The Caddo Herald
December 5, 1919
Caddo Public Schools after 3 Months Trial
The Caddo public schools have been in progress for three months, which is sufficient time to enable anyone to pass judgment upon their merits and demerits.
As your superintendent permit me to say that I am delighted with the advancement made thus far.
We have had many school problems to solve during the past three months. Problems that would not have been difficult under ordinary conditions. However, your Board of Education, with the advice and co-operation of all those interested in the schools, has so far satisfactorily adjusted all matters and effectively accomplished its purposes. Any school district whose officials possess such business abilities and educational qualities together with the sympathy and support of the patrons of the schools, as exists here, would make a success of any system of schools. Nor are the teacher and pupils to be left out of account.
We do not believe any school can boast of having a set of teachers better equipped for doing justice to their profession than is found in the Caddo schools. Neither do we believe we could have secured teachers who are more conscientious, more interested, and more co-operative in their work. They are found constantly at their posts of duty and absolutely loyal to those under whom they are serving.
We do not believe any school has a finer or nobler set of boys and girls than we have here. It has never been my experience to work with a bunch that is more earnest and more agreeable than we have in our High School. I thank their mothers and fathers for this.
The efficiency of a High School is based upon the number of units covered by its course of study. At the opening of the school we had a ration of 17 ½ units. We now have 23 ½, which is an increase of six units. This raises the standard of our High School more than 34 per cent which, I am sure, is pleasing to all. It must not be thought that to accomplish and maintain these results is an easy and simple task. It has required considerable thought and time on the part of your superintendent and school officers; it has required more money for more teachers that we might broaden the curriculum in an effort to make a major portion of it fit the pupil instead of making the pupil fit it, regardless of whether it was good or bad for him. There are other things we wish to accomplish in the future and can do so only by the continued support of the patrons of the schools. It is our conviction that the boys and girls of Caddo are a worthy bunch and deserve the best training the town can possibly give them.
We wish to express our thanks to those who have visited the schools. A number of the men of the town have given some very interesting and instructive lectures. These talks were appreciated by all who heard them. We invite others to come and the same ones to come again and stay long enough to visit each department and see for yourself just what is being done. Follow your boy or girl to the classroom and listen to them recite. It may be that you would have some suggestion to offer that would be helpful to your child, or the teacher or to both.
Very respectfully,
Edwin O. Shaw
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