Deerfield School Troubles.

The Deerfield school controversy still continues. One party claims the election of Dr. Barton as superintendent and has legal advice to that effect and the other side is as positive the other way. The committee believe the new teachers that have been appointed to take the place of those that resigned will prove fully satisfactory. The latest development is the withdrawal of 15 to 20 pupils of the upper grades of the grammar schools to go to the Dickinson school.

Arrangement was made by trustees of Dickinson academy to take in the greater part of the two upper grades in the two village schools, and put them into a new preparatory department of the academy, of which Miss Lewis, formerly teacher at South Deerfield, was to be the teacher. In South Deerfield the children were told to take their books with them, which in some cases they did.

The result was that when the teachers went to their regular work Monday morning, knowing nothing of what was on foot, they were surprised to find many of their children absent. Later more children went out.

This statement representing the feeling of a majority of the school committee has been issued:--

The removal of scholars from the upper grades of the town schools, last Monday, and sending them to the new preparatory department of Dickinson high school was entirely without the knowledge of the new school board, and in no way has their sanction. The very best teachers which could be secured have been appointed to our town schools. Miss Guilford who has been appointed to the upper room in old Deerfield is a lady of fine education and long experience. The new preparatory department at the academy has the same grade of work as that which is being taught in Miss Guilford's room in the town school. The attempt to form a preparatory department in the academy by drawing off scholars in the same grade from the town schools is only an attempt to injure the work of the new teachers and cripple the work of the new citizens' committee.

What the outcome of all this will be is uncertain. The parents have a right to send children to Dickinson academy if they see fit. Meanwhile the town schools will run along as if nothing had happened.

It should be stated, to remove an impression unintentionally give, that no one from Deerfield has asked or even suggested the publication of anything whatever on this subject except the part of this article that appears in small type, and an item each under Deerfield and South Deerfield.
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

label levels:

By 1900, the private Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and its associated " free town high school," Dickinson High School, were in serious economic and institutional trouble. Finances were shaky and the board put its own welfare before that of the school's. For example, although the board refused to buy fire insurance, it voted itself increasing salaries for a job that was often done for free. The school itself was in poor physical shape, with patches of plaster missing from the walls and water stains from the poorly maintained roof. One agent for the Massachusetts Board of Education noted that the school "can not be called a fair equivalent for a high school," so some Deerfield families began sending their children to the high school in neighboring Greenfield, Massachusetts. The turmoil in the school district noted in this Greenfield Gazette and Courier article came in the context of these events.

top of page