Is there such an officer today as the County Superintendent Of Schools? Perhaps the office was phased out with the closing of last country school. The main character in a short story, which I just read, set in Nebraska in the early 1900s, was such a superintendent. Reading it brought back a memory for me.
For eight years I was a student in a country school. While the teacher of the school was hired by a local school board the teacher was supervised by the County Superintendent. During my years of country school the Brookings County Superintendent of Schools was Miss Van Maanan (spelling iffy since I never saw her name in print.) Our little school house had three windows on the east and on the west. There were no windows on the long ends, north and south. On the south there was enclosed porch where coats, overshoes and lunches were kept. (On the coldest days lunches would freeze by noon.) The school was near an east-west road. The road to the west ran over a long flat field. To the east there was slight incline leading down to the school. This geography is significant to the story.
Miss Van Maanan (I never heard her first name) would approach the school from the east. Cars were not easily observable from the building unless one stood and looked out the window. As she approached the school she would turn off her engine and coast quietly into the school yard parking where her car could not be seen from inside the school. She would quietly exit her can and equally quietly enter the porch. There, surreptitiously, she would listen to what was happening in the school room. How long she listened before entering the room I don't know. In effect she was spying on the teacher.
She was a tall Dutch woman dressed in dark, old fashioned clothing. She would talk to the teacher and address the students. Likely her observations would by recorded in the teacher's file in the Superintendent's office. She never struck me as women on whose lap I would like to sit! 😃
Takk for alt,
Al
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