Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 111, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1913 — HIGH SCHOOL FOR TWO TOWNSHIPS [ARTICLE]

HIGH SCHOOL FOR TWO TOWNSHIPS

Law Requires Superintendent to Build in Union and Barkley— Both Four-Room Buildings.

Unless something unforseen happens two township high school buildings will be erected in Jasper county this summer, one in Union and one in Barkley. The law passed by the last general assembly gives the superintendent, trustee or patron no option in the matter. It says that in each township where the taxable property has an assessed valuation exceeding $600,000, where there have been eight township graduates each year for the past two years, where there is no township high school and no high school within three miles of the boundary line of the township, the township trustee shall establish and maintain therein a high school and employ competent teachers ' therefore.

In any township where there is property • assessed at $600,000 or more, and where there have been for each of the two years last past eight or more township graduates, a high school may bp established by a petition signed by a majority of the school patrons. The former section applies in Barkley and Union and the school authorities are already planning for the construction. The trustee has the right to fix the location, but the patrons can appeal from his decision to the county superintendent. There is already quite a lively contest in Union township, especially between the towns of Fair Oaks and Parr. Trustee Kight lives at Fair Oaks and will probably personally favor that place and it is said a petition circulated by Frank Goff, asking that the school house be built in that town has been signed by a majority of the patrons. In case an appel is taken to County Superintendent Lamson, he plans to try to determine the wishes of the majority in the matter and act accordingly. The buildings will probably be brick 4-room structures and built in accordance with the modern requirements in every manner. The schools will doubtless considerably affect the attendance from these townships in the Rensselaer high school.