April 13, 1951: School Children Given TB Patch Test

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on April 13, 1951.

School Children Given TB Patch Test

MRS. H.S. BARNES, executive secretary of the Porter County Tuberculosis association, and Miss Dorothy Smith, Valparaiso school health nurse, are shown completing a tuberculosis patch test examination on a group of youngsters at the Immanuel Lutheran school this morning. As is customary in the patch test process, these children were applied with the patch a week ago and then were examined today for a negative or positive report. Mrs. Barnes stated that in the past six weeks 1,245 children in the Valparaiso and Porter county schools were given the patch test, which returned positive reports on a very small percentage. This service, designated to protect school children and acquaint parents with the dangers and measures to be taken in combating this dreaded disease, is offered by the Porter County TB.

March 8, 1951: Instructions On Business Are Praised - Local Teachers Find Plant Tour Is Educational

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 8, 1951.

Instructions On Business Are Praised

Local Teachers Find Plant Tour Is Educational

Valparaiso’s public and elementary grade teachers had high praise today for “instructions” in business and industry they received Wednesday afternoon from representatives of various factory and business establishments in the community.

And businessmen said they are looking forward to the time when they will sit in on academic proceedings at the local schools.

The whole program was initiated by the educational committee of the Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce, with the cooperation of the Valparaiso city, St. Paul’s Catholic and Immanuel Lutheran school administrators. It is planned to hold similar meetings, either at business houses or in the schools, in each of the next two years.

Some 80 teachers of the community toured, in small units, five industrial plants, Continental Diamond Fibre company, McGill Manufacturing company, Indiana Steel Products company. The Robert L. Miller Laboratory and Urschel Laboratories; three stores, J. Lowenstine and Sons, Stambaugh Farm Equipment company and J.C. Penney company; two financial institutions, Farmers’ State and First State banks; Hotel Lembke; and The Vidette-Messenger, Indiana Associated Telephone company and Northern Indiana Public Service company plants.

Spends Entire Afternoon

The teachers reported at their assigned tour place at one o’clock and spent the entire afternoon inspecting the facilities and learning of some of the problems of conducting the particular business that they were visiting.

Climax of the day came when 120 teachers and businessmen attended a banquet at Hotel Lembke sponsored by the C of C. Lester Milne, chairman of the education committee, served as master of ceremonies.

Representatives of the 14 firms who acted as hosts during the afternoon were introduced, as were members of the city school board, committee members who arranged details for the day and James Patricn[sic], C of C secretary-manager.

Featured speaker of the evening was Dr. Virgil M. Rogers, superintendent of schools, Battle Creek, Mich. He was introduced by G. Warren Phillips, superintendent of the local city schools.

Stake In Schools

In his address, Rogers reminded the businessmen that they have a stake in the public schools, which he labeled as the nation’s greatest enterprise today. He said all people in a community have a direct or indirect part in the school, and he warned that if America permits public education to die, democracy will die with it.

He pointed out that the growth of education has aided America to build more cars, more homes, more radios and similar advantages than exists in any other nation.

Rogers advised that the schools should furnish their pupils with a more dramatic meaning of American citizenship, that they must appeal to community leaders to help keep the academic standards on a high level.

As a closing warning the speaker asserted that if totalitarianism ever strangles the American way of life it will because education has lost its objective.

TWO OF THE PLANTS toured Wednesday afternoon by local teacher groups during the Business-Industry-Education event sponsored by the Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce were that of The Vidette-Messenger and the Continental Diamond Fibre company. In the upper photo teachers are viewing the teletype and morgue operations in the editorial department. In this group were the following teachers: Emma R. Food, Mary Miller, Mary Stoner, Mary Phillips, Francis May and Verna Randert. Shown in the mica press room Burton Conklin, Glen Gierke, Milton Marten, Sister Miriam Loretto and Sister M. Juliette. George Nelson and D.K. Appleby were in charge of the tour there.

Nov. 23, 1985: Hobart student barred because of AIDS

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on November 23, 1985.

Hobart student barred because of AIDS

HOBART (AP) ー A Hobart Schools student diagnosed as having AIDS has been barred from attending class and is completing assignments at home, Superintendent Richard Abel said Friday.

Abel would not name the male high school student with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, but said the student has been ill and out of school since Oct. 30.

The student is a hemophiliac, as is 13-year-old Ryan White of Kokomo, who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. Ryan was barred from attending classes in the Western Hills schools system and has been taking instruction at home via a telephone hookup.

The Hobart school board adopted a policy Thursday night which also barrs students with AIDS from attending school.

Under the policy, Abel said, any student with AIDS “will be offered a continuation of their education only through a homebound teaching program.”

Abel said he believes the policy to be one of the first in the country.

“Now that the policy is official and the administration is charged with the responsibility of carrying it out, our next move will be to solicit volunteers from the teaching staff to go to the home and do what I will call the normal home-bound teaching assignment,” said Abel.

Abel, however, said he did not anticipate any teachers volunteering because of all the unknowns about AIDS. If there are no volunteers, he will go to the next step, he said.

Since the policy was adopted only Thursday, he has not yet asked for volunteers, said Abel, and the student has been completing assignments at home since he was diagnosed as having AIDS on Oct. 30.

“The student is not being denied an education,” said Abel. “It is continuing, but in a different form.”

Abel said the student’s parents have been cooperative and school staff members also have been supportive.

He also said he has received no negative reaction from other parents ー “just concern. There has been no panic,  none at all.”

Ryan White was discharged from Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis two weeks ago after being hospitalized more than six weeks with a respiratory problem.

Ryan’s mother, Jeanne White, is fighting the decision by school officials to keep her son out of class.

The Indiana Department of Education is expected to announce a decision Wednesday on whether Ryan, a seventh-grader, will be allowed to return to his school.

Nov. 17, 1955: 66 Schools Disappear From Porter County System In 83 Years, Survey Indicates

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.”