SCHOOL COMMITTEES’ ASSOCIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18197, 18 March 1921, Page 8

SCHOOL COMMITTEES’ ASSOCIATION

QUARTERLY MEETING. The quarterly meeting of the School Cftnmit tees’ Association of Otago was held last night in the Technical School Buildings, Mr J. Hope (president) in the chairj and a f air number of delegates present. The committee submitted the following report:— “ Owing to the Christmas vacation, the past quarter has been a quiet one in regard to the activities of the association. The reply of the Education Board to the matters which were put before it by ft deputation from your association relative to retardation in primary schools, has been received, and from the point* of view of your association it is not quite satisfactory. While the board does not definitely state that it has no jurisdiction in the matter, this will, we thnk, be found to be the reason underlying its reply. If the results are not quite what we expected, 'we are satisfied that the die* cussion on the question has resulted in some .good being done, a large amount of interest having been taken in the subject, and we think there will be less cause fox complaint under this head in the future. The annual election of school committees takes place next month, and it behoves committeemen end others interested to engender as much enthusiasm as possible in these meetings. If the powers of school committees are to be enlarged (as there is some talk of doing) and their usefulness increased, we want to see to it that only those are elected who show a keen desire to safeguard the present national system of education, and who yml further the interests of same generally. It has been suggested that in order to increase the interest in the association meetings members be asked to send in ft note of «jv matters relating to education they would like to have discussed. These could be noted and a memo, of same, included m notice convening meeting. Members would then be able to come fully armed to discuss the various matters to be brought forward. ihe Federated School Committees Association is asking for our support in the following matters: — ■ * 1. That it is desirable that the ballot in connection with . school committee eleo 4 tions should remain open for a l™J8 er period than the night of the election, suggest that the election should be held on a Monday, and that the ballot shou.d be open from S p.m. to 9 p.m.. on the Tuesday following.), 2. That the Government should more clearly define the powers of chairman; the election of scrutineers; who should act as returning officer for the election; and other matters in connection therewith. “The annual meeting of the Federated Association will be held in Wellington in July and remits for consideration should •be in not later than March 31.” The adoption of the report was moved oy the Chairman and seconded by Mr T. H. Ballon. The latter said he considered that Jtha present system of electing school committees was quite out of date, and if an improvement was to be effected he did not think they could do better than revert to the system that obtained before. He would like to see the powers of the chairmen defined. He maintained that the chairman should preside at the annual meeting and present the annual report. In some cases that was done, but in other cases the householders met and immediately proceeded to elect a chairman. That was entirely wrong. _ ' Mr Kerr expressed surprise at hearing that there were cases in which the chairman of the committee did not preside - when ,he householders met. Proceeding, he said that he would like to see a remit sent forward to the annual conference that no one should be eligible for election to the committee of a school unless he had children there. _ - It was decided to adopt the report, leaving discussion on the two matters from the federated association to follow. Mr J. Wallace (chairman of the Education Board) said that the present system of electing school committees did aw*y with a good deal of chicanery that, used to go on. He recognised that it was not conven' .nt to many people to remain at a householders’ meeting till the close in order to vote, but still he did not approve of ■ the proposal from the Federated Association. What might be done, perhaps, would be to permit of voting papers being placed in boxes seme time in the ‘interval between the date of the nominations and the evening of the meeting. The Chairman also took the view that the proposal was not a good one, and a motion that ,th© association had no recommendation to make in the matter was carried. Mr Dalton moved that a recommendation he made for an amendment in the Act to provide that the chairman of the school committee preside at the annual meeting of householders. , # This proposal /was strongly supported by Mr B. Ferguson and others on the ground that an outside man could not have the intimate knowledge of the school and committee affairs possessed by the chairman and members of the outgoing committee. Mr Wallace pointed out that the meeting of housholders must not be confused with a meeting of the school committee. There was do necessity that the chairman of the outgoing committee should preside at the householders’ meeting. The Act said that the householders had the right to appoint their chairman, and he considered that this was quite proper. An amendment was moved by Mr Stevenson that the association had no recommendation to make, and after further dieoussion the amendment was carried by 12 votes to &. In response to a request froni the secretary, War Memorial Fund, notifying that it was proposed to hold a special school children’s demonstration on Saturday, April 16, two" representatives—the chairman and secretary (Mr L. Sanderson) —were appointed to act on tjm Demonstration Committee. It was decided to recommend that the Anniversary Day holiday be added to the Easter holidays, the schools to be closed from the Thursday instead of from Good Friday. _Mr Lucas moved that it be a recommenda - tion that at the annual meeting of householders the names of the candidates for the committees be announced in alphabetical order.—After discussion the motion was earned.