Wayne County School District
. .
. . .
- Name
- Wayne County School District
- Educational Services
- Education
- Schools
- Founded
- Date unknown
- 1989 S. Buckeye St., Wooster, 44691, Ohio, United States
In the pioneer days the matter of educating children was one of an entirely local nature. In each community, however small, there was a desire for some education of the child. Usually some individual of each community was able to give a certain amount of education and therefore was appointed as teacher. The area served by such a teacher was almost invariably quite small due to the lack of good roads and means of communication whereby people outside of the immediate community might know of the presence of the school. Due to the fact that books were very scarce and other facilities for teaching practically unknown, the educational program of one community had no relation to that of another.
In the early 1800s, students were not divided into grades by age as they are today. One-room schools were common, although boys and girls were often taught separately. Cincinnati, Ohio introduced graded schools in 1840; other cities and towns soon followed suit. Such schools generally had five levels: Primary, Secondary, Intermediate, Grammar and High. Students were required to pass an exam to move on to the next grade level. The first four grades took approximately eight years to complete, while high school took three or four years to complete. After the Civil War, there was a significant growth in the number of public high schools, although the number and type of courses offered at these High schools was not standardized until the 20th century.[1]
As population increased and the system became more definitely outlined the idea of democracy in education as represented by the local school gained decided impetus. Each little village must have its own school; each community must have a school house within walking distance of each pupil in its contributory area, since roads did not allow transportation. Out of this grew the district system. In Ohio schools were established rather regularly in districts of two miles from each other. This gave each district school a contributory area of four square miles which was all that could be accommodated if the children were to walk to school. The little red school house became a tradition and its establishment meant more than can be objectively determined in the history of Ohio and other states. With the growth of population and the gradual betterment of roads, the township became recognized as the school district. But even then, the one-room district schools maintained their hold upon the sentiment of the people at large. There was distinct antagonism against any township control that would break down the powers of the local sub-district in spite of the fact that the one-room school gradually became less and less of a center for the social activities of its own community. Ohio was very slow in exhibiting any willingness to form a school unit larger than the township except in the case of cities. In 1913 Governor Cox ordered a survey of the schools of the state with particular reference to the rural school situation. Conditions found in this survey were what might have been expected but to many people they were astonishing. As a result of this survey a new school code was written which became effective in 1914. By this code a county school district was established with general over-sight of all schools in the county exclusive of cities and of villages between 3000 and 5000 population, known as exempted villages.
The establishment of this county unit did not carry with it the elimination of local districts within the county. It did, however, abolish the township school district substituting in its place a rural school district or a village school district. The purpose of this was to abandon the idea of having a school district and civil districts co-terminus. Naturally there was no attempt in this legislation to bring about the abandonment of the small district. Ohio, therefore, took a step forward in the establishment of the county district but failed to strike at one of the most serious difficulties in the way of non-urban education. It left several hundred small districts with one teacher and five board members. It was not at all unusual throughout the state to find more school board members within a county than there were teachers. This was distinctly in opposition to the tendency to decrease the number of board members and thus put the schools on a more economical financial basis of operation. Since 1914 the powers of the county boards of education and of the executive officers, the county superintendents, have been decreased rather than increased by the legislative acts of the state of Ohio. This has tended to magnify the importance of boards and school officials in local school districts.[2]
School District letterheads
- ↑ Education in Ohio, 1780-1903
- ↑ Local school district boundaries within the county school districts of the state of Ohio, Author - Charles C. McCracken; Ohio Department of Education; Publisher - Columbus, Ohio, F.J. Heer Print. Co., 1929.