THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOLS OF WELD COUNTY, COLO. By C. G. SARGENT, Professor of Rural Education, State Agricultural College, Fort Collins, Colo. GENERAL CONDITIONS. Weld County is located in northern Colorado and extends to the Colorado-Wyoming State line. It is east of the Rocky Mountains, has a comparatively level surface, and has no streams or mountains that would make highway or railroad construction difficult. Climatic and road conditions are favorable for auto and wagon transportation at any season of the year. There are approximately 5,000 miles of public highways. The county is traversed by the trunk lines of two large railroads, a number of branch lines of these and other systems, and numerous interurban gas-car lines. It has a total railroad mileage of 407 miles, extending into the more important sections of the county. It has 13,300 miles of telephone lines. From the standpoint of transportation and modern means of communication, it is well adapted to a system of consolidated schools. The county has an area of 4,022 square miles, a little more than that of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. It has a population of 53,984, ranking third in the 63 counties of the State. Greeley, the county seat and largest town, has a population of 11,000. All the other towns in the county are classed as rural by the United States Bureau of the Census. Agriculture, including stock raising, is easily the leading occupation. The South Platte River and its tributaries furnish irrigation for much of the land in the southwest fourth of the county. The northwest fourth and most of the eastern half is farmed without irrigation, or is used for grazing purposes. In value of farm lands and annual production of farm products, it is the leading county of Colorado. The total assessed valuation in 1922 was $117,666,690. 48433°-23 1 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The public schools of Weld County are organized on the district system, a system provided for in the State constitution. Each school district is a body corporate, with a board of education of three or more directors, and is entirely independent of other districts in all essential matters relating to the administration of its schools. Consolidation is brought about by local initiative, through a process of petition and election, and means the " abolishment of certain adjoining school districts, their organization into one special school district, and the conveyance of pupils to one consolidated school." The city of Greeley, with much adjacent rural territory, is a district of the first class-that is, one having a school population of more than 1,000. During the year 1922 there were 173 school buildings in use. Classified by number of teachers the schools were as follows: Of the 165 schools, 25 are consolidated. One-third the total area of this large county, one-third its assessed valuation, two-fifths of the teachers, and two-fifths of the school enrollment are found in these 25 consolidated districts. Some interesting data concerning them are given in the following table: Enrollment, teachers, and buildings of the consolidated schools. All this has been brought about in a little less than a decade. The consolidation campaign started in Weld County in 1913. In 1914 the Fort Lupton School, the first consolidation in the county, was formed, and the central portion of the present building was occupied. East and west wings have been added since and the plant completed. Some of the results of this 10-year campaign for rural school improvement are here given briefly. BUILDINGS. Eighty-five old schoolhouses of the traditional type, for the most part of the one-room variety, have been abandoned and new and modern school buildings, complete in every respect, including modern motor-bus transportation systems, have already replaced them, or will just as soon as plans now pending are carried to completion. The present value of the new school plants and their equipment is $1,578,450. This is at least 100 times greater than the combined value of the 85 abandoned buildings, most of which had been in use many years. Many of them were utterly unfit for any purpose. This comparison in cash value of the old and the new schools speaks volumes for the efficiency of the new schools. It would afford both interest and information to any school man to see those 85 old schoolhouses, most of them erected by the early pioneers, and com |