Date of Award:

5-1958

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Department name when degree awarded

Educational Administration

Committee Chair(s)

Basil C. Hansen

Committee

Basil C. Hansen

Committee

Eldon Drake

Committee

William P. Lewis

Committee

David R. Stone

Abstract

Present day trends indicate a definite movement toward building school plants more adequately and more adaptable for community use and for wider community utilization.

It is the belief of many educators that the school should be designed to provide the facilities required for housing the school and its many community programs. It is not primarily a monument to the architect and the school authorities. Schools should be a learning laboratory for all members of the community. Weber County school administrators have consistently supported building utilization point of view as expressed by Pittenger:

A new impetus has been given to the wider use of school plants by the rise of the community school concept. There is now a tendency to return to the time when, in most communities, the schoolhouse was the best known and most appreciated building in the community; but in the new day, it will be a multiple-service type of school-community plant that will service both the school's and community's activities. The signs are that it will someday be as accurate to speak of the school's use of community facilities as it is now to emphasize the community's use of the school plant.

(6, pp. 374-5)

The school's facilities should be available at all times for the community's social, cultural, and recreational life.....open every night, 12 months of the year; the school should be a gathering place for youth outside of school hours. It is the place where parents meet to discuss the problems and needs of the community. Here the community discovers and vitalizes itself. (11, p. 63)

School buildings and facilities are very expensive units of capital outlay. In any school district, the expenses incurred in a building program present a very heavy burden for the taxpayer. This holds true in Weber County.

This year we are spending about 30 per cent as much for the construction of buildings as we are spending to operate the schools. In 1947-1948, approximately 11 cents of each school dollar were devoted to building and equipping schools. By 1956-1957, about 29 cents of each school dollar were going into buildings. (10, p. 11)

On September 24, 1957, a school bond election was held which allowed the Weber County School Board to incur an indebtedness of $2,500,000 for the construction of new school plants within the county. This bond issue was in addition to $400,000 which is annually available through taxation for Capital outlay.

Prior to the present building program, the school buildings in Weber County school district had an assessed evaluation of more than $6,000,000.

The daily use of buildings would be a limited one in that the regular school day calls for a use of only five or six hours unless there is an adult or community schedule associated with the building. Regardless of the amount of use, a building continues to grow obsolescent and continues to deteriorate. Civic and community leaders as well as educators may be charged with obtaining the maximum social and educational utilization of the school plant.

It is common knowledge that schoolhouses throughout the nation are, in the main, being utilized to some degree other than general school attendance; however, in the light of studies made, it is reasonable to assume that although many school districts get maximum usage from their buildings, other school districts fail almost completely in providing facilities for community utilization.

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