Top-Heavy Kindergarten Enrollment Will Compel Double-Sessions-This Day In Norwood History-August 27, 1948

The School Department will mail letters next Monday the parents of the 197 kindergarten pupils informing them where the children will attend classes which start September.

The letter points out that the enrollment Is heavier than anticipated and that morning and afternoon sessions have been instituted for economy purposes. As far as possible children will attend schools in their neighborhood but if there are no proximate schools or if the classes would be too large children will have to be transported to the Junior High school.

Morning classes will open at 9 a.m. and will close at 11 a.m. Afternoon classes start at 1’15 p.m. and will close at 3:15 p.m.

The teacher assignments are as follows: Miss – Patricia Shortall, Callahan and Junior High School; Miss Julia F. Walsh, Shattuck, Miss Paisley Sasso, Winslow and Miss Wanda S Juras, Balch.

The latest kindergarten teacher to be appointed is Miss Wanda Sally Juras of 31 ‘Ponagansett Avenue, Providence, R. I.

Miss Juras was graduated from Mount Pleasant High School in Providence in 1943 and with a Bachelor’s Degree in Education in 1947 from Wheelock College. She has been teaching during the last year in Hawaii and has also taught grammar schools in East Boston, Newtonville and Belmont. She will teach at the Balch School.

The letter to the parents follows:

“Dear Parents:
“The Town appropriated $10,-000 for the support of a kindergarten program. We expected no more than 125 children. Now we have 197 We thought that we might have 5 classes. We find it necessary to have 8 classes.

“We had hoped to have kindergarten classes only in the morning. Now we find that we must have time In the morning and afternoon.

“To cite an example of the kind of difficulty we face.—we have one available room in the Shattuck School and 57 children from that district who want to go to kindergarten We have not enough money to support the demands of 8 classes,—for equipment and teachers.

“The School Committee has decided to do the best possible, in the fairest way for all who want to attend.

“So, for the first year, we will have to ask townspeople to adjust and to cooperate in a compromise arrangement.

It is obviously unfair to ask one child to attend a session every afternoon through the year and to ask another to come every morning So, we. in fairness, ask children to alternate mornings and afternoons on successive weeks.

Some children in the Callahan School and other districts will have to attend the Junior High School kindergarten, either because there are not enough or because there are too many children for two classes.

“Enclosed is a slip of paper indicating the location and hour of the school session which your child is to attend.

“If changes can be made later, on the bask of hardship or convenience, to child or parent, they will be made.

Sincerely yours,

LINCOLN D. LYNCH

Superintendent of Schools”