Our first installment on San Angelo public schools history left off in 1901…
That year, the local high school had added two upper grades in the push for accreditation. The senior class was Grade 11. They received lessons in chemistry, natural philosophy and hygiene, among other subjects.
A One School Town
The local school system that year, consisted of one campus. It had an enrollment of 643 pupils and seating for 564.
“We found 79 more pupils than there were seats for sandwiched in various ways,” the newspaper reported. “Some were three on a seat. Others were perched upon boxes, and two little fellows were almost on the stove. The desks and seats occupying very nearly every available square foot of the rooms, and when you come to consider crowding 65 children in a room 24-feet square, it does look as if it were time that the ladies of our city took steps to protect the little ones,” alluding to the specter of illness.
The writer suggested that the women of San Angelo might hold a fair “or entertainments of various kinds and raise money to relieve this condition, for it will save them many a long hour by the bedside of a loved one, laying with death hovering near.”
“Think of a city that can raise seventy-thousand dollars for a railroad (the Kansa, Mexico and Orient Railroad) and yet too poor to take care of her own children,” the San Angelo Press admonished.
By the end of the year, the issue came to a head. A mass meeting was held at the county courthouse on November 29, 1902 to make a real plan.
“In conformance with the consensus of public opinion it has been deemed the proper thing for the citizens of San Angelo to assemble in mass meeting, men, women and children at the Court House on Friday night…For the purpose of considering the school question and adopting necessary means to provide ward school houses.”
What the town decided on that night was incorporation, but some questions remained on exactly how to incorporate.
School District Idea Faces Obstacles
According to newspaper reports at the time, the main problem San Angelo residents faced in creating an independent school district was the lack of an “official” San Angelo.
Citizens voted to incorporate the City in 1889. But they overthrew it by petition in 1891. Salaries for officials and local taxes being the primary grievances.
Voters approved incorporation again in 1882, after an intensive campaign by civic leaders. But that entity only survived until 1897, so the city had been unincorporated for almost five years at that point.
They also had to reckon with the small matter of more than $20,000 in bond debt that previous city fathers had walked away from.
A Letter From Lefevre
A light in the fog appeared in the form of a letter to the San Angelo school trustees from the State Superintendent of Instruction, Arthur Lefevre, in February, 1902, discussing the merits of incorporating.
According to the news report, San Angelo’s school trustees had written to Lefevre asking for guidance.
“Gentlemen:
“I am in receipt of your letter of the 18th…concerning the crowded condition of the public school in San Angelo. You ask which would be better: To incorporate for school purposes, or increase your area as an independent school district.
“I unhesitatingly answer that it would be more advantageous to the town of San Angelo to incorporate for school purposes, and to levy a tax of one-fourth of one cent (25c on the $100 valuation) for maintenance and support of the public school.
“In an independent school district the board of trustees have sole management and control of the schools therein, and are not subject in any wise to the county superintendent, except in the matter of taking the census. All schools… would be under the jurisdiction of one board of trustees and one superintendent.”
Lefevre went on to explain how districts can be drawn differently, to maximum advantage, and shared other insights into the complex issue.
On Page 6 of that edition, the editor of the Press notes that “if Mr. Lefevre is correct…San Angelo can have a $20,000 school building, or ward school houses if preferred, ready for the next session of school, and the cost to tax payers would be so small that we would not realize there was any cost.”
City Finally Incorporates
More than a year later, in March of 1903, the citizens of San Angelo voted to incorporate, allowing them to form a school district under the city.
By September of that year, school trustees had acquired a cottage in east San Angelo to serve as a ward school house for that neighborhood, with an addition made to the building to accommodate the number of pupils likely to attend.
(SA School 1904)
By 1904, the first use of “San Angelo Independent School District” appeared in print, in a financial report from the school treasurer.
First School Bond Election
Voters passed the first school bond election, but it proved useless.
Voters approved that bonds be issued for $20,000 to cover school expansions in June 1904.
The bonds were issued bearing 4-percent interest, payable in forty years, and redeemable at the pleasure of the city after 10 years.
Anticipating new funds from the bond issue, In August 1904 Mr. Charles Dailey sold, “lots 12,13,14,15 and 16 in Block 12 of the Ellis addition, to school trustees of San Angelo. Consideration, $600 cash. A new ward school building 24 X 40 feet will be erected on this land at once.”
San Angelo voters learned in 1905 the school bonds had yet to be acquired.
Local officials, not having an up-to-date understanding of the market, set the interest rate on their bonds too low. Investors everywhere turned down the bonds, already accustomed to putting their money into five-percent bonds.
Trustees Have To Explain To Voters
The board cancelled the bonds and ordered another election held. It explained the situation in the local papers.
“Before the Attorney General’s opinion, however, and believing that we could dispose of the bonds at least to the Board of Education at a discount, your Board of School Trustees entered into a contract in the sum of practically $22,000 for the purpose of adding to the high school building on Magdalen Street, and the contractor has given bond and is going ahead with the work. Since we have discovered that the 4-percent bonds cannot be sold we have still told the contractor to go ahead with the work for two reasons:
“The first is because the school needs of San Angelo create an absolute necessity for the erection of this building. With the school facilities that we now have it is absolutely impossible to house the school children that attend the public schools, and we need every foot of the room and more, for which this contract calls, at the beginning of the session this fall. This absolute necessity existing, the School Board has confidence in the tax paying voters of San Angelo that they will come to their rescue and vote this issue of 5-percent bonds so we can complete the building.
New Bonds Called For
“You will observe that we asked for $30,000 worth of school bonds. We have done this because…when the new building is complete it will cost in the neighborhood of $22,500. We now have no negro school house, or any land upon which to place one; nor have we any Mexican school house, nor any land upon which to place one.
“These people are as much entitled to the benefits of a public school as are the white children of the city, and it is the intention of this Board with the proceeds of these bonds to see that both the Negro and Mexican schools are properly housed.
“Additionally, the School Board had not yet procured any lots upon which to locate a white ward school in the western part of the city, or a ward school ‘across the river.’
“Both of these building sites, in the judgement of the School Board, should be procured at once, before property advances any higher in value; and it is our purpose out of this issue of bonds to procure lots for school purposes in both places, and if we have the necessary fund to build at least one good ward school on one of them.
“It is useless to talk about building both, because we will not have the money.”
City Council Gets Overruled
According to press accounts, the city council voted the school board down when they asked for another election. This forced citizens to circulate a petition, which eventually forced city officials’ hand.
The City Council set that election for August 30, 1905. The bond election was for the lesser amount of $25,000. The First National Bank and San Angelo National Bank had already agreed to purchase one-third of the bond issue each.
Later that July the district now had three ward school: a North Ward school, one in East San Angelo, and one at “the Post,” meaning Fort Concho.
News reports from 1906, show the San Angelo school system had one high school, with elementary on campus as wel, and three ward schools; North, East, and South.
San Angelo Gets State-Wide Press
On June 21,1907 the Board of Trustees held a meeting to approve tuition costs for students living outside the district. Trustees decided $2 per month was adequate, and would institute the fee beginning January. 1. The report also relays the resignation of pioneering school board member W.S. Kelly from the district.
FORT WORTH RECORD AND REGISTER
MAY 26, 1908
SAN ANGELO–R.E. Fickling of Fickling & Farmer, school building contractors of West, Texas, is in the city to close the contract with the school trustees for the two new schools to be erected this year at a cost of $24,440. Mr. Fickling says that work will start on the buildings in the very near future.
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
SUN. AUG. 15, 1909
Page 27Lumber for Schools
SAN ANGELO, Aug. 14 — Three (rail) cars of lumber for the new school buildings arrived Monday and other material is arriving daily. Brick is being placed on the ground for the North ward building.
“The concrete work on the East ward is a little ahead of the North on account of being started earlier. It is expected that the brick work will commence on both buildings next week, and the brick for the East ward will be placed on the ground as soon as they are needed.
“The concrete work on the buildings has been a long job. The concrete walls will be six feet high and they are about finished. The second stories will be of brick.
“It looks now as though the buildings will be completed by the 15th of October. The material is coming in a rush, and no further delay is expected.”
Another headline on the same page reads: “Orient Working To Beat Its Schedule,” and said it is believed the new line will reach San Angelo early that fall.
After a hard-fought campaign, San Angelo finally had four identical two-story ward schools to crow about, with four classrooms on each floor.
Notes on school names and places
The North, West, and East ward schools had only a cardinal direction for a name to begin with. The South Ward was called “the Post School,” because it was situated on the old parade ground of Fort Concho. It soon became known as Fort Concho Elementary.
Within a year of opening, the East Ward community wanted an auspicious name for their elementary school honoring Texas history. The first instance of this new name appeared in print in the Sept. 24, 1910, edition of The Standard, as Supt. Felix Smith reported the following enrollments, which totalled 1,530.
High school, 218
Seventh-grade school, 118
San Jacinto (East Angelo), 309
North Angelo ward, 301
Fort Concho ward, 201
Harris Ave. ward, 286
That report notes one Mexican school, with an enrollment of 2, and one Negro school, with an enrollment of 97.
The low enrollment at the Mexican school was because the Mexican community was boycotting the schools at that time. This was an attempt to secure places for their children in the regular schools.
Ward School Locations
A local report listed teacher assignments at the beginning of the 1912-1913 school term. It records how the city was warded, and the schools organized.
At that time there was a single high school campus in downtown. Seventh-grade pupils attended classes there as well. It was staffed by one principal and 10 teachers assigned to upper grades. There were four teachers for seventh graders.
Eight teachers staffed each ward school, with the most experienced serving as principal.
- San Jacinto or East Ward School – Pupils in grades one to six, living east of the line beginning at the North Concho River, running north on Magdalen Street to the Santa Fe R.R. then east along the tracks to Main Street, and then north along Main to the city limits.
- Reagan or North Ward School – Pupils … north of the Santa Fe R.R. and west of Main St.
- Harris Ave. School (West Ward) – Pupils south of the Santa Fe R.R., west of Magdalen Street, and north of the North Concho River, including Angelo Heights.
- Fort Concho School (South Ward) – Pupils south of the North Concho River.
All Mexican pupils were to report to the school situated on Avenue A in the Millspaugh Addition. (No teacher listed.)
All Black pupils were to report to the Negro School on Randolph Street, north of the Santa Fe R.R. Mr. and Mrs. F.G. Brown were teaching staff.
By late 1910, school trustees would again be calling for a bond election. This time because of over crowding at the high school.
