Transcript

File: quinnmerlin06-oh-schoolcommittees_M.mp3

Speakers:

MQ – Merlin Quinn

CW – Carl Webster

KP – Curator Ken Perlman

KP: Who exactly – Every community had its school dances and some had church benefits. Who actually organized those?

CW: For the schools it would be the trustees. They hired the teacher and they had the running of the one room school houses.

MQ: There'd be three trustees

CW: There’d be three trustees.

KP: So every school district had three trustees?

CW: Pretty well.

MQ: And there was also the girl or the woman, sometimes it’d be a man, who would take care of the money end, what did they call it?

CW: Secretary?

CW: A secretary. Besides the trustees there was a secretary that took charge of the paperwork.

KP: So every little district across PEI had three trustees and a secretary?

MQ: Yeah. They were appointed at the school meeting. When school closed at the end of the year, there’d always be school meetings to make decisions on stuff, and trustees were generally appointed for three years I think. And then they could reassign them, and somebody else could be – Different years there’d be one person had wanted to be reassigned, so they’d have to appoint another one. Some of them, three years they’d pack out; there’d be somebody else appointed in their place. Same thing with the secretary. The secretary might do it for six years. There’s quite a lot of work to it, eh. So if they got tired of it, they’d just announce that they’d like if you appoint somebody else for three years. So that’s the way pretty well that went.

KP: And was there any salary attached to this, or was this purely voluntary?

MQ: The trustees didn’t get any money. I’m not sure about the secretary whether she got any money or not. It wouldn’t be much anyway, no.

Bystander: The teachers didn't get much either.

CW: No the teachers didn’t get much. Different now, eh.