School: Granton - Union Free H.S. (Public Votes - 1911)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Drewery

----Source: The Granton News (Granton, Clark Co., WI.) June 22, 1911

Union Free High School (Public Votes - 22 June 1911)

By a vote of 280 against and 200 for the Union Free High School proposition was put on the shelf. This means that our school must drop all grades above the eighth, or fit up the remaining room and hire one more teacher. As the latter is out of question from a financial standpoint, the first will be the only way out of it. In case we continue to run the school in the present condition, our state aid will be taken away.  Now we ask why this commotion?   Did our school not always come up to the standard set by other schools of the state? 

According to compliments paid by the faculty of the Neillsville High School, pupils entering from this school are above the average. But school inspector Drewery says our teachers are over worked and the rooms are too crowded and we must a bide by his decisions.  The fact of the matter is that Mr. Drewery is prejudiced to this school, originating from a personal disagreement between him and a former school clerk.  But what has this to do with the running of this school?  Are the people of this district going to sit back and allow a man to come here and willfully tear down that which took many dollars of hard earned taxes to build up and of which we have always been justly proud?  Or will they assist the News in petitioning the sate superintendent to personally look into these affairs. 

The establishing of Union High School has probably been settled for all times to come unless the law will some day be changed so as to allow less territory to be taken in.  The special meeting last Saturday drew large crowds to the village and on nearly every corner could be heard hot debates either for or against the proposition.  In one instance it came to personal encounters between two parties and the results were black eyes and bloody noses.  The one reported feature to us was that the majority of those who were opposing the high school spent more over the bar during the excitement than the increase in their taxes would amount to in the next five years.