Date of Award:

5-1957

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Committee Chair(s)

E. A. Jacobsen

Committee

E. A. Jacobsen

Committee

John C. Carlisle

Committee

Howard Stone

Committee

George Blanch

Abstract

Educational administration exists to develop and guide the educational program. Every local public school system is a legal agency of the state for the conduct of public education. State laws usually set up the administrative units for school districts and places upon local boards of education the responsibility for the management of the local schools. Such boards represent the people of the state, and the district, and they perform a large number of legally designated functions.

The constitution of the State of Utah states clearly the responsibility for the maintenance and establishment of the schools. The following are extracts from the Utah constitution pertaining to such responsibility:

Section 1. The Legislature shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a uniform system of public schools, which shall be open to all children of the State, and be free from sectarian control.

Section 2. The public school system shall include kindergarten schools; common schools, consisting of primary and grammar grades; high school; an agricultural college, a university, and such other schools as the Legislature may establish. The common schools shall be free. The other departments of the system shall be supported as provided by laws.1

As the constitution places the responsibility on the legislature to provide and maintain schools, the legislature has passed laws to organize and govern school districts throughout the state. In 1915 legislation was enacted which made it mandatory that the small local school districts in every county be organized into larger administrative units.

The real reason why these relatively small counties were allowed to organize two or three districts under the law probably was one of expediency. J. Preston Creer, Superintendent of Schools of Utah county in 1915, and one of the men who worked with the legislature for the enactment of the law, states that certain political leaders of great importance in the legislature, refused to support the measure unless it permitted these counties to divide. Leaders in favor of consolidation desired to secure support for the compulsory features of the proposed law, framed the bill to permit the division.2

This permitted several counties to organize these small administrative units. Sanpete county organized two separate school districts.

Education is vital to the welfare of a nation; therefore, it is important that continuous effort be exerted to improve the administration of school districts and administrative units. Administration of local units has undergone a vast transformation, especially during the last half century.

Results of school district reorganization may be viewed in a number of ways. Frequently progress is measured in terms of the number of local districts eliminated by incorporating their territory into larger units. Results may likewise be measured by increases in the number of new districts having certain characteristics commonly associated with efficient local administrative units. Such methods have obvious practical values in looking at the results of reorganization and ascertaining its progress. The validity rests on the conviction that larger districts are more capable of providing the scope and quality of services required in a modern program of education than can be provided effectively and efficiently by districts of small size.

However valid this conviction may be, the establishment of larger districts is not a magic process automatically resulting in the improvement of educational services. It merely makes such improvements possible. In other words, the larger district constitutes a more adequate structure which enables local people to provide more efficiently a better education for their children.

This does not mean that school district reorganization is not directly concerned with better schools. Its important outcomes are educational in nature. Improvement of educational opportunity is the primary consideration. This is the underlying purpose of reorganization legislation and the guiding principle which charts the course for reorganization leaders.

The test lies in what is done for the pupils. Reorganization is the essential first step, but implementation of its purposes must come after the new districts have been created.3 For this reason, in viewing results of reorganization it is important to examine the educational changes made in such districts after their establishment.4

In a very real sense counties have grown up with the nation. Transplanted in the early Atlantic seaboard colonies from England, their origin dates back to the ninth century when the English kingdom was established. The first colonial organization in this country came in 1634 when the colony of Virginia, growing in population and settled area, was divided into eight shires or counties. By the time of the American Revolution all of the colonies except Georgia and Rhode Island had established county governments.5

The county is the most universal pattern of local government in the United States. Although the influence of the county varies from region to region and even within states, almost everywhere rural people are strongly county minded.6

Education in Sanpete county can be best understood as it is analyzed in its relation to its historical background. This is reflected in the life of the people who founded the State. The first settlers of Utah came from predominantly the New England states and brought with them the pattern of school organization that was familiar to them.

The Mormons of Utah developed a system of church government that established a line of authority from the Church presidency downward. Although Utah became a territory in 1850, civil government existed only as it was a part of church government. Under such government, school organizations were controlled by the church organization. Under this form of government the Mormons had complete control of their schools in the early history of Utah.7

CONSOLIDATION...Consolidation of two or more small districts into one union district represents a commonly used device for getting a larger tax base and greater pupil enrollment together for educational purposes. Although educators have vigorously championed the consolidation of schools serving rural areas for more than one hundred years, relatively little progress has been made compared with the size of the task.

Cyr declares that this failure may be attributed to two main factors:

(1) the lack of means of transportation and communication which makes effective consolidation possible, and (2) the lack of methods and techniques to bring about satisfactory consolidations.8

THE COUNTY UNIT...Frequently, the general recommendation has been made that the county be employed as the basic unit of administration in all states. This was particularly true twenty or thirty years ago when Cubberley and others strongly advocated this system as the best answer to the many administrative problems confronting education, particularly in rural areas.

Hart and Peterson summarize the reasons which have led to a demand for the county unit as follows:

  1. the need for an administrative unit larger than the district;
  2. the desire of professional leaders to give a more efficient and more professional school administration to the county;
  3. the depopulation of rural localities which of necessity warrants the consolidation of small school districts into a larger area;
  4. the necessity of transplanting both the principles and the business methods of city school administration into rural districts;
  5. the need for supervision;
  6. the need for better school buildings, and
  7. in a broad sense, the need for equality of educational opportunities within the county.9

The fundamental purpose of consolidation of any type is to give to the county schools, especially in the rural areas, the advantages and benefits of organization and administration comparable to that enjoyed by children in the more progressive urban areas. The combining of the districts into one large unit makes it possible to pool the wealth of the county, to place the county schools under the control of one board, and under the direction and supervision of more competent and professionally trained leadership. A large area for taxation and supervision makes it possible to equalize both the burdens of support and educational opportunity.

Evidence of the effectiveness of the county unit for reaching these objectives lies in the fact that twelve states have adopted the system in part or in whole, and revenue for school purposes is produced to some extent on a county-wide basis in thirty-three states.10

The county educational program, like public educational programs everywhere in the nation, has the task of preparing people for intelligent, socially effective, and personally satisfying citizenship. It is the purpose of the school districts to organize to the best of their ability to provide this service.

The study was selected to help develop some procedures and guides for school districts that wish to study the problem of consolidation of administrative units. The study will show some of these procedures and applications. It is designed to show approaches for further consolidation of administrative units.

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