Sky’s The Limit
In PTA Programs
By Karla V. Parker
President, National Congress of
Parents and Teachers,
1958 - 1961
If more and more of the people
you meet these days turn out to be
P. T. A. members, it’s only to be
expected. During the past decade
memberships in the P. T. A. have
practically doubled. In the school
year 1961-62 they will top 12,000,
000, and about a third of that num
ber will be men. School enroll
ments too have risen during this
period, but not so phenomenally
as P. T. A. memberships.
What accounts for this amazing
growth in parent-teacher associa
tions? The answer is simple. Every
year more and more men and
women recognize that in the P. T.
A. they can make their concern for
children really count.
The P. T. A. brings parents into
the schools and thus increases their
understanding of the aims and val
ues of education. At P. T. A. meet
ings they learn about the curricu
lum and see demonstrations and
exhibits of classwork. They learn to
know the teachers, to discuss
shared concerns with them ■—
school and home discipline, school
rules, homework, promotion poli
cies.
P. T. A.’s also serve as commun
ity educational forums. They bring
school officials, parents, and other
citizens together to explore school
aims and school needs, including
curriculum changes.
Typical of the work P. T. A.’s do
is the activity of the Bedford, O.,
Parent-Teacher Council. Last fall
300 P. T. A. volunteers telephoned
6,000 registered voters to get sup
port for the school-operating levy.
In cooperation with the county
health board, the council maintains
a well-baby clinic. And it runs a
hot-dog stand art football games to
earn money for its scholarship
fund, which sends promising high
school students to college for train
ing as teachers.
Activities of P. T. A.’s are as
varied as are the communities and
the citizens they serve. For parents
of preschool children, many ele
mentary school P. T. A.’s have
“preschool sections,” to help par
ents give their children a good
start in life and get them ready for
the great adventure of school. For
parents of adolescents there is the
high school P. T. A. Despite their
sometimes swashbuckling inde
pendence, teen-agers secretly want
guidance and controls from their
parents.
Through the high school P. T. A.
parents, teachers, and students
have worked out -teen-age codes of
conduct and discussed problems of
mutual concern—college, vocations,
military service, dating, cars, part
time job opportunities, recreation,
and preparation for marriage and
family life. Currently P. T. A.’s are
working for diversified school pro
grams to serve students of widely
differing abilities, for work-exper
ience programs, and for improved
guidance and counseling services.
The lot of Afnerican children is
far better today than it was in
1897, when the National Congress
of Parents & Teachers (The Na
tional 'body of the P. T. A.) was
founded. Then tco few children
stayed in school beyond the fifth
grade. Twelve was the legal age
for work, and even younger chil
dren labored long hours at hard
jobs. Health, recreational, and por
tective services were almost en
tirely lacking. In creating the bet
ter life that children know today
FOR ALL YOUR
Welding Needs
or Problems
Phone 486—5150
KODIAK WELDING WORKS
Elks
Elks
Where Two Lips Meet Good Food
So relax—Enjoy life—Have your Saturday family dinner
with me. We are featuring a TASTE-TEMPTING
Roast Beef Dinner
to delight old and young. There is a child’s plate at half price.
HERE’S WHERE THE LIGHTS SHINE BRIGHTEST . . .
HERE’S WHERE THE MUSIC PLAYS
SWEETEST AND HOTTEST . . .
HERE’S WHERE MEMBERS AND FOLK THEY KNOW
GATHER TO WELCOME HOSPITALITY AND FRIENDSHIP.
For Members and Their Families, Emblem Club Members and
escorts.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19
6 to 9 P. M.
Please Make Reservations By Calling Ph. 486—5222 or 486—2666 i
’61 School Planned With Daring
TUCSON, Ariz. (JP)—Five hun
dred youngsters will go to classes
here this year in a strange setup of
mushroom-shaped buildings that
don’t look at all like a school.
The startling plant that is the
Flowing Wells Elementary School
stemmed from a desire to build a
totally ungraded school around a
team teaching program.
With the help of the Educational
Facilities Laboratories, a Ford
Foundation offshoot, the school
emerged as a semi-circle of four
classroom clusters arranged around
an outdoor amphitheater. Four
teaching teams, each composed of
five teachers and a librarian-clerk
are assigned about 125 children.
The student population will be
classified by achievement, ability,
and interest into 18 different levels
ranging in conventional terms from
kindergarten through grade four.
Nor will they necessarily remain in
their own cluster building for the
entire school day.
Freedom to move to an adjoining
cluster if the work there is geared
at that point to the pupil’s needs is
the 'National Congress and its di
visions have played an important
part. But much remains to be done.
There is no dearth of problems
for the P. T. A. to tackle today. We
need to build more schools, re
cruit more and better qualified
teachers, expand guidance and
counseling services, and update
and upgrade curriculums, especial
ly vocational programs. We need to
motivate able students to go on to
college; we need to provide more
scholarships and expand higher
education facilities. We must pre
vent the 7% million dropouts from
school that are predicted for the
next decade. Juvenile delinquency,
emotional disorders, and urban de
terioration are unsolved and press
ing problems. Too many communi
ties, including the newer suburbs,
lack, or are meagerly supplied
with, essential health, mental
health, recreation, and social serv
ices. The special needs of migrant,
culturally deprived, and mentally
retarded children are urgent. So
are the special needs of gifted chil
dren. The need and demand for
parent education constantly in
creases.
As we advance into the age of
automation and atomic power, still
newer educational, economic, so
cial, and health problems will con
front the American people.
one of the keynotes of this school’s
philosophy.
In mapping an over-all plan, pro
vision was made for the future ad
dition of an administration build
ing at the center of the semi-circle,
where a multi-purpose room and
kitchen can also be included.
By 1965, the school population of
this district is expected to double.
There are about 177 million vol
umes in public-school libraries,
classroom collections (exclusive of
textbooks), and loan collections
from public libraries. Current ex
penditures for books and pamph
lets audiovisual materials, and
binding for school libraries are es
timated at about $2 per pupil; total
expenditures for these purposes
in school libraries in 1959-60 were
estimated at $35 million, reports
the National Education Association.
WALL-LESS classrooms make for more convenient grouping of
students. Sliding partitions can be opened for special lectures. The
design is for one of the four units of the Flowing Wells elementary
school.
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Spice Cake.800E,
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Open Day & Nite
Phone 486—2600
visitors are always welcome
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