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About Eugene register-guard. (Eugene, Or.) 1930-1983 | View Entire Issue (April 13, 1955)
Springfield Teacher Challenges r Meeting Demotion Act Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore. Wed., Apr. 13, 1955 5A The head nf Snrin.i'. cial education program Monday night denied that the district board had legitimate grounds for demoting her. Appearing at a meeting of the! igaro. in ine school administration building, Mrs. Ryta McDonald! aid she was "amazed" when she learned last month that the board! had voted to demote her from supervisor of special education to the status of a regular teacher. The demotion included a $600 pay cut. "If something had been wrong with the special education pro gram, the teachers and other supervisors would have told me," Mrs. McDonald said. "You can not build the. kind of program we have here without the full cooperation of the teachers." The special education depart ment was established in the fall of 1950 to help children who are mentally retarded or have physi cal or emotional handicaps. Mrs. McDonald was hired as super visor in 1952. The school board voted to de mote Mrs.' McDonald and another department supervisor during a closed meeting March 9. The action was disclosed at the next public meeting of the board, but no reason was given for the de motions. Asst. Superintendent Laurence Moffit said later that the board had decided there would be no point in airing the cases in public. Mrs. McDonald said Monday night she believed part of the criticism against her came from the department's refusal to ac cept physical examination forms prepared by chiropractors. She read the board copies of 2 letters from Springfield chiropractors i asking her to maintain a fair- minded attitude toward their pro fession. Denying that she had been un fair, Mrs. McDonald said her office had once tried to submit a chiropractor's examination form to the state department of edu cation. She said the state re turned the form with instructions to have the child examined by a medical doctor. One member of the school board, Dr. Melvin P. Bryson, is a Springfield chiropractor. The - board made no comment to Mrs. McDonald's statements. Mrs. McDonald said she knew there had been complaints from medical doctors as well as from chiropractors over the physical examination forms required for children in special education. She said she had heard objections to the paper-work involved in filling out the forms. SALARIES DISCUSSED "We have to require the ex animations," Mrs. McDonald said, "One out of 7 children in the -program has physical disabilities that need treatment." Three points on the district's 1955-56 salary schedule came in for criticism at the meeting as representatives of music teachers, coaches and school principals asked the board to reconsider its plans for setting their sal aries and extra benefits. , High school basketball coach Roger Wiley said that coaches in the system will take a cut in pay because of the board's de cision to pay a flat amount for ' extra coaching duties instead of adding an amount based on a percentage of the coaches' sal aries. He recommended that the payments to oaches- be in creased. Frank Light, director of the Springfield High School band, said that music teachers in the school system should receive extra pay to compensate for the amount of work they do outside of regular school hours. Ray McCormack, Maple School principal, said principals in Springfield schools feel that their! salaries are not on a par wnn those paid to principals in com parable districts. He asked the board to consider revising the: principals' scale upward. Dr. Melvin Bryson read to the board a letter he had received from State Sen. Gene L. Brown in which Brown described a bill he has proposed to prevent pro I motional literature and propa ganda from being distributed! through the schools. Board chair man George Easton said the board's policy had been to dis courage such activities. The board discussed the ques tion of giving teachers time off to attend special conferences. Supt. Eugene Silke recommended that the board decide on a def inite number of teacher-days that will be allowed each year for conferences. No final action was taken on the subject during the meeting. Board members also discussed a proposal that they visit parent teacher groups in the schools to discuss the budget for the com ing year and to encourage resi dents to vote In the coming school election. The school election, in which voters will be asked to vote on the budget and a $300,000 bond issue for construction, will be held April 28. . At the close of the meeting, Easton presented the outgoing superintendent with a barometer as a token of his 15 years' service in Springfield. Silke will as sumo the superintendent's post at Troutdale next fall. No plans have been announced for the se lection of his successor in Spring field. Driver Charged ! An accident in which his car reportedly rammed a merry-go- round fence at the Big Y Market Saturday resulted in a disorderly conduct charge against Seth Will iam Card, 42, 389 Blair Blvd. Card pleaded innocent Monday morning In municipal court and was released on $100 bail. Solve your fuel problem! with BRIQUETS or COAL JOHNSON FUEL CO. 545 Charnelton Ph. 4-7211 American Kitchens COPPER BIHCH STEKL Fret Estimatei and AdTlca M.I1.J. Company MS Chmrnellon Ph. 4-1J11 GI Treason Cases Mount WASHINGTON W The Justice Department says an estimate that . some 200 treason cases might stem from the Korean War may have been "much too conserva tive." Asst. Atty. Gen. William F. Tompkins told a House Appropri ations subcommittee, in testimony released this week, that the de partment already is acting on 176 treason cases involving GIs captured by the Communists dur ing the Korean fighting. Tompkins, Justice Department security chief, said he expected "many more" cases to follow. Although there have been a number of court-martial trials against former POWs, none has yet been charged with treason. Without elaborating, Tompkins said also that "a large number of potential espionage cases," not limited to service personnel, arc being investigated. j In Welcome Teachers! Make THE BON your Headquarters! RiflC tllC BUS tO THE BOX! 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