whereas applications for situations as public School Teachers to individual Trustees on private and personal grounds has been and is becoming a nuisance therefore resolved that at this and future Annual and Special Meetings of Stanley Bridge District the Trustees are requested to submit the names of all applicants to the Annual or Special Meetings which shall then be balloted for by the ratepayers present and only thoes (sic.) having a clear majority shall be recommended to the Trustees as the ones they shall employ in the Stanley Bridge District

This resolution would not likely solve the situation of hiring a qualified teacher, but it did give those who attended an Annual meeting the feeling of participation in the education of their chil—

dren. This same policy was carried on for many years in most of the schools on Prince Edward Island.

Supplements for teachers were kept to a minimum for many years and on two occasions a vote for supplements was defeated. According to Government policy, the District was to pay 1/3 of the teacher’s salary. With a supplement of $10.00, a teacher would receive a total of $30.00 a year. Compare this salary with the Secretary of the local Dairying Company, who received $80.00 in 1895, and the Secretary of Trustees’ who received $16.93, the commission on $163.93. Doesn’t the teacher’s salary appear to be incredible? Teacher’s supplements remained very low until after the First World War when they jumped to $200.00 a year. In 1919 the records show that on motion of Dr. J .E. Fleming the sum of $200.00 was voted for one good teacher for the District for the

year, and if the Superintendent sees fit to give us a second good Teacher, we will get permission to have a meeting and vote another supplement

For this year the Department of Education did grant a second teacher for the school. However when a special meeting was called, the idea of more supplement was evidently forgotten, as the first teacher lost some of the supplement to the second teacher. The minutes of the August 5, 1919, meeting reads as follows:

the sum of $50.00 be voted for an Assistant Teacher . . .(second motion)

that $50.00 of the $200.00 voted at the Annual Meeting for a teacher for Stanley School, be used as supplement for the Assistant Teacher

The second motion evidently carried so the Assistant was still receiving only $50.00. The jani— tor was the best “looked after person” in the District’s employ because at this same meeting his salary was raised from $60.00 to $130.00 with the coal being paid for out of this total. The total cost amounted from $40.00 to $50.00 for the year.

Salaries became legislated in 1923 when the minimum salary was required to be $25.00. Since all those voting at the Annual Meetings were men, a motion made by one resident showed the views of the average person when it came to hiring female teachers. Here the record states that it was moved and seconded: “the sum of $150.00 was voted for a competent male teacher or the sum of $100.00 for a female”. This same inequality existed in wages for teachers, until an agreement was signed between the PEITF and the Department of Education in the mid-1950’s.

At this time all were required to be paid on the equality basis.

In the late 1920’s efforts were made to improve the working conditions in the local school. The women began attending meetings and insisting that the Trustees see that improvements were made. Areas of interest were in health, stoves for warmth, new floors, water fountains, paint— ings, classroom equipment, etc., (e.g. maps, Library books, Science kits, sandtables, boot racks

and gym equipment)

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