COMBINING THE FORCES OF HOME AND SCHOOL
Doty, Mrs. F. E.
Combining the Forces of Home and School The Significant Work of the Los Angeles Parent- Teacher Association By MRS. F. E. DOTY ONCE MORE, the strength that lies in union has been proved through...
...its officers have quarters in the Chamber of Commerce building through the courtesy of that board...
...The teachers say that they have come to look upon these organizations as a material help in their w^ork...
...Social information will be disseminated by direct consulation, advice, and suggestions, the establishment of social and civic centers in school houses, exhibits on social conditions accompanied by a lecturer from the university, guiding reading for clubs, bulletins dealing with social conditions, lecturers to meet requests of clubs, churches, and other organizations, and "community institutes" to discuss local conditions and problems...
...UNDER the direction of another committee, children wrhose parents are not able to pay for such attention as is prescribed by the medical inspector, are taken care of at a free dental, and eye and ear clinic held in buildings furnished by the school board...
...Scarcely a local association but what has added to the comfort, convenience or beauty of its school by purchases of books, playground apparatus, equipment of lunch rooms, gas plates for use of teachers, lumber to box in sand piles, sanitary fountains—or, in several instances where the good will was only surpassed by the volume of energetic activity, a piano has been paid for and presented to the school...
...Each of these contributes a small per capita tax to the City Federation Fund, increased in the majority of cases, by larger amounts raised by school entertainments, harvest festival and other methods not the least of whose value lies in the fact that parents and "teachers are working together for- a common good, and getting acquainted in the process...
...The bureau plans to co-operate with any organizations which desire to conduct comprehensive local surveys, or investigate a particular condition...
...In general, many of those efforts at reform often undertaken haphazard by conscientious citizens and performed at loose ends, are logically and efficiently handled by the committees of Parent-Teacher Associations...
...They are assisted in this by teachers, police officers and interested citizens generally who send in calls to the office when such cases come to their notice...
...In this way, civic work which has to do with the welfare of children is handled by the groups best informed and most closely interested...
...The virtue that inheres most strongly in the basic principle of a Parent-Teacher Association is the mutual benefit idea and more beside...
...That sometimes the money was raised by a "bake sale," in which the culinary knack of a mother was her only contribution, has but woven into her service the joy of sacrifice and given to the school her children attend the charm of an object worked for and benefited and endeared by familiar association...
...The associations have as their aim, a wider reform even than has been indicated—a reform which takes in the whole general public—in seeking to impress upon it that "the public school is the biggest thing in the district, the most important in the community and the most vital in the nation...
...In many cases, wage earning children are kept in school by small scholarships equalling what they might earn, or carfare, books, clothing, etc., is furnished to those unable to attend through lack of these...
...That great unreached field in education that can only be covered by the co-operation of the two most powerful influences in the life of a child is the territory in which these organizations operate...
...It has been called the most significant public school movement of the time...
...the parents, "Getting together in our neighborhood and getting acquainted, has done more good in our neighborhood than tongue can tell...
...The program which it hopes ultimately to fulfill includes dissemination of information, investigations into social conditions throughout the state, and campaigns for specific advances shown by the investigations to be needed and feasible...
...A representative of the bureau is now engaged in supervising two social surveys of rural Iowa townships...
...The one free day nursery in the city had its foundation in the discovery by a visiting member that a resourceful principal was using the free space in her office as a nursery so that the little sisters might be in school while the mothers were at work...
...THE Los Angeles Parent-Teacher Association has existed for nearly fifteen years...
...More often, the federation takes up the business through one of its twelve committees...
...In place of manifesting an occasional and sporadic interest in the schools, the parent joins with the teacher in a mutual benefit society, fully officered, and federated through national, state, city and county gradations...
...Investigations will also be conducted by the bureau upon its own responsibility...
...Its members attend probation and juvenile court sessions and throw about the young offenders the safeguard or continued care and supervision...
...Investigations of social conditions will particularly concern agricultural sections...
...it musters an army of nearly 6,000 members...
...programs may take the form of "problem day" discussions on vexed questions of school discipline...
...As an additional precaution, mothers are given a copy of laws relating to juvenile offenses, compiled and printed by the district attorney, at the request of the committee...
...The juvenile court committee, some of whose members are assistant probation officers, is closely concerned with preventing a court record for young first offenders...
...Several typical communities will be selected to ascertain the ratio of deaths of infants under one year of age to births, and an effort will be made to learn the conditions of sanitation, health, feeding, social environment, parentage, and other social factors contributing to the death of infants...
...Achievement was topped by the association which started and pushed forward to a successful conclusion a bond issue for a much needed eight-room school building...
...in this way, the movements for a sane Fourth, playground work, penny, or free school lunches, open air schools, etc., are put on a stable and permanent basis...
...It is this that gives coherence to the whole idea, and furnishes a logical and universal appeal as a basis for co-operation...
...it has the official recognition of the Board of Education, with space set aside in the school directory for the list of presidents and dates of meetings of component organizations...
...Monthly meetings of local societies are held in the school buildings...
...it comprises some 140 auxiliary organizations built in and about as many school centres in various parts of the city...
...At times the broader and more complex phases of civic, home and school life are presented in addresses by physicians, judges, probation officers, educators, business men and others from the list of accredited speakers drawn up by the federation...
...After all, however, neither of these results, admirable as they are, is so important as the fact that it is the child who is the chief beneficiary...
...It is not surprising to learn that this association always means a successful candidate for the school board...
...This committee also pays five dollars to the City Children's Hospital towards any operation for removal of adenoids or tonsils on children unable to pay for the work...
...THE 6,000 parents and teachers grouped about 140 school centers, form through the logic of circumstances, a great investigating body, furnishing to the central office first hand information of local needs and conditions, which forms the basis for constructive work whose value to the children of Los Angeles cannot be estimated...
...Sometimes the need is met in the local center as when mothers met for a day's sewing to equip for school the children reported by the teacher to be without adequate clothing...
...An inquiry which the bureau will begin at once will concern infant mortality...
...F. E. DOTY ONCE MORE, the strength that lies in union has been proved through the results following the combination of home and school forces in'the organizations known as Parent-Teacher Associations...
...Sometimes receptions or teas are given to teachers, or Christmas parties to the children, school socials, etc...
...Iowa's Social Welfare Bureau ABUREAU of social welfare has recently been organized in the Extension Division of the University of Iowa...
Vol. 6 • May 1914 • No. 21
