HoUinger Corp. pH 8.5 LB 3408 Copy 1 \0l Minimum Health Requirements for Rural Schools Proposed by The Joint Committee on Health Problems in Education of the National Council of the National Education Association and of the • Council on Health and Public Instruction of the American Medical Association Prepared by DR. THOMAS D. WOOD Chairman of the Committee on Health Problems of the National Council of Education 525 W. 120th Street, New York City The publication of this edition is made possible through the generosity of THE ELIZABETH McCORMICK MEMORIAL FUND of Chicago The Joint Committee on Health Problems in Education of the National Council of the National Education Association and of the American Medical Association Committee of the National Council of the National Education Association on Health Problems in Education Thomas D. Wood, Chairman, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, New York City. William H. Burnham, Clark University, Worcester, Mass. P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C. F. B. Dresslar, Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn. Clark W. Hetherington, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. David Starr Jordan, Leland Stanford Jr. University, Palo Alto, Cal. John F. Keating, Superintendent Public Schools, Pueblo, Colo. Charles H. Keyes, Skidmore School of Arts, Saratoga Springs, N. Y. Jacob A. Shawan, Superintendent of Schools, Columbus, Ohio Albert E. Winship, New England Journal of Education, Boston, Mass. Committee of the American Medical Association on Health Problems in Education R. W. CoRWiN, Chairman, Minnequa Hospital, Pueblo, Colo. John M. Dodson, Rush Medical College, Chicago, 111. M. J. Rosenau, Harvard University, Boston, Mass. Press of American Medical Association Five Hundred and Thirty-Five North Dearborn Street CHICAGO D. Of D« JUL 24 1916 Minimum Sanitary Requirements for Rural Schools It is the desire and purpose of this Committee to help estabhsh a standard of fundamental health essen- tials in the rural school and its material equipment, so that attainment of this minimum standard may be demanded by educational authorities and by public opinion of every rural school throughout the country. Conformity to the minimum sanitary requirements should be absolutely necessary to the pride and self respect of the community, and to the sanction and approval of county, state and other supervising and interested official or social agencies. Neglect of anything essential for health in construc- tion, equipment and care of the rural school plant is at least an educational sin of omission and may reason- ably be considered a social and civic crime or mis- demeanor. The country school should be as sanitary and whole- some in all essential particulars as the best home in the community. Further, it should be pleasing and attractive in appearance, in furnishings and in sur- roundings, so that the community as a whole may be proud of it ; so that the pupils and teacher may take pleasure in attending school and in caring for and improving it. I. LOCATION AND SURROUNDINGS The school should be located in as healthful a place as exists in the community. Noise and all other objectionable factors should be eliminated from the immediate environment of the rural school. Accessibility. — Not more than two miles from the most distant home, if the children walk. Not more than six miles from most distant home, if school wagons are provided. Drainage. — Schoolground must be well drained and as dry as possible. If natural drainage is not adequate, artificial drainage should be provided. Soil. — As every rural schoolground should have trees, shrubs and a real garden or experimental farm, the soil of the schoolgrounds should be fertile and tillable. Rock and clay soil should always be avoided. If the soil is muddy when wet, a good layer of sand and fine gravel should be used to make the children's playground as useful as possible in all kinds of weather. Sise of Schoolgrounds. — For the schoolhouse and playground, at least three acres are required.^ A playground is not a luxury but a necessity. A school without a playground is an educational defor- mity and presents a gross injustice to childhood. Arrangement of Grounds. — The schoolground should have trees, plants and shrubs grouped with artistic effect but without interfering with the chil- dren's playground or the lighting of the schoolhouse. II. SCHOOLHOUSE The schoolhouse should be made as nearly fireproof as possible. Doors should always open outward and the main door should have a covered entrance ; a sep- arate fuel room should be provided, also separate cloak-rooms for boys and for girls. A basement or cellar, if provided, should be well ventilated and absolutely dry. The one-teacher country school should contain, in addition to the classroom: (a) A small entrance hall, not less than 6 by 8 feet. (b) A small retiring room, not less than 8 by 10 feet, to be used as an emergency room in case of ill- ness or accident, for a teacher's conference room, for school library and for health inspection, a feature now being added to the work of the rural school. (c) A small room, not less than 8 by 10 feet, for a workshop, for instruction in cooking and for the preparation of refreshments when the school is used, as it should be, for social purposes. ' Classroom should not be less than 30 feet long, 20 feet wide and 12 feet high. This will provide space enough for a maximum of thirty pupils. 1. If the rural school plant includes the additional features (a teacher's home, a garden and an experimental farm), which are already in some progressive states accepted and established as educational essentials, then the schoolgrounds should contain 8 to 10 acres. Ill, VENTILATION AND HEATING The schoolroom should always receive fresh air coming directly from out of doors in one of the fol- lowing arrangements : (a) Through wide open windows in mild weather. (b) Through window board ventilators under all other conditions, except when, with furnace or jack- eted stove, special and adequate inlets and exits for air are provided. Heating. — Unless furnace or some other basement system of heating is installed, at least a properly jacketed stove is required. (No unjacketed stove should be tolerated in any school.) The jacketed stove should have a direct fresh air inlet about 12 inches square, opening through the wall of the schoolhouse into the jacket against the middle or hottest part of the stove. The exit for foul air should be through an opening at least 16 inches square on the wall near the floor, on the same side of the room as the stove is located. A fireplace with flue adjoining the stove chimney makes a good exit for bad air.^ Temperature. — Every school should have a ther- mometer, and the temperature in cold weather should be kept between 66 and 68 Fahrenheit. IV. LIGHTING The schoolroom should receive an abundance of light, sufficient for darkest days, with all parts of the room adequately illuminated. The area of glass in windows should be from % to 34 of the floor area. The best arrangement, according to present ideas, is to have the light come only from the left side of the pupils and from the long wall of the classroom. Win- dows may be allowed on rear as well as on the left side, but the sills of windows in the rear of the room should be not less than 7 feet above the floor. High windows not less than 7 feet from the floor may be permitted on the right side if thoroughly shaded, as an aid to cross ventilation, but not for lighting. 2. The following arrangement for ventilating flue is required in one western state: A circular sheet steel smoke flue, passing up in center of ventilating shaft (foul air exit) 20 inches square in the clear, • There should be no trees or shrubbery near the schoolhouse which will interfere with the lighting and natural ventilation of the classroom. The school building should so face that the school- room will receive the direct sunlight at some time dur- ing the day. The main windows of the schoolroom should not face either directly north or south. East or west facing is desirable. Shades should be provided at tops and bottoms of windows with translucent shades at top, so that light may be properly controlled on bright days. Schoolroom Colors. — The best colors for the school- room in relation to lighting are : Ceiling — white or light cream. Walls — light gray or light green. Blackboards — black, but not glossy. V. CLEANLINESS The schoolhouse and surroundings should be kept as clean as a good housekeeper keeps her home. (a) No dry sweeping or dry dusting should be allowed. (b) Floors and furniture should be cleaned with damp sweepers and oily cloths.^ (c) Scrubbing, sunning and airing are better than any form of fumigation. VI. DRINKING WATER Drinking water should be available for every pupil at any time of day which does not interfere with the school program. Every rural school should have a sanitary drinking fountain located just inside or outside the schoolhouse entrance. Drinking water should come from a safe source. Its purity should be certified by an examination by the State Board of Health or by some other equally reliable authority. A common drinking cup is always dangerous and should never be tolerated. Individual drinking cups are theoretically, and in some conditions all right, but practical experience has 3.' Sweeping compounds in moist proof containers may be obtained in the market. proved that in schools, individual cups, to be used more than once, are unsatisfactory and unhygienic. Therefore, they are not to be advocated nor approved for any school. Sufficient pressure for running water for drinking fountain or other uses in the rural school may always be provided from any source without excessive expense by a storage tank or by pressure tank with force pump. VII. WATER FOR WASHING Children in all schools should have facilities for washing hands available at least : (a) Always after the use of the toilet. (b) Always before eating. (c) Frequently after playing outdoors, writing on blackboard or doing other forms of handwork con- nected with the school. Individual clean towels should always be used. Paper towels are the cheapest and most practicable. The common towel is as dangerous to health as the common drinking cup. VIII. FURNITURE School seats and desks should be hygienic in type and adjusted at least twice a year to the size and needs of growing children. Seats and desks should be indi- vidual — separate — adjustable — clean. Books and other materials of instruction should not only be sanitary but attractive enough to stimulate a wholesome response from the pupils. IX. TOILETS AND PRIVIES Toilets and privies should be sanitary in location, construction and in maintenance. (a) If water carriage system for sewage is avail- able, separate toilets for boys and girls should be located in the schoolhouse with separate entrances on different sides or corners of the school building. (b) If there is no water carriage system, separate privies should be located at least 50 feet in the differ- ent directions from the schoolhouse, with the entrances well screened. 6 (c) The privy should be rainproof, well ventilated and one of the following types: 1. Dry earth closet. 2. Septic tank container. 3. With a water-tight vault or box. All containers of excreta should be water-tight, thoroughly screened against insects and easily cleaned at frequent intervals. No cesspool should be used unless it is water-tight and easily emptied and cleaned. All excreta should be either burned, buried, treated by subsoil drainage, reduced by septic tank treatment or properly distributed on tilled land as fertilizer. X. ALL SCHOOLHOUSES AND PRIVIES SHOULD BE THOR- OUGHLY AND EFFECTIVELY SCREENED AGAINST FLIES AND MOSQUITOES XI. SCHOOLHOUSES AND OUTHOUSES SHOULD BE ABSO- LUTELY FREE FROM ALL DEFACING AND OBSCENE MARKS XII. BUILDINGS SHOULD BE KEPT IN GOOD REPAIR AND WITH WHOLE WINDOWS STANDARDS Provision and equipment of adequate school plant depends on intelligence, interest, pride and financial ability of community. Maintenance of a clean and sanitary school plant depends on efficient housekeeping and on interest and willing cooperation of pupils. No community should be satisfied by the minimum requirements indicated in the foregoing, but every country school should be so attractive and well equipped as to minister with some abundance of satis- faction to the physical, mental, aesthetic, social and moral well being of those who provide it, who own it, who use it and who enjoy it. PRESENT CONDITIONS Among the reasons which explain the present deplorable conditions of rural schoolhouses, the fol- lowing are prominent ; (a) Low architectural and sanitary standards in rural regions general throughout the country. (b) Ignorance regarding the physical, mental, social and moral effects of unattractive and insanitary school buildings on the children and on the community as a whole. (c) False economy expressed by local school boards in failure to vote enough money to build and maintain suitable school buildings. (d) Lack of supervision or assistance by the state which is usually necessary to maintain desirable stand- ards. IMPROVEMENT How shall the rural schools throughout this country be improved up to a reasonably satisfactory standard? L By a popular campaign of education regarding the conditions desirable and possible in the country school. Such a campaign would profitably include many or most of the following : (a) The United States Bureau of Education and State Departments of Education should furnish plans and instructions for construction and equipment of rural school buildings. The United States Bureau of Education in Wash- ington is already supplying on request valuable help of this kind, and a few state departments of education are demonstrating what may be done by supervision and support which aids without controlling. (b) State departments of education should supply supervision of rural schools and should have power: (1) To condemn insanitary and wholly unsuit- able buildings and school sites. (2) To give state aid to rural schools when the local authorities fulfil certain desirable and reason- able conditions. (c) Ideas and standards of school sanitation should be inculcated in minds of local school patrons and school authorities who control school funds and who administer the affairs of the schools. Public lectures on health topics should be provided in the schoolhouse and elsewhere. (d) Effective school health courses should be intro- duced in normal schools and teachers' institutes. Better education of rural schoolteachers, county supermtendents and rural school supervisors in the principles and practice of school hygiene and sanita- tion should be assured. (e) Interest in and enthusiasm for the improvement and care of all features of the school and its surround- ings which affect health and happiness should be inspired in the minds of rural school pupils. Organizations such as "Pupils' Board of Health," "Civic Leagues," or "Health Militias" may profitably be formed among pupils. (f) Organizations like "The Granges," Women's Clubs, County Medical Societies and other groups so situated that they may further the cause of health and efficiency, should cooperate with the rural school. (g) Attractive but reliable health information should be furnished abundantly by the public press. II. Emulation and competition should be recognized and rewarded in ways that will promote wholesomel}' and progressively the welfare of the community as a whole. . THE SPECIAL PROBLEM THERE ARE IN THE UNITED STATES 20.000,000 SCHOOLCHIL- DREN. OVER 12,000,000 (60 PER CENT.) OF THESE CHILDREN ARE ATTENDING 250,000 RURAL SCHOOLS. THE COUNTRY SCHOOL- HOUSE IS THE WORST, THE MOST INSANITARY AND INADEQUATE TYPE OF BUILDING IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY, INCLUDING NOT ONLY BUILDINGS FOR HUMAN BEINGS, BUT ALSO THOSE USED FOR DOMESTIC ANIMALS. RURAL SCHOOLCHILDREN ARE LESS HEALTHY, AND ARE HANDICAPPED BY MORE PHYSICAL DEFECTS THAN ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE CITIES, INCLUDING EVEN THE CHILDREN OF THE SLUMS. HEALTHFUL AND ATTRACTIVE RURAL SCHOOLS ARE ABSO- LUTELY ESSENTIAL TO THE PHYSICAL, MENTAL, SOCIAL, ECO- NOMIC AND MORAL WELL-BEING OF THE CHILDREN THEMSELVES, AND TO THE LIFE AND WELFARE OF THE NATION AS A WHOLE. COUNTRY SCHOOLCHILDREN SHOULD HAVE AS SANITARY AND ATTRACTIVE SCHOOLS, AND AS INTELLIGENT AND EFFECTIVE HEALTH CARE AS SCHOOLCHILDREN IN THE CITIES. THE HEALTH CARE OF RURAL SCHOOLCHILDREN SHOULD INCLUDE AT LEAST THE FOLLOWING: (A) SCHOOLHOUSES SANITARY AND ATTRACTIVE, WELL VEN- TILATED, LIGHTED, CLEANED, AND EQUIPPED WITHIN AND WITH- OUT WITH THE HEALTH ESSENTIALS ENUMERATED ON THE FOLLOWING PAGE. (B) TEACHERS BETTER TRAINED AND BETTER PAID TO DO THEIR LOGICAL AND FULL SHARE IN CARRYING OUT A HEALTH PROGRAM. (C) HEALTH EXAMINATIONS. INCLUDING DENTAL INSPECTION, ONCE A YEAR. (D) FOLLOW-UP HEALTH WORK BY DISTRICT AND SCHOOL NURSES. (E) HEALTH CARE IN THE SCHOOL, INCLUDING HEALTH INSTRUCTION, WARM SCHOOL LUNCHES, TOOTH BRUSH DRILLS AND INCULCATION OF ALL HEALTH HABITS. (F) PROVISION FOR REMOVAL OF INJURIOUS PHYSICAL DEFECTS BY DENTAL CLINICS. HEALTH CLINICS. ETC. (G) COOPERATION OF ALL AVAILABLE INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE PROMOTION OF HEALTH AND WELFARE OF COUNTRY SCHOOLCHILDREN. COUNTRY CHILDREN DESERVE AS MUCH HEALTH AND HAPPI- NESS AS CITY CHILDREN. COUNTRY CHILDREN ARE ENTITLED TO AS CAREFUL CULTIVA- TION AS LIVE STOCK AND CROPS. 020 975 931 7 TEN SANITARY COMMANDMENTS FOR RURAL SCHOOLS In every school which may be considered passably sanitary the following conditions shall obtain: 1. Heating by at least a properly jacketed stove. (No unjacketed stove to be allowed.) Avoid overheating. Tem- perature should never go above 68 F. There should be a thermometer in every schoolroom. Ventilation by open windows when weather permits and by opening of windows at frequent intervals even in winter. 2. Lighting from left side of room (or from left and rear) through window space at least one-fifth of floor space in area. 3. Cleanliness of school as good as in the home of a care- ful housekeeper. 4. Furniture sanitary in kind, and easily and frequently cleaned. Seats and desks adjustable and hygienic in type. 5. Drinking water from a pure source provided by a sani- tary drinking fountain. 6. Facilities for washing hands, and individual towels. 7. Toilets and privies sanitary in type and in care (with no cesspools unless water tight) and no neglected privy boxes or vaults. 8. Flies and mosquitoes excluded by thorough screening of schoolhouse and toilets. 9. Obscene and defacing marks absolutely absent from schoolhouse and privies. 10. Playground of adequate size for every rural school. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 020 975 931 7<