.” State legislation, reflecting the temper of the times, produced the Constitution of 1876. This tool, tough on educationalists, because of early and sad experiences with visionaries, allowed but little leeway for philosophers. In 1877, Dallas, under the nudging of Mayor W. L. Cabell, took advantage of the constitutional provisions and took charge of its public schools. Up to this time there had been no district organiza- tion and no public school buildings. Local communities furnished space in churches or Masonic Halls, whenever a teacher might be available, “to get himself up a school.” Tuition was the basis of the teacher's salary, supplemented from state funds for indigents who could not afford to pay. Four trustees were chosen by the City Council, one for each of the four wards; three examiners for teachers were ap- pointed; and most important, a tax of one- half of one per cent was levied for school purposes. This made it possible to pay the teachers by warrant, drawn by the city secretary and signed by the mayor on voucher of the president of the school board. Sites and buildings were acquired and the trustees were instructed, “to visit the different schools at least once a month and inspect the management of the same.” Progress is reflected in the Dallas City Directory of 1880, where the school board is complimented on its zeal in the face of “support that is little more than a pit- tance,” as a result of which the schools were kept only five and one-half months of the year. Four ward schools had been augmented by three colored schools. In 1883, a special tax was levied to build a free school house in every ward. “Some of them will be occupied before this is printed. They are two stories, with room enough to hold two or three hundred children.” Size and layout of rooms were not cited by the reporter of the article. He was thinking in terms of “two or three hundred chil- dren,” and in this sense he was a poet, calling attention to dreams and hopes rather than inches and feet. This, then, presents the condition exist- ing in 1883, In an environment of lively, rugged growth, the City of Dallas had engineered an incipient program of public schools, similar to that developing in its sister cities in the nation. From an original cadre of fourteen teachers in 1877, there had been an increase of only one teacher by 1882, a fairly stable arrangement, one might say, in the fact of an increase in population from 6,000 to 18,000. ‘This pre- sents one reason for the reorganization of 1884. The Schools of Dallas had been operat- ing under the State Law of 1873, which, according to Benjamin M. Baker, State Superintendent from 1883 to 1887, was most unsatisfactory. At a special session of the Eighteenth Legislature on February 6, 1884, the law was “amended and re- written in its entirety and this revised code breathes a new spirit and purpose.” The law provided for a district system even to the extent of specifying that “each District shall be given a number which shall bepainted over the door of the school house.” Mr. Baker identified disadvantages in the older community system in the uncer- tainty of annual reorganization and in the disability of local communities to tax themselves. “Your (new) district system suffers none of these disadvantages, Under it local taxes may be levied and funds raised for building purposes, or lengthen- ing the school term and extending the school age. The districts have definite limits; the place of the school is fixed... teachers are thereby encouraged to be- come more professional.” Under the old law the teachers’ salaries were dependent upon the attendance of the pupils and “this was a relic of barbarism.” The Act of 1884 became a law without the governor’s signature on February 6, 1884, and it did not take long for the news to reach Dallas. Quite likely, Mr. Coughanour and his group, expert in legal matters, sensed the importance of the act and acted immediately to take advantage thereof, even to the extent of calling a meeting on a Sunday afternoon, “to organ- ize.” By the time watermelons were ripe, they had elected a superintendent and induced the Dallas City Council to grant them authority to operate a public school system worthy of the name. This was the year, 1884, when Grover Cleveland was elected president of the United States, with the help of the “Mug-Wumps.” : Bit linaen - heerclary OR, Bont, . Dyer Minutes of the First Meeting, June 16, 1884A Forward Look CHAPTER V4 This chapter might be termed a brief halt to consider the advyancéd position of the Dallas Independent School District and to recomnoiter the next move. The past history of the Dallas Public Schools shows a process of closing of gaps between theory and practice. Educational leadership was ever active in striving for the best interests of the individual child and in making pronouncements thereof in terms of theoretical considerations, but it took time to put these pronouncements into practice. ‘The future appears explicit in this same context. What has happened will continue to happen, more so or less so. There will continue a closing of gaps between theory and practice, as the schools catch up with their dreams, but trouble is in the offing as new dreamers, insisting on being heard, create new gaps in other places as the old gaps are closing. The backward look shows attempts to struggle with the fact that some children were not in school and were not getting the benefits from free public education. Various attempts are seen in the years gone by to.remedy the situation. Truant officers belabored their trust and did some good. Compulsory attendance laws were passed, never with teeth enough to bite. The belief that the father had a right to his child’s labor in maintaining the home and keeping body and soul together was stretched to include a car and other necessities and would not down. 219 Principals coaxed and coached their con- stituency and walked over hill and dale in an effort to catch up with their wander- ing boys and girls, but “moral 'suasion” was their big power. The present law requires pupils to attend school until their sixteenth birthday, Soon this will be changed to their seventeenth birthday, and with a changed feeling on the part of the public it will be possible to file complaints against the child and his parents in case of carelessness. It is not pleasant to contemplate filing, but when the law says that something shall be done, the unpleasantness of the deed will not be a governing factor forever. Quite likely, with the mounting cost of education, there will be a mounting effort to make educa- tion more effective in the lives of the people who disregard the law. Statistics The enrollment follows a straight line on the graph for the years 1960-65 and this line projected indicates enrollment in 1970 at 180,000 and in 1975 at 205,000. The in- crease in the number of schools to accomo- date this increase of enrollment would be fifty schools. Taking into consideration the reduction shown in the national birth rate since 1957, it is quite likely that these fig- ures will not be attained. The annexation program for the next decade will be a governing factor. If the rate of increase in enrollment for the past five years were reduced one half for the next five years,opportunity for education has gathered and has fanned out to include the high academic classes with advanced college credit possibilities on one edge of the spec- trum to the classes in simple skill training for the barely educable at the other. Music, art and physical education have gathered force as they roll along. Teaching aids are here to stay and will be watched for possible improvement and extension, Television, radio, tape recorders, record players, and Ianguage laboratories will enrich and expand the curriculum in professional growth programs for teachers. Data processing has taken hold and will find many uses not now'contemplated, even to the point of aiding in the development of local school or class action-research programs. The culmination of eighty years of steady striving on the part of school boards and superintendents for improved teaching is seen in the professional improvement pro- gram now operating under the title of “Toward Instructional Excellence.” This will continue to grow in popularity and effectiveness as its advantages are felt. The educational specialist has demon- strated his value in terms of expert service to the teachers and to the establishment and maintenance of an organismic charac- ter of the curriculum in the face of many atomizing influences. His tribe will in- crease. Data processing machinery will serve to give adequate attention to better guidance procedures in that the distribution of pupils per class will be accommodated to the pupils’ needs rather than, as in the past, to the classes which happened to be avail- able at a given period and which needed “filling up.” This will be especially true in the cases of such fields as physical educa- tion and health instruction. Classes will be assigned pupils according to their calcu- 221 lated needs, rather than pupils assigned to classes for the sake of administrative details. The two reasons will more nearly become one as the use of data processing machinery expedites the better use of school facilities. Special education programs will con- tinue to expand. “This is not a closed circuit. Additional programs will become a part of this operation as educators try out and develop additional benefits to be derived from the instruction,”* ‘The year 1964-65 gave more than a hint of things to come. The Language Arts Cur- riculum Guides, showing signs of wear and tear, indicate an impending revision in the light of the linguistic science and the study of people as revealed in their languages, without loss of skill in grammar and com- position. The application of electronic devices to this purpose in the language laboratories testifies -to the generalization of education as it operates in the broad fields organization. Mathematics will continue “new” and perhaps get worn in. The boys and girls in the filth grades may continue to have some dislike for it, but the children in the first grades will get along fine. The proposed goal in mathematics in- cludes the involvement of the pupils with much more mathematics than at present: the introduction of more mathematics in the elementary school and the speeding up of the seventh and eighth grades, the re- evaluation and reorganization of content all along the line, and finally more stimu- lating and efficacious pedagogy. Federally subsidized research programs summarized by the American Educational Research Association show which way the winds are blowing in Washington and pres- ent a criterion for evaluating local interest. Activities such as education of handicapped ‘White, W. T., Special Fdecation, Dallas Tndepeadeat School District, 1905children, language development, com- munity action, vocational rehabilitation, prevention and reduction of poverty and dependency, mental health with respect to early detection of emotional disorders and Dehavorial problems, major _ problems in education, curriculum improvement through use of new techniques and ma- terials, improvement of teaching-learning process through media within the instruc- tional context, child welfare, help for the labor force to acquire new knowledge and skills necessary to the nation’s economy, and improvement of the courses in mathe- matics and science, may receive help for research and development. ‘This is what is “in transit” experimentally on the national level and presents a fore- cast of things to come. “We'd rather do it ourselves” is a phrase which has been representative of local philosophy down through the years, and this may continue as something more than vestigial. However, some increase in col- laboration with State and Federal Agen- cies of Education may result from the in- creased richness of forthcoming financial subsidies, particularly in the area of re- search. Science Development The school system is on the verge of having available more practical and useful scientific information than any school dis- trict imagined having, according to Super- intendent W. T. White. With the advances in space exploration and other scientific and mathematical fields, new techniques in teaching and new concepts in education are spreading down through the grade sys- tem and through the clementary school as low as the first grade. Just as a wandering minstrel, shading his eyes against the shining Camelot, might have asked, “Who and wherefore?” so a newcomer to Dallas, upon perceiving this sprawling city with its 174 school buildings, its 5,555 teachers and principals, its 155,- 000 pupils, its annual budget of $75,000,- 000.00, might ask a similar query concern- ing so vast a plan and find the answer in the Apocrypha: “Consider that I labored not for myself only, but for all them that seek learning.” ‘An Open and Closed Case.