they are scattered over the city in private shops), 1 cooking room for girls, a dressmaking room, 1 nurse training room, 1 mechanical drawing, and 1 music room. This makes 12 units, or a total of 22 units needed. There are available 8 classrooms in the present building and 2 rooms for cooking and sewing in an annex. The room now used in the basement of the present building for a workshop could be used as a storeroom and stockroom. The eight rooms in the present building can be used for classrooms, and for the present the cooking and sewing rooms can still be used for that purpose if additional equipment is provided. That leaves 12 rooms to be provided. This can be done by erecting modern portable buildings. These buildings can be secured in the form of an auditorium, gymnasium, classrooms, and special rooms, and all of them can be so set up as to form a single building with a corridor down the center, with a principal's office, store, heating plant, showers, and toilets. The cost would be as follows: Under the traditional plan it would be necessary to have six additional classrooms at a cost of $6,000, or a total of $57,000. 2. Portable buildings for the West Athens School. The enrollment in the West Athens School in 1921 was 400, or 10 classes. Allowing for growth of 2 classes, it would be necessary to provide for 480 pupils, or 12 classes. Under the work-study-play plan it would be necessary to have 6 classrooms, 4 special rooms, an auditorium, and a gymnasium. There are available in the present building 6 rooms. With this it will be necessary to erect 4 portable units, an auditorium, and gymnasium. The cost would be as follows: Under the traditional plan six additional classrooms would be needed at $6,000, making a total of $26,000. 3. Portable buildings for East Athens School. The plans for this school and the cost would be the same as under Plan 1, $20,000. The total cost of the building program for the Negro schools under plan 2 would be $101,000. SUMMARY OF COST OF A BUILDING PROGRAM ON THE BASIS OF THE $323,000 BOND ISSUE. Plan 2. (a) WORK-STUDY-PLAY PLAN-CAPACITY AND COSTS. 1 This is in addition to the equipment included in the cost of the portable buildings. The cost of equipment for each room and activity is included in this building cost. ATHENS BEHIND OTHER CITIES IN SCHOOL EXPENDITURES. The preceding building program shows what can be accomplished with the $323,000 bond issue available. But Athens should not be satisfied with this amount of money for her schools. It represents only a beginning of what she should spend in order to bring her school plant up to date. Athens probably does not realize that, as has already been pointed out, the city has the wealth to make her public school plant one of the most modern in the country. Furthermore, the average citizen probably does not know that up to the present time Athens has spent far less on her public schools than other cities of the same population group. And yet the following facts prove this to be the case: Athens is fortieth from the bottom of a list of 327 cities in its tax rate for schools.-The tax rate for all school purposes for Athens for 1917-18 was 5 mills. But this was on the basis of a 67 per cent property assessment. On the basis of a 100 per cent valuation of property the tax rate for Athens for that year was 3.35 mills.19 (See Chart IV.) The following table and chart show that out of 327 cities with a population of 10,000 to 30,000, Athens stood fortieth from the bottom of the list in its tax rate for schools. Two hundred and eighty seven cities had a higher tax rate than Athens. Only 39 had a lower rate.19 Athens stands eleventh from the bottom of the list of 45 cities in its per capita expenditure for schools. Furthermore, when Athens is compared with other cities of the same population group, with respect to its per capita expenditure for current school expenses, it is found that its per capita expenditure for public schools for 1917-18 was $32.46, whereas, the average for the 25 cities cited in the accom CHART IV.-Athen stands 40th from the bottom in a list of 327 cities in its tax rate for schools. panying chart was $49.93. In other words, it stood eleventh from the bottom of the list of 45 cities.20 (See Chart V.) Athens stands twenty-first from the bottom of the list of 340 cities in the amount of its school property.-The value of the school property of the public schools of Athens tells the story of its poverty in school buildings and indicates with startling accuracy how far behind other cities Athens has fallen in its provisions for housing its children. 19 See Statistics of Public School Systems, H. R. Bonner, U. S. Bu. Educ. Bul. 1920, No. 24, p. 467. 20 See Statistics of City School Systems, H. R. Bonner, U. S. Bu. Educ. Bul. 1920, No. 24, pp. 146, 428, and 324. |