EDUCATION THROUGH THE YEARS


In the nation's bicentennial year, 1976, most of Burnsville's youth attend school in Independent School District 191. The district serves 11.000 students in 12 schools, employs 580 teachers, has a total staff of 925 and has a monthly payroll in excess of $1,000,000. Not so very long ago, however, schools in this area were very different. Grades one through eight were taught in one room my one teacher. The teacher doubled as janitor, stoked the fire and received perhaps $50 per month for her labors. The "school bus" was usually the family horse. Students carried in the daily water needs, restroom facilities were outside and corporal punishment was not unheard of.

Previous to 1955, students in what is now District 191 were served primarily by four school districts: #104 in Eagan; #15 in the eastern part of Burnsville; #16 in the western part of Burnsville; and #67 in the Savage area.

Local schools began in the pioneer days. The first recorded school in Burnsville was conducted in the house of John McCoy by John McMullen in 1856. A log school building was constructed on McCoy's farm (near the present Vista View School) the following year, with Andrew Carberry serving as the teacher. That same year, 1857, marked the formal organization of the entire town of Burnsville into one school district. The school officially became District 16 in 1862, by action of the Minnesota Legislature. In 1867 a new school building, costing $250, was erected on the farm of C. O'Neil, at what is now the northeast corner of Burnsville Parkway and Upton Avenue. A replacement building was constructed on the same site after the turn of the century and that school served District 16 until the consolidation in 1955. It still exists today as a private residence on Early Lake.

The first school house in District 15 was built in 1862 on land donated by a Thomas Hogan. The property later became known as the Connelly farm and is today the site of the Pates memorial stadium at Burnsville High School. A larger school, measuring all of 28 x 22 was built in 1879. The district built another new school at the same site in 1914.

One fateful night in October of 1932, both the District 15 school and that of District 104 in Eagan, burned to the ground. Both fires sere suspected to be the work of arsonists. There is speculation that the two schools were put to the torch in an effort to create jobs in that year of the Great Depression. (The District 17 school at Cedar Avenue and County 42 shared an identical fate less than a month later.)

Jim Connelly, a member of the Board of Education then, recalls that they received 30 bids for the construction of a new school. A new building was constructed in 1933 for $3,200 by Bill Ristoe, assisted by Ed Doebel. Carpenters on the received 65 cents per hour for their labor. Because of the depressed economy, five years passed before the district had free access to its money. Teachers during that time were sometimes given promissory notes for their services.

The District 104 school in Eagan was begun sometime after 1880 and was located south of Highway 13 between Beau d'Rue and Old Rahn Roads. The Old Black Dog School, as it was then called, was destroyed by fire in October of 1932. While a new building was being constructed, students attended classes in the Beaudette Hall, a dance hall located on the second floor of the present Shattuck Dairy at Highway 13 and Cedar Avenue.

The Savage School, District 67, was also in operation in the 1880's. The original frame building is still in use today as a private residence on the east side of Walnut Street, across from St. John the Baptist School. A two-story brick school was built in 1906, also on Walnut but further north, and served the district until the first section of Savage Elementary School opened in 1950. The brick school was torn down in 1958. Although Savage students traditionally attended high school in Shakopee, there was a 7-student high school in operation in Savage for one year in 1924.

A small portion of old Scott County District #57 eventually became part of District 191. Until its closing in 1943, students in that area attended the McColl school located at the southeast corner of Highway 13 and county 16.

District 94 served the southern part of Burnsville from about the turn of the century until its merger with Rosemount District 196 in 1950. The families sending students to the school, located at County Roads 42 and 11, chose Rosemount because it was closer. The meandering boundaries of District 191 are, in many cases, the result of the personal preference of the pioneer families.

The one-room schools served all students in grades one through eight, with probably not more than 35 children at one time. Before the passage of mandatory school attendance laws, and because local farmers needed their children to labor in the fields, many students, especially boys, would only attend school from November through March. This resulted in quite a few 18 or 19 year old, tobacco- chewing grade school children. The pioneer families of Burnsville have given us this picture of school life around 1905:

The teacher, Lydia McDonald, traveled 6 miles by horse and buggy from Apple Valley, to her job in the District 15 school. After tying up her horse att Will Connelly's farm (the Burnsville Bowl), she would walk to work and start the fire in a pot-bellied stove. (Fire-starting and janitorial work were the teacher's responsibility.) It was not unusual for a student to bring lunch in a syrup pail, place it on top of the stove and then gleefully wait for the top to blow off something during the morning lessons.

Students were subject to spanking with a broomstick for infractions of the rules and were forced to sign a "declaration of independence" which gave the teacher the right to administer such spankings. The daily supply of water was carried in by suspending a bucket of water on a pole carried by two students. Half of the water usually managed to slosh out of t he bucket before reaching the school. There was no indoor plumbing. On Fridays, either the priest or the teach would teach religion, with the few non-Catholic students being excused from this activity. Basket socials were used as fund- raisers for the operation of the school, with baskets fetching $10 to $15 each.


Transportation to school was provided by the students' families and mainly consisted of horse and foot-power. Sleighs were popular in winter.

For education beyond the eighth grade, students cold attend high school in Rosemount or Bloomington. Most attended private secondary schools in St. Paul, if they went at all.

By the 1930‘s heat was provided by a wood stove and there was an indoor chemical toilet. But water still had to be hauled to school in 5-gallon cans from the Einar Hanson ranch, a milk bottling dairy across from the entrance to the present high school. Horses were still the main means of transportation to school. One lad would ride his horse to school, the animal being trained to return home alone.

Student reaction to life in such schools, except for the spankings, seems to be very positive. Students were grouped according to ability and the divisions between grades, as such, were blurred. Students helped each other with their work and they could learn at their own pace. Skipping grades was fairly frequent and there were some who then graduated at age 12. Each grade had its own highly treasured shelf of library books.

Annual events such as the Christmas and Valentine Day celebrations were big community events, as were the annual visit of the County Superintendent of Schools.

Teachers, too, had memories of those days. Evelyn Skalman, the last teacher in District #16, recalls: "I had the privilege of teaching in Burnsville before the present schools were built. I had approximately 22 children...all eight grades. It seems hard to realize now how we had time for all the classes. There were usually about 10 minutes reserved for each class; we would group we would group several grades for special units. This would give more time for discussions. Classes were naturally very small, two or three in each, so everyone received some individual help. When the older children finished their work they could help the smaller ones in many."

Requirements varied, depending on which two "grades" of teaching certificates one sought. A first grade certificate required attending one year of normal school (comparable to one year of college). The certificate had to be renewed every five years and usually resulted in more pay for the teacher. A second grade certificate could be obtained by someone with a good 8th grade education.

Fro teaching and housekeeping chores, District #94 paid its teacher $30 per month for eight months, in the year 1901. In 1914 it was $50 per month and by 1923 up to $90 per month. The annual pay for a beginning teacher in District #191 today is $9,310.

Until the early 1950's, there was little impetus for changing the status of the local school districts. In 1954 there was some growth occurring in #104 and #16 due to new housing development. But District #15 was the richest school district in Minnesota. It contained a gold mine...a #3,400,000 (and growing) treasure of assessed valuation known as the Black Dog Plant (NSP). Nearby communities were casting long, meaningful glances in its direction and plans were afoot to petition the annexation of the tiny but rich district. Considering both this threat and plans for a great deal of residential growth the following year, it became mutually advantageous for the three districts to merge. Petitions for #16 and #104 requesting dissolution were presented to the Boards of Dakota and Scott Counties on December 14, 1954. On January 4, 1955, the Dakota County County Board agreed to the dissolutions and attached the districts to District #15. Scott County action followed soon after. On February 14 the voters of the new District voted to become an independent school district, containing a total of 70 students.

On February 28, the citizens elected the first six member Board of Education. Pat Connelly was chairman, James Kelleher, clerk, Joe Adelman, treasurer, Eleanor Caspersen, Rose Kyllo and Herbert Lundberg were members. John Metcalf was selected as the Districts' first Superintendent and assumed this position on April 23, 1955.

In May of that year, district voters approved acquiring 40 acres of land west of the District #15 school for a new elementary school. During the ‘55-'56 school year, the district operated with 4 one- room schools, including one in a private residence in the Vista Views area. The Burnsville School, part of the present high school, would open in 1956.

Meanwhile discussions and meeting were underway which eventually would bring about the merger of District #15 and Savage District #67. Superintendent Metcalf, arguing for the merger, noted that both had enough students to operate elementary schools alone, but that they needed each other to operate a high school and to get away from the high county tuition tax both districts paid for the education of the high school students. He said, "If the two schools combine we will have a sufficient number of students in high school to offer an enriched program to our children without being in any way extravagant. This is an important point. We would have our own students at home, in our own school busses, in our own school building where can offer to them all the courses we consider necessary for a well rounded education."

The voters approved, and on August 7, 1956, Savage #67 and Burnsville #15 merged.

In 1956-57 there were 310 elementary students and 103 secondary students. The 1957 graduating class (the combined district's first) numbered 3 students. In October of 1957 the District officially became known as #191. The community was on the move and so was the school district. Through the years the district has grown in population, area, and number of schools, and, not surprisingly, in costs. In 1957 district #15 spent a total of $868,458. During fiscal ‘75-76 District #191 spent more than #18,000,000.

A long-time area resident recently speculated on where the school community had come from and where it was going in Burnsville. "It is interesting," he said, "how today's educators talk about indivualized instruction, "open schools", the non-graded approach, grouping and such. Why, we had that in our one-room school when I was a boy."

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Hilda Kehl