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PAGE 12—JANUARY—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
WEST VIRGINIA
Quick Arrival Of Police
Prevents Charleston Riot
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
feud between two Charleston
high school students, one
white and one Negro, almost ex
ploded Dec. 16 into a full-scale
riot.
The quick appearance of three
squads of policemen and their
dispersal of 200 milling students
and adults was all that prevented
the fist-fight from exploding into
a general disturbance. (See
“Community Action.”)
State School Supt. R. Virgil
Rohrbough announced in his an
nual report, made public Dec. 17,
that he would not ask the Legis
lature for any increase in funds.
The Legislature convenes in Jan
uary for a 30-day budget session.
Rohrbough tried at two previous ses
sions to get the Legislature to approve
a $15 million school improvement pro
gram, but it refused to go along except
on minor parts of it. He said he will
have a comprehensive program for the
1961 Legislature. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
COMMUNITY ACTION
A lunch-hour fight between Charles
ton High School students, one wielding
a pair of aluminum knuckles, ended in
both being picked up by police. One
was a 19-year-old white boy—the other
an 18-year-old Negro.
The white boy, who used the knuckles
in the fight, was taken into custody
by city police and charged with feloni
ous assault, disorderly conduct and
carrying a concealed weapon. The Negro
boy was charged with disorderly con
duct.
When police appeared, one of the
youngsters bolted, and they chased him
five blocks before apprehending him.
The white boy told police he and the
Negro had been feuding since an inci
dent in school assembly several weeks
ago when the Negro pushed a chair
against his legs and pinned him so
tightly he couldn’t move.
They reportedly have had trouble
several times since, and the noon fight
was the result.
CROWD GATHERED
The altercation took place a block
from the high school, and within mom
ents 200 people of all ages gathered.
Police said later that if they hadn’t
arrived when they did the fighting
would have spread. Several youngsters
held back others who wanted to get
into the fracas.
Neither boy was seriously hurt. They
were scheduled to be arraigned in
Municipal Court on Dec. 31.
This was the first open act of violence
since the Kanawha County school sys
tem was fully desegregated three years
ago. A year earlier Kanawha County
partially desegregated.
It has long been regarded as a model
among mixed systems in the South and
border states. Teachers as well as stu
dents have been desegregated.
Kanawha County has a school popu
lation of approximately 57,000, and
Negroes and whites are mixed through
out the system. Race is not a governing
factor in placement. They attend the
school nearest their homes.
BOMB THREATS
The only other trouble even remotely
connected with integration to develop
since 1956 was a rash of false bomb
threats last year and this. They started
after an integrated school at Osage
(Monongalia County) was dynamited in
November 1958.
Several boys were arrested for report
ing the bomb hoaxes to police or school
authorities and in at least two instances
they were sent to the Boys Industrial
School at Pruntytown.
Other such bomb threats were re
ported in other parts of the state. Not
once was a bomb found after the Osage
blast, which caused $200,000 in damages.
After two only partially successful
attempts to get legislative acceptance
of a $15 million “incentive” program
for public school improvement, State
School Supt. R. Virgil Rohrbough said
Dec. 17 that he will make no new try
for increased funds at the forthcoming
session.
This announcement, contained in the
State Education Dept, annual report,
means that if Gov. Cecil Underwood
follows his old practice, he will not pre
sent a major school program to the 1960
Legislature. At both previous sessions
since he took office he endorsed the
Rohrbough program.
In discussing school legislation in the
annual report Rohrbough said, “In the
past we have made comprehensive leg
islative proposals. These proposals have
not been fully implemented.”
While he didn’t get his full program,
he was successful in getting legislative
acceptance of certain facets of it and
says the department “has accomplished
as much as possible with what it had.”
“This year,” he went on, “we will not
submit a major legislative proposal.
Next year we shall present a compre
hensive proposal.”
WILL NEED REVENUE
Rohrbough warned that by 1961 “there
is little doubt that the backing of edu
cational needs, unmet in recent years,
will require the creation of new sources
of revenue for the public schools. The
only other alternative is the continued
erosion of the state’s human resources
because of under-investment in educa
tion.”
He said that as yet he and his staff
“do not know the specific character of
the legislation we will propose. How
ever, we are confident that after work
ing for two years with the ‘incentive
concept’ its basic principles will remain
sound during the coming year.”
The only question, according to Rohr
bough, is the extent to which the pro
fession of education and the Legislature
will be able to agree upon a mutually
acceptable and consistent legislative
program.
“To this end,” he said, “we pledge
our cooperation with the Legislature,
one full year in advance of the time of
decision on West Virginia’s unmet
school needs.”
STUDY THREATS
The recurrence of bomb threats in
Kanawha County got the attention of
the Board of Education at its monthly
meeting Dec. 10.
The board decided that expulsion
from school for the remainder of the
term is the penalty for students in
volved in bomb scare episodes. The ex
ploding of fireworks will draw the
same penalty, the board members
agreed.
The new policy points up the fre
quency of classroom interruptions by
such disturbances.
In addition to the penalty imposed
against those taking part in bomb
threats, the teachers and children whose
classtime is interrupted will be made
to suffer. All such lost time will have to
be made up, the board decided.
At the same meeting the school
board awarded the first two of a series
of contracts for school improvements
under a special levy and bond issue
voted last summer. It is a $20 million
program.
A six-room school at Big Chimney
and another at Pinch are the first that
will be built. They will cost more than
$300,000.
TAX APPROVED
In Cabell County, which has the sec
ond largest school system in the state,
a 63 per cent excess tax levy was ap
proved Dec. 15 by the voters.
It will provide for more than $7 mil
lion for schools in the next five years.
The levy passed by a majority of more
than four-to-one.
It replaces a 50 per cent excess levy
which will expire next June 30.
The Cabell County Board of Educa
tion was asked by the state Board of
Education at a meeting Dec. 15 to ex
plain why it has ignored state regula
tions in administering a county teacher
pension program.
The state board acted after hearing
charges of favoritism, discrimination,
and “rigging” in the pension program.
Making the charges was a delegation of
four from the Cabell County Assn, of
Retired School Employes.
Delegation spokesman E. W. Taylor
said that under the county program
some retired teachers are overpaid,
some are underpaid, and some are not
paid at all. State Board Secretary H. K.
Baer was directed to inquire into the
matter by letter.
Cabell is one of about 14 West Vir
ginia counties which have their own
teacher pension plans. These supple
ment the pensions paid by the state.
The Wyoming County Board of Edu
cation at a Dec. 15 meeting awarded
a contract for construction of a 300-
student high school at Herndon. The
$319,000 contract went to a Wyoming
County firm.
Elevation of Marshall College to uni
versity status was proposed Dec. 14 in
a report to the state Board of Education
by Marshall President Stewart H. Smith.
West Virginia has only one university
now, located at Morgantown.
Smith also proposed an increase in
administrative personnel and establish
ment of three new colleges—business
administration, applied science and fine
arts.
The proposition was laid before the
board during an inspection trip to the
Huntington campus of Marshall. A
spokesman for the governing body said
the matter probably would come up
for discussion later.
“The college has reached a degree of
complexity and educational stature that
clearly puts it in the category with
such institutions as Western Michigan,
Bowling Green, Northern Illinois, Mem
phis State, Mississippi State, Colorado
State, and many smaller universities,”
Smith said.
He noted that 20 states have from one
to five universities in addition to one
large state university. His recommenda
tions, he said, were a result of three
studies by survey teams, the faculty
council, and a review committee of the
North Central Assn, of Colleges and
Secondary Schools.
Smith listed a college of applied sci
ence as one of Marshall’s biggest needs
and said such a college should be estab
lished next year if funds are available.
Like all the other state-owned col
leges and the University, Marshall is
fully desegregated. Its student body,
however, is made up predominantly of
white students.
PROGRAM ROLLING
The state Board of Education is get
ting its capital improvement program
rolling at West Virginia colleges.
It gave the green light Dec. 15 to
Concord College President Joseph F.
Marsh to sign a loan agreement for up
to $1,648,000 in federal financing for a
building project on the Athens campus.
It also approved final plans for a new
classroom-science building at West Lib
erty State College, for which $1,200,000
has been appropriated.
The board granted Marsh’s request
that it revise upward, from $360,000
to $550,000, its request to the Legislature
to finance another Concord project. It
is renovation of and an addition to the
administration building. This project
would provide 14 additional classrooms
and 57 faculty offices.
SEEKING APPLICATIONS
The board, before adjourning, an
nounced it is soliciting applications for
the presidency of Fairmont State Col
lege. President John W. Pence died last
month. Serving as acting president is
the college dean, George R. Hunt.
Also during the December meeting
the board approved for another five
years its approval to Salem College as
a degree-granting institution. Also, a
report was received of Salem’s efforts
to become accredited by the North Cen
tral association.
Help toward ultimate accreditation
came Dec. 12 when the Claude Worth
ington Benedum Foundation announced
a grant of $250,000 to Salem. The money
is to be paid in equal installments of
$50,000 annually for five years and can
be used as college officials see fit.
The announcement of the gift was
made by Byron B. Randolph of Clarks
burg, a member of the foundation’s
board. He said the decision had been
made in Pittsburgh, where the founda
tion has headquarters.
The occasion was the kickoff dinner
of a local campaign to raise money for
the college. Approximately $25,000 was
either given or pledged, exclusive of
the foundation grant.
LOAN APPROVED
The Federal Housing and Home Fi
nance Agency has approved a loan of
$350,000 to Alderson-Broaddus College
at Philippi for construction of a new
men’s residence hall.
The college will conduct a fund-rais
ing drive this winter to obtain $100,000
in matching money for the project.
Broaddus is a private college.
Funds totalling $861,000 are now avail
able for construction of two major
buildings at Shepherd State College at
Shepherdstown, President Oliver S.
Ikenberry said Dec. 2. # # #
MARYLAND
Montgomery Fund Would
Complete Desegregation
BALTIMORE, Md.
T he superintendent of Mont
gomery County schools is
seeking construction funds that
would make 100 per cent integra
tion possible by the fall of 1961.
Elimination of separate classes for
Negroes on the secondary level is
to be substantially complete this
coming fall. (See “School Boards
and Schoolmen.”)
The denial of a Negro boy’s
transfer request in Harford
County will be taken to the U.S.
District Court by NAACP attor
neys, following a decision by the
state Board of Education that it
was without jurisdiction. (See
“Legal Action.”)
SCHOOL BOARDS
AND SCHOOLMEN
A record budget request submitted
by Dr. C. Taylor Whittier, school super
intendent for Montgomery County, just
outside of Washington, D.C., includes
capital expenditures of close to $19 mil
lion for three new secondary schools,
five elementary schools and extensive
additions to a long list of existing
schools. The new construction is in
tended to keep pace with the rapid
suburban growth, which has caused the
county’s school population to jump
from 42,000 to 75,000 since 1953 and is
expected to carry th e total well over
100,000 by 1965.
Asked how the construction budget
would effect desegregation, Maxwell E.
Burdette, director of educational serv
ices, replied: “This coming budget
(which goes into effect next July 1) will
finish us up. We will have all we need
to have desegregation 100 per cent com
pleted by the fall of 1961.”
The most immediate step toward this
end will be the closing at the end of
the current fiscal year of Carver High
School in Rockville. The superinten
dent’s budget calls for more than $1
million to convert the Negro secondary
school into an administration center for
the county school system.
Burdette said that with the closing of
Carver, the integration of Negroes on
the secondary level would be substan
tially complete. A few separate classes
would remain next fall at one school,
and some children would be temporarily
outside their home districts pending
construction, but secondary integra
tion, he explained, would be “80 to 90
per cent” effective.
FIRST TO SET DATE
Last year predominantly white Mont
gomery became th e first Maryland
county to set a definite date for the
elimination of all separate classes for
Negroes and to approve construction
funds intended to expedite the move
ment of Negroes into formerly white
schools. Of the four remaining Negro
elementary schools, two are scheduled
to become integrated units and the other
two are to be converted to other uses.
The plan for the completed desegrega
tion of elementary schools was pre
sented in December 1958 by a commit
tee of 10 professional staff members
known as the Superintendent’s Profes
sional Committee on Desegregation.
They were assisted by the principals
and supervisors of all the affected
schools, so that about 50 persons had a
hand in the reshuffling of pupils and
districts that underlies the integration
plan.
A feature of the committee’s report
was the open acknowledgement that
while the simplest solution for desegre
gating certain schools would be to send
each child to the school nearest his
home that had room for him, the solu
tion was not considered satisfactory if it
produced a high ratio of Negroes to
whites.
Resistance of white parents to send
ing their children to a school predom
inantly Negro,” the report said, “has
long been recognized as a factor in
planning for desegregation in this
county.”
SMALL CLASSES BASIC
Small classes (23 to 28 pupils per
teacher) were held to be basic to the
success of the desegregation plan of the
committee, which said:
“We believe it is impossible to over
emphasize the importance of small
classes taught by well-trained teachers
to enable all of these children to make
more rapid progress. We believe that
such grouping will have a definite
bearing on the acceptance of desegrega
tion and the realization of the expecta
tions which desegregation promises.”
Another general recommendation of
the committee was that school plants be
“adequate” in all areas.
“The greater variety and intensity of
the needs of all pupils brought about or
emphasized within each school by de
segregation make appropriate school
facilities mandatory,” the committee
stated.
PARED TO $12 MILLION
The superintendent’s budget request
must be approved first by th e county
school board and then, next spring, by
the County Council. His request for the
current school year in construction
funds was pared from more than $15
million to just over $12 million.
Montgomery began its desegregation
in the fall of 1955 by closing out four
substandard Negro schools in “down-
county” suburban areas. Most of the
remaining desegregation is scheduled in
the more rural “up-county” areas
where the percentage of Negro residents
runs higher than the county average.
Tucker R. Dearing, a Baltimore at
torney for the NAACP, said in mid-De
cember that he would definitely go into
U.S. district court with the case of the
Negro boy, Alvin Dwight Pettit, whose
request to transfer to a white school in
Harford County was turned down by a
special screening committee composed
of five county principals and super
visors. (For earlier details, see Southern
School News for three previous
months.)
Dearing disagrees strongly with the
finding of the state Board of Education
that the screening committee in Har
ford is “an arm of the court” over
which neither the county superintendent
nor the state board has jurisdiction.
“Here the school people have been
saying for years that the courts have
only a negative power in the desegrega
tion situation,” Dearing remarked, “and
now they turn around and say the court
has an affirmative power to rim the
schools!”
NO JURISDICTION
The decision to which Dearing took
exception was one released earlier in
December by the state board, which in
October had heard an appeal by the
Pettit boy’s father and lawyers from
the denial of his transfer request. In
finding itself without jurisdiction in the
case, the state board made plain its be
lief that the district court had tried to
run a desegregation program in a local
school system and was now responsible
for the outcome.
The Baltimore Sun in an editorial
referred to the decision as a flareup in
the “quietly smoldering, ultra high-
tone feud between the state Board of
Education and Chief U.S. District Judge
Roszel C. Thomsen.”
“Two years prior to the date of [the
Pettit boy’s] application,” the state
board’s opinion read, “the United
States District Court for the District of
Maryland in the case of Stephen Moore
Jr. et al. v. Board of Education of Har
ford County et al, Civil No. 9105, en
tered a decree undertaking to set up a
plan for the desegregation of schools
under the jurisdiction of the Board of
Education of Harford County, Mary
land. By reference to paragraph 4 of
said decree, it will appear that the
court fixed the year 1960 for considera
tion and granting of a Negro child’s ap
plication for admission or transfer to
ninth grade classes.” (Pettit sought ad
mission this past fall to a ninth grade
class.)
“The decree then provided by para
graph 5 that applications for Negro
children not qualified for admission or
transfer under paragraph 4 to high
schools under defendant’s control will
be considered and granted if the ap
plicants fulfill special qualifications
pertaining to the probability of success
of each individual pupil.
"The court in its decree then under
took to state how these special quali
fications of the individual pupil should
be measured, viz., by intelligence and
achievement tests, grade level achieve
ments, and other similar matters which
were to be adjudged by a committee set
up by the court and which was to con
sist of the principals of the school from
(See MARYLAND, Page 13)