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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NESHAMINY SCHOOL DISTRICT EDWARD E. TERMYNA III Fall 2010 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Secondary Education with honors in Secondary Education Reviewed and approved* by the following: David A. Gamson Associate Professor of Education Thesis supervisor Scott A. Metzger Assistant Professor of Education Honors adviser * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College i ABSTRACT The Neshaminy School District is a school district to the northeast of the city of Philadelphia. The School District was formed in 1950 from the consolidation of six other local districts, including Middletown Township, Langhorne Borough, Langhorne Manor Borough, Hulmeville Borough, Penndel Borough and Lower Southampton Township. The process of consolidation was slow as these districts joined together one by one, with the hope of better schools for their students. The process began in 1922 when Middletown Township and Langhorne Borough constructed a joint board agreement, and ended in 1950 when the last of the school districts, Lower Southampton Township, joined the joint board agreement. The process of consolidation in the Neshaminy area was aided by a few trends, with the most significant being the public’s interest in better high school facilities. Langhorne- Middletown High School, the only high school in the area, was largely inadequate from the 1930’s up until the 1950’s. The public wanted better facilities for their students, and in order for the districts to afford this, consolidation was necessary since none of the districts could afford to finance building projects on their own. Another major influence was state and national trends for school district consolidation. As more and more students enrolled and finished high school after WWI, the curriculum and the needs in schools changed. Schools needed to consolidate in order to provide the high school facilities in this new era of schooling. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruction was a major influence in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It set regulations for schools and pushed for school consolidation throughout the state. Its influence was seen throughout the history of consolidation in the Neshaminy area. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES………………………………...………………………………………………iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………...……..iv PREFACE……………………………………………………………………………….…...…….1 Chapter 1 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...……3 Chapter 2 Early Consolidation and Deficienceis in Langhorne Middletown High School.............4 Chapter 3 Changing Scope of Education + School Consolidation Movement……………….….11 Chapter 4 Trends in General School Board Policies in Langhorne-Middletown Area from 1945- 1950………………………………………………………………………………………14 Chapter 5 Report and Recommendations on the Secondary School……………………….…….19 Chapter 6 The Pennsylvania Economy League’s Report………………………………….……..27 Chapter 7 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………...37 References…………………………………………………………………….…………………..43 iii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Population Trends Shown by Federal Census Reports……………………………...…..39 Table 2: Number of Live Births and Rates per Thousand of Total Population By Place of Residence in Rural Bucks County, 1937 to 1944. ………………………….……………40 Table 4: Children of School Age Over 10-Year Period (Ages 6 to 16 Inclusive) As Shown By School Census Reports……………………………………………………………….….41 Table 12: School Plant Evaluation Scores on Seven Major Items of the League’s Score Card….42 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my thesis adviser Dr. David A Gamson for his guidance and support throughout the course of my research. His patience and expertise in this area were undoubtedly essential to me finishing this project. Without his supervision, this would have been impossible. I would also like to thank my honors adviser Dr. Scott A Metzger. Dr. Metzger was a huge help in getting me to focus my ideas into a workable thesis, and for helping me get in contact with Dr. Gamson. I would also like to thank the Neshaminy School District’s Administrative offices for their help, especially Superintendent Dr. Louis T. Muenker, Mr. Paradise, Edna Hennelly and Debby Spadaccino. They took time to meet with me, opened up their offices for me to do research, and went out of their way to locate old school board minutes and other historic documents that had not been touched in years. Above all I’d like to thank my lord and savior Jesus Christ, for life beyond the grave and for keeping me sane throughout the rigor of this process. 1 PREFACE For the past few years I have spent a fair amount of leisure time looking through historic material on my hometown of Langhorne, Pennsylvania. The Historic Langhorne Association (HLA) is the local historic society, housed in the Anna Mary Williamson library in Langhorne borough. The HLA has a website which is filled with photos from ―back in time‖. It was there that I came across numerous photos of old sites, including schools in the area that no longer exist. At one point I came across a picture of the original Langhorne-Middletown High School, which peaked my interest. As a Secondary Education major, I have a deep interest in all things school related, especially history. In 2006 I graduated from the local public school, Neshaminy High School, which is the only high school in the Neshaminy School District. After seeing the photo of Langhorne High School, which no longer serves as a school, I began to wonder, when did Neshaminy become Neshaminy? I remember when I was in high school seeing plaques that showed the high school having been built in 1953, but I wanted to know why this school was constructed. I knew that Langhorne’s neighboring town, Levittown, was built right around the same time that Neshaminy High School was built; naturally, I thought there was a correlation. During its building from 1951 to 1957, Levittown was the largest planned suburban community in the United States (Levittowners). Levittown was built in three different townships and three different school districts, including the Neshaminy School District, where 4,562 Levittown homes were built. One of the most intriguing facts about Levittown was the rapid pace at which it was built. Six thousand men were employed on the project, building 17,311 houses, 177 miles of streets, five Olympic-size pools and two shopping centers. By the summer of 1952, one complete house was produced every 12 minutes and 500 families were moving in every month (Mullane 1A). I 2 began to wonder what effect Levittown’s building had on the creation of the district and the building of its new high school. The Neshaminy School District itself was not actually a creation, but rather a consolidation of the six small rural school districts within the area. My thought was that with the increase of families, the three school districts within Levittown’s boundaries (Pennsbury, Neshaminy and Bristol Township), probably came under enormous stress with an influx of new students. I was certain that there was a direct correlation between the building of Levittown and the creation of Neshaminy School District, and its new high school building. My guess was that with the hurried influx of families, the numbers of students exhausted the available space at Langhorne-Middletown High School. However, when I began to do my research, I found no evidence to back up my assumption. In fact, two years before Levittown’s building, an outside agency did a comprehensive analysis of the six school districts within the Neshaminy area, with the purpose of improving the educational facilities, consolidating the districts into one and building a new high school. The report predicted new home development in the area, but not in the 550 acres of farmland that would become Levittown. That area was completely overlooked as an area of home development, though it ended up being the area of largest growth. The area being overlooked showed that the forces that were pushing for school district consolidation in the Neshaminy area had no idea that Levittown was about to be built, and, as a result, did not have a direct effect on the consolidation movement. It also throws out my hypothesis that Levittown’s building was the primary reason for the consolidation of the six rural school districts; it was not a reason for it at all. The next six chapters reveal the true reasons for consolidation in the Neshaminy area where public demand for better educational facilities, population trends and sufficient school buildings, with state and national movements paving the way. 3 Chapter 1 Introduction The truth is that school district consolidation was a slow process. The Neshaminy School District was originally six small rural school districts including Middletown Township, Langhorne Borough, Langhorne Manor, Penndel Borough, Hulmeville Borough and Lower Southampton Township. It took 28 years from 1922 to 1950 to consolidate these six school districts into one larger district. The process was guided by historical changes in the purpose of education, rising costs to meet these changes, national and state movements for consolidation, public interest in the quality of education and, most importantly, building shortcomings. By the late 1940’s, reformers began to say that there were too many school districts of too small a size. This was problematic. It was expensive to operate such

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