Jan is a columnist for us in The Capistrano Dispatch and penned this piece.
JAN SIEGEL: A Moment in Time
Capistrano Schools, through the Years
The city is still celebrating 50 years of incorporation. As school starts it is a good opportunity to look back on the San Juan Capistrano School District and see how it started, and where it is today.
The earliest records of a school system in this area date from 1854. Don Juan Avila and Don Juan Forster served on that first school board. The first San Juan Capistrano School District covered a very large area. It served 193 school age children from what is now lower Los Angeles County to San Diego and from the ocean to parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Only 27 of the school age children were close enough to attend school.
The first school was a one room adobe building. There were no books. Rustic tables were used for desks. The State code had set the school year for three months. Total cost for running the school for the year was $60.
The first teacher was T.J. Scully, who was a highly educated person. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and as a young man immigrated to Canada where he received his teacher’s certificate at the Toronto Normal School. Because of the erratic school year, he was able to teach in both the newly formed Santa Ana School District from 1855 to 1859 and the San Juan District. According to Pam Gibson, in her book, Two Hundred Years In San Juan Capistrano, Sully was paid $100.00 for three months of teaching. In 1855 when Santa Ana’s school opened his pay was reduced to $75.00 because he was also teaching in Santa Ana. In 1860, he became clerk of the Santa Ana School Board, married and settled for the rest of his life in Santa Ana.
Teachers were hard to find in those early years and most of them were also poorly trained. Teachers were mostly men, and few of them had little interest in teaching as a career. School years were flexible in duration, lasting as long the money lasted.
In 1860, the first County Board of Examiners was formed, predecessor to the Board of Education. Examination of the teacher and issuance of a certificate before he or she was accepted to teach became standard practice. As recounted in the May 25,1961 Coastline newspaper, in 1863, the first county teachers’ institute was held. “From this point on, teachers took more of an interest in their profession, learned from each other’s experiences and profited from expert guidance and encouragement.”
The first purchase of a piece of land for the specific use of a school was in San Juan Capistrano in 1867. The land value was assessed at $14. The school year was now four months long, but there was still no division of grades. The attendance had risen to 47 students and the cost for the year was now $331.96.
California state textbooks were introduced in 1871. For the first time in the history of the school system, a uniform code of education was established in the state.
The school year was now six months long and 56 students were enrolled in the Capistrano School District.
With the formation of Orange County in 1889 other school districts were being formed in the new county. By 1900 most schools recognized separate grades. Very few of the districts, including San Juan Capistrano had high schools. The ninth grade usually finished the education of students. If children went on to high school they had to go to Santa Ana.
Most children went to work, but a few were accepted in normal schools. The students took the county exams for graduation from ninth grade. “If they passed, the graduating exercises were the high point of their lives.”
In 1919 the Capistrano Union High School District was founded. Pam Gibson recorded that “the first trustees were C.E. Crumnine, J. S. Landell, Guy Williams, C. Russell Cook and Mae Forster. Sixteen students were housed in a temporary building which opened September 13, 1920. John S. Malcolm was principal. The curriculum included English, Latin 1, mathematics, Spanish, history and athletics. The first graduates in 1923 were Lucana Forster Isch and Marian Barnes.”
The San Juan Elementary school building was built in 1910. At that time the district had 125 children within its boundaries and 101 were enrolled in the school. “An average daily attendance of 61 students was maintained.” The school year was now 178 1/2 days and the property was valued at $4,250.
Today the school year is 180 days. The district population is 53,000 students. The 2010 budget was $429.2 million dollars. There are now 34 elementary schools in the district, two K-8 schools, 10 middle schools and six high schools, two exceptional needs schools, 1 independent study and 1 alternative school.
As schools open take a Moment In Time to reflect on the history of education in San Juan Capistrano, realize how much we have grown, and how fortunate we are to still have the site of the first school in Orange County on El Camino Real.
Jan Siegel is a member of the Cultural Heritage Commission whose name appears on the city’s Wall of Recognition.
Great story! Thanks!
Posted by: A friend | September 09, 2011 at 05:50 PM