Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on November 17, 1955.
66 Schools Disappear From Porter County System In 83 Years, Survey Indicates
Salaries of teachers and township trustees have rocketed, school enrollment in Porter county has almost exactly doubled, but 66 schools have disappeared in the past 83 years.
This information was gleaned from a copy of the 20th report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana, Milton B. Hopkins, published in 1872, and recently obtained by Porter County Supt. of Schools M.E. Dinsmoore. It is the property of James W. Dold, Chesterton High school principal.
Eighty three years ago in Porter county, according to this report, elementary teachers’ salaries averaged $1.60 a day for men and $1.20 a day for women, and salaries in the county, both men, averaged $4.50 daily. Today, according to the county superintendent’s office, teachers in Porter county earn an average daily salary of about $20.
There are 297 teachers in the county school system now, only 115 more than 1872, when there were 182 teachers. Yet total county school enrollment since that time has increased from 3,700 to 7,468.
The exception is Jackson township, where school enrollment, officially 196 now, shows a decrease of 33 since 1872.
Eight times as many pupils in Westchester and 10 times as many in Portage since 1872 are evident, with increases of about 1,500 and 1,900 respectively since that time. Westchester’s enrollment is now 1,733, and Portage’s 2,105, officially.
Increased Enrollment
Enrollment increases varying from 150 to 300 are evident in Pleasant, Boone, Liberty, Center and Pine township. During the past 83 years, increases of only 20 to 60 pupils took place in Morgan, Union, Washington and Porter townships.
Yet, to house these additional 3,700 students, there are now 24 county schools ー 66 less than in 1872.
“The county was full of one-room school houses then,” Supt. Dinsmoore pointed out.
Obviously, these one-room, or slightly larger, schools were worth little compared to today’s modern educational structures. The 90 in the county in 1872 had a total value of $95,000, according to the report, or about $1,000 each. Valuations of the schools in Porter county now vary from $26,900 to $600,000, officials said.
1872 Salaries
The township trustees who ran the Porter county schools in 1872 earned annual salaries of $423 each, the report states. Today, their yearly salaries, in addition to various allowances, vary from $1,400 to $2,700, depending on the size of the township.
And even as early as 1872, there was agitation to abolish the present system of having one township trustee run the civil and school affairs of each township. The state superintendent, in his report, offered the following statement:
“Why the civil and educational business should be kept separate in incorporated towns and cities, and united in the same person in townships, I am unable to understand… I recommend that the law be so amended that the qualified voters of each school corporation… elect three school trustees for a term of three years.”
