The last decades of the l9th century brought many changes in School District 1. The Congress Street School held 280 students in 1881. George C. Hall, the new principal, introduced educational innovations. Three divisions of the school were created: a primary department of four grades, a grammar school of four grades, and a three-year high school department. Boys and girls were educated in the same classrooms, but they exercised in separate yards. At one point, parents of 75 percent of the children withdrew them from the school in protest of such mixing of the genders, but Hall persisted in the grouping until it became a usual and accepted practice.

The major construction project at the start of the decade was a new school. By 1884 the Military Plaza School, a 2-story, 1 2-room brick building, was completed near Armory Park, where the present Safford Magnet Middle School is now located. Parents expressed concerns that children might be subject to Apache raids as open desert was to the east and south of the new school. (Geronimo was not captured until 1886.)⁵ The school was intended from the start to be named for Gov. Anson P. K. Safford, but it was 1904 before the name was formally applied. Meanwhile, the school was known variously as "the Plaza School," "the brick school," or "the new school."

Early curriculum
The school board hired the first music teacher at $50 a month, but she lasted only a year, being dismissed along with the Spanish teacher. The school board decided that music and Spanish were not considered necessary. By fall 1886, elective courses were added to the high school curriculum. Students were required to choose three from English Literature, Universal History, Latin, Bookkeeping, Commercial Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and Natural Philosophy; all were taught by three male teachers.

A kindergarten class, and the "study of the nature of alcoholic drinks and narcotics and their effect on the human system" were introduced in 1886. District enrollment figures in 1887-88 showed 21 high school students, 117 grammar school students, 107 intermediate pupils, and 283 primary students for a total of 528. Ten teachers served this population. A policy was introduced the next year limiting each teacher’s class roll to 40 pupils. The high school boasted a "new laboratory, reading room, and library."

Even in the early years of the school district, student conduct was a concern. Notes from the Tucson Public School--Discipline Book of 1887 mention small incidents such as throwing stones, insolence toward the teacher, and taking screws out of the ink well. An October 7, 1887 notation reveals that "Zoe Knapp told Myra Drachman that Clara Fish and Ann Sanford were speaking disrespectfully of some girls."⁶ (Clara Fish would later be elected to the school board.) However, in the 1890s several teachers were being charged with excessive punishment by parents. In 1894, the school board responded to criticism with the statement that there was "less viciousness and the standards of morality [were] higher at the present time that it has ever been in the history of the public schools."⁷ In 1899 a student was whipped for having "told the teacher to close her face."⁸

Salaries in 1888 were $65 a month for primary teachers and $75 per month for grammar school teachers. However, since the janitor was paid $70 a month, it was necessary to raise the primary teachers’ pay by $5 per month. The first part-time librarian was hired in 1890 at $5 a month, and the first woman janitor was hired in 1893.

New schools
1887 saw the annexation of the Old Adobe School, which was then closed. This structure, also known as "The Little Adobe High School," was located near where the Morrow Education Center now stands on 10th Street and Park. The building was not demolished, however, and was opened and closed twice more in the following years as school population shifted.

On December 21, 1888, the board decided to open a Ward School in the Barrio Libre. The exact location is not known, but it was in a building rented for $150 a year. Miss Lizzie Borton was transferred from Safford Middle Magnet School to the Ward School #2, as it was designated, to serve as teacher. In 1891, Superintendent Charles Tully reported that the attendance at the Ward School in Barrio Libre was half of that in former years, caused by parents moving their families elsewhere in the territory. The school was discontinued as a result. Miss Borton returned to the Safford School. The Congress Street School also continued in operation.

The end of the century
At the start of 1890-91, "a total of 365 students enrolled: 43 percent Mexican, 19 percent Mexican and Anglo, and 38 percent American.⁹" The year 1891 saw School District 1 lose its first school bond election, a $10,000 proposal. The opening of the University of Arizona in 1891 resulted in a loss of high school students to the university preparatory program. By 1896, the high school department closed, as there were not enough students. Two years later, the public voted against a special tax election for $4,000. As a result the schools closed two months early. The first school district budget was prepared in the summer of 1898, when the Clerk of the School Board notified the County School Superintendent that the estimated school district expenses for the 1898-99 school year would be $13,500.

Compulsory school attendance was legislated in 1899 for children between the ages of 8 and 14. Exceptions included parents who were unable to purchase suitable clothing for the child, physical or mental incompetence of the child, or residence farther than 2.5 miles away from school. Also excused were children taught at home. A school canvass revealed that 471 children of the proper ages were not attending school in Tucson District 1. The Old Adobe School had to be reopened to serve the expected increase in school population, but was closed again in 1900.

A complete course of studies for all grades of the district was produced during the 1890s, written by a school committee composed of Superintendent W. C. Bowman, Miss Lizzie Borton and Mrs. Frances J. Warren.

For the first time, in 1899, formal commencement exercises were held for graduating classes in rented facilities at the Tucson Opera House.

Administrative turmoil
Board-administration troubles were also evident in the decade of the ’90s. Superintendent W. W. Gillette, in trouble for condoning excessive punishment by teachers, discovered to his surprise that he would not be paid during the months of July and August. The next superintendent, W. C. Bowman, signed a contract which gave the board the right to "dispense with his services whenever the school funds of the district should be insufficient to pay said salary" of $125 a month. The contract was clear that he served month-to-month at the option of the board only when school was open.

Nine superintendents served in the 1890s, with six serving between 1895 and 1896. Miss Lizzie Borton was the first woman to be appointed superintendent in 1895, but resigned a month later because of ill health. Although she was succeeded by Mrs. Frances Jane Warren, one board member objected to "the election of any lady to fill the responsible positions of principal of the schools of this District on the grounds that the duties and responsibilities of the position are too arduous to be properly fulfilled by a lady teacher and the schools will suffer."¹⁰

Prior to 1895, the local newspapers had expressed pride in the schools. But in March, 1895, the Daily Citizen editorialized that "great wrongs had been perpetrated and the dear public have been made to foot the bill." However, no evidence exists in the financial accountings of the period to substantiate the opinion.

Working conditions
A significant teacher employment clause was passed by the board in 1890: Teachers could not be dismissed other than for "good and sufficient cause "except" provided for want of funds to maintain said schools shall be deemed a good and sufficient cause." A year later, the board declared that dismissal was possible for unsatisfactory teaching methods, and for "failure to exercise diligence in the preservation of school buildings, grounds, furniture, apparatus, and other school property.¹¹"

In December, 1892, the usual one-week Christmas vacation extended to two weeks to enable teachers to attend the "Teachers Institute" in Phoenix. This practice continued for many years, and was the forerunner of granting teachers time off to attend the annual teachers’ convention. State aid payments based on average daily attendance were established by the territorial legislature in 1895. Meanwhile, in 1898, teachers were required to present medical certificates stating they were free from tuberculosis or any infectious or contagious disease.

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Notes

⁵Ida Flood Dodge, Incidents and Thoughts Concerning the Origin and Early History of Safford Junior High (Unpublished manuscript, May, 1943). "Beyond the new building to the east and the south was open desert. From that same direction had come Tucson's Apache raids. For many years the Santa Ritas had been the rendezvous of the Chiricahuas when they left their home grounds farther to the east and went trouble hunting. No protection stood between Tucson's youth and Tucson's inherited foe."

⁶Cooper, p. 22-23.

⁷Cooper, p. 28.

⁸Cooper, p. 31.

⁹Cooper, p. 27.

^1OCooper, p. 30.

¹¹Cooper, p. 28.

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