"GLORIFIED CLEANERS"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 89, 12 October 1937, Page 11

"GLORIFIED CLEANERS"

SCHOOL COMMITTEES FEDERATION'S CONCERN Concern was expressed at last night's meeting of the Wellington School Committees' and Educational Federation at the way the finance and the number of affiliations to the federation had dropped. Mr. J. Fyfe presided. No particular reasons, were given when, school committees left the federation, it was stated, but the cause seemed to be apathy. The fact that the meetings were usually very dull was probably one cause for the falling off in membership, a delegate said. He thought also that the federation's methods of propaganda were wrong. The chairman said that he thought this was true. Before he had been elected chairman he had often been fed up with the meetings. School committee men, he said, were merely sanitary inspectors who had to see that the schools were kept clean "The federation can do. nothing for the committees that committees cannot do for themselves," said another member. There was no co-ordination, and at pfesent the committees were not being helped at all. There was certainly nothing elevating in the job of a member of a school association, it was stated. The members were nothing but "glorified cleaners." It rather amused her, a lady mem ; ber said, to hear the members speaking in a disparaging way of keeping the schools clean. If. the committees did keep the schools clean they would be doing a good work for the country and the children. The members seemed to think that it wag a poor thing to do and one beneath their dignity. She thought that the schools were a disgrace, and she would like to see the school committee men see that the schools were properly cleaned. The school committee was the only means of access for parents to the school; it represented the parents, said the chairman, A committee's power was restricted to seeing that the schools were kept clean, There were certain members at the meeting who suggested that the caretakers were not doing their jobs, said a member. Whose job was it to see that the caretaker was doing his work properly? Surely the school committee. In the school he represented a works committee had been formed, and it was this committee which saw that the caretaker did his job. They now probably had the best caretaker in .