Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Jan. 2, 1969, edition 1 / Page 1
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f JONES COUNTY HAS 2.9 PER CENT LESS PUPILS, 40.5 PER CENT MORE TEACHERS Kinston Students Increase 69.9 Per Cent, Teachers Increase 169 in 20 Years i by Jack RM*r For & state in which the teacher shortage is one of the oddest and most constant myths North Carolina has done pret ty good in keeping the supply at least up with the demand in the past 20 years. Since the 1949 school year there has been an increase of 38.7 per cent in the total state enrollment of public school stu dents, but in that same period teachers have increased over 81.8 per cent. Pupils rose from 843,745 in 1949 to 1,195,583 in the current school year, an in crease of 301,838. Teachers on the payroll in ’49 numbered 24, 825 and this year their number, in spite of the “great shortage” has risen to 54,225. At the local level the figures are even worse, or better, de pending on which side of the education fence one stands; pay ing or the spending. Jones County has fewer pupils this year Qian it had in 1949, largely due to the stupid help of the health, education and welfare department and the fed eral courts. The Janes County enrollment in this period fell from 2963 to 2875, a drop ®i 2.9 per cent, and teachers on the payroll rose from 101 to 142, an increase of 10.5 per cent. The Lenoir County school sys-( tern enrollment rose in that 20 year period from 0538 to 8150, j which is a 24.8 per cent in-' crease and during the same per-j iod the teachers on the county; system payroll rose from 213 t»j 400, which Is an 07.7 per cent, increase. In the 'Kinston system, things get even worse, or better. The number of students in this 20 year period rose ifirom 3699 to 6288; an increase of 69.9 per cent. Teachers on the Kinston payroll skyrocketed from 113 to 304; which is an increase of 2® per cent. The Federal Hand But the vast majority of this proliferation of teachers did not get into full flight until the federal government moved into the public schools with the El ementary and Secondary Educa tion Act, which dumps some thing close to $60 million per year into the "North Carolina piih lic school system, and added -a lot of featherbedding to the ed ucational apparatus, something it never could afford under loc al financing, which was to some reasonable degree under local controls. However, when the federal money became available local school boards that had been very careful with the taxpayers’ money began a mad scramble, powered by that universal pro pellant: “If thy’re gonna throw it away we may as well get all we can get while the getting is good.” And look what has happened in the brief five years since the heavy federal hand got in the act: At the state level the increase of enrollment was just 8,925 (from 1,188,568 in ’63 to 1,195, 583 this year) and that increase has only been possible through a wasteful assortment of make do programs at the high school level which has resulted in, keeping many students in high school whose ability to absorb further education is most doubt ful. Also the Vietnam War which has kept a lot of other boys in high school who otherwise would have been out at work, paying taxes rather than having tax money wasted on them. For the past year high school enrollment in the state rose, bnt elementary school enroll ment Ml. The actual figures: $,“339 fewer dlementary pupils and 7,r©5 more high school stu dtents. This reflects Hie absence off something like 55,000 Elemen tary students now enrolled in private schools to escape the enforced racial integration that the public schools are suffer ing. While the total student load for iflie state rose by oifly 9,925 students in ‘the past five years the number of teachers on the payroll rose from 44,452 to 54, 225, an increase of 9,773, a gain of 848 more teachers than pup ils. In percentages this reflects and T>.75 por cent pupils and an; increase of 21.9 per <cent im teachers. , Again the pasture 3s even I worse, or better at the local' level. 1 In Jones County (.there was n drop of 296 in total enroll-1 ment (from 3,171 to 2(875), re-i fleeting a 9.3 per cent drop in, students, while the number of. teachers jrose from 222 to 142, an increase of 16J3 percent. In this live-year period Le-i noir County’s school system lost) 686 students in total enrollment, | (from 8,836 to 8,150), a .drop ofj 7.9 per cent, but at the same time the Lenoir CSounty ^system | COUNTY - .NAL NUMBER 37 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1969 VOLUME XVI Record Highway Spending in Jones, Greene, Lenoir District Highway Commission er W. W. Exum of Snow Hill this week filed a year-end report on road work in the various coun ties of his district and this re port, covering almost four years shows record high spending in Jones, Greene and Lenoir coun ties. And the report indicates also' that work in progress or under progress will continue for at least another year this trend1 toward greatly expanded road building in these counties. In Lenoir and Jones counties the major expenditures have been for the widening of US 70 to four lanes for the full length of that highway through both counties, and in Lenoir County another major project is the wid ening of NC 11 from the Du Pont plant northwardly to four lanes into (Greenville. was gamin® 42 teachers, or a gain aff U.7 per cent. Or 686 fewer pupils and 42 more teachers! In the JOnston system the fenrdttment shrunk by '255 stud «nts <from 6,563 to '6,288), or 3.8 per cent, while teachers in creased by 66, or 25:6 per cent. It is impossible, of course, to say what the average teach er salary is, because there is a daily fluctuation in the experi ence and educational back ground df the overall teaching staff But the lowest salary in the 1967-68 school year for an ele-, mentary B certificate teacher I with no experience was $315! per month for nine months and five days, and the highest sal ary to a graduate certificate' holder with 13 years experience < was $763 per month for the same time period. Ml of which would indicate: that $5,000 is very close to the median nine months rand five lay pay df teachers. At file state level over the Eternal Triangle Thomas Hetzel was on the pain ful apex Friday night of an eter nal triangle involving himself and a girl who was courting both he and James F. Harper of Al bertson route 1. Harper admits shooting Hetzel under the left eye with a .22 caliber pistol. The bullet left Hetzel's head just behind the left ear, apparently without doing too much damage, since at Noon Saturday hospital attendants said his condition was satisfactory. Harper said he shot him for advancing on him with a knife after he had told him not to slap their mut ual girl friend again. Harper was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Milling Co. Seeks Collect $1,369 One civil suit was filed in the office of Jones County Court Clerk Rogers Pollock during the past week. In this suit Maysville Milling Company asks the court to award it $1,369.01 with interest from August 1, 1967 from Tom mie Meadows, this being the balance it alleges to be due for goads delivered to Meadows prior to that date. past five years with an increase of 8,925 students and 9,773 teachers this adds up to some thing in the order of an annual additional cost for teachers of about $48,865,000. At the Lenoir County level with a drop of 686 pupils the annual cost of teachers in this •period has risen a minimum of .$210,000. Cost of teachers in the Kins ton system with 255 fewer pup ils has risen by not less than $310,000 and in Jones County the minimum increase in teach er cost has been $100,000 per year with 296 fewer students. Sharp Increase in Highway Deaths in Lenoir County 1968 Traffic fatalities jumped from 17 in 1967 to 25 in the year just ended, but the correspond ing statistic involving injuries and property damage did not rise in the same ratio. Still by far the worst year in Lenoir County in traffic was 1964, when 35 persons were kill ed on the county’s streets and highways, and 10 persons died in a single accident just south of Kinston. As the year begins the high way patrol is pushing every ef fort to keep the accident toll down with an all-out drive against speeding and drinking drivers. On the happy side of this trag ic annual total is the fact that for about 10 years the number of deaths, number of accidents and number of disabling injuries per million miles driven has dropped. This year across the state, with the final toll not in because of some delayed deaths that al ways push the record a few notches higher, the statewide toll will fall just short of the 1900 mark. LAND TRANSFER The only land transfer record ed during the past week in the office of Jones County Register of Deeds Bill Parker was that of 12.32 acres in Pollocksville Township from James Black to Burley J. Black. BROTHERS HAVE TROUBLE The Lenoir County Sheriff Department charged J. C. Thom as of Goldsboro route 4 with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill after he slash ed a five-inch gash in his broth er, J. C. Thomas’ neck, as they road in a car on US 70 just west of Kinston last Thursday night. STATE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM ADDS 2,316 PHP1LS AND 1,372 TEACHERS FOR THIS YEAR The 13th animal fall Public School Survey, just completed by the State Department of Pub lic Instruction and based on fig ures reported by the Stated 157 county and city school superin tendents at the end of the first month of school, indicates that the “holding power” of the high schools is increasing — fewer pupils are dropping out of school. For the third straight year, enrollment increases at the high school level have been far great er than at the elementary level. This year’s survey reveals a marked reduction in elementary tary pupils, primarily due to a decreased enrollment in the first grade —110,418 in 1968 as com pared to 112,292 in 1967. Meanwhile, this year’s high school enrollment increased by 7,655 pupils. Overall increase for the year totals %316 add the £StaS«wed^4 >cllocl-iWHa. hi MU 1,009382 in 1956 to 1,195,583 in 1958) during the past 13 years. Forty-one of the State’s 100 counties have an overall enroll Jment decrease from 195S to 1968 while seven coanties, dur ing the same period, have Shown enrollment increase of over 40 percent — Cumberland, 89.8 per cent; Mecklenburg, 68.4; Onflow, 57.7; Wake, 52J; Guilford!, 4A5; Forsyth, 42,1; and Orange, 40.6 The numeric increase in counties has amounted to 115,007, or nearly 62 per cent of the net overall increase for the State. A “plus” pointed out by State Car roll was' the fact that 31,405 of the tSate’s 54,225 profession al school personnel (57.9) per cent) are . receiving local salary supplements. Although this per centage has increased at a steady rate each year since 1956, it did not' reach the 50 per cent point until 1S66. The aimibef' of certificated personnel receiving _m local supplements was 28,971 last year, only 54.8 percent of the total. The number of “brand new” teacheras this year (teaching for the first time) is the largest in crease for any one year in the public history of the State — jumping from 3,823 last year to 4,343. The number of men in the public schools is now 12,863, an increase of 570 over last year and representing 23.7 per cent of the total staff. And another “plus” — vacant teach ing positions were reduced at the end of the first month to 183 from 289 vacancies at the Dr. Carroll pointed out, how ever, that the number of person nel teaching out-of-field (areas other than those for which they are certificated) more than 50 percent of each school day in creased from 570 in 1967 to 613 this year; also, the number of personnel holding less than a class “A” certificate (college maaa Jiacisikia,,;- , nj . graduates) increased from 2,441 to 2,740 in the one-year period. “Meanwhile, 51,777 of our 54, 225 certificated personnel hold either the class “A” or Graduate certificate (master’s degree) rep resenting, 94.4 per cent of the total and an increase of 1,001 over last year,” he said. Dr. Carroll also pointed out that the public schools continue to add professional personnel at a faster rate than new building facilities, resulting in more mo bile and temporary facilities. The increase in certificated person nel employed for the current year totals 1,372,-new classrooms year were 2,006 with 1,130 obso lete and inadequate classrooms being abandoned for a net gain of only 878 classrooms. The sur vey indicates 7,123 additional classrooms are needed at the present time: a total of 2,923 to take care of existing excess en rollment and 4,200 to take care of students now being instructed in unsatisfactory facilities. Only 1,904 classrooms are scheduled for completion during the pres ent year, 5,219 too few to ful fill the current need. This year, 8.72 percent (a tot al of 104,280) of North Carolina’s children are attending school in temporary, improvised, or over crowded classrooms. The short age of classrooms has resulted in 1,250 of the pupils attending school on a “double-shift” or less than full-time basis. The State superintendent said the classroom findings in the new survey are approximately the same as those indicated in a special study conducted by the Division of School Planning last January. Projections made from that study indicated that at least 22,233 additional classrooms will be needed by the public schools of the State within the next 10 years to replace those that will become obsolete and to provide for increased and shifting stu dent populations.
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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Jan. 2, 1969, edition 1
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