York City School District history

After 1825 the renamed Public School Society received all the city's state school aid.

For example, in a number of cases the Superintendents of Common Schools, starting in 1837, barred sectarian religious exercises in public schools.

State-sponsored historical research began in 1839, when an agent transcribed documents in European archives, which were later translated and edited by Edmund B. O'Callaghan.

Attendance figures were used to calculate all or part of Regents' aid to private academies starting in 1847.

An 1849 statute provided for a combination of state and local funding for tuition-free common schools, if the voters approved; and voters endorsed the free school law in two successive statewide referenda.

A general law of 1853 standardized Regents chartering of academies, colleges, and universities.

In 1854 the Legislature created a Department of Public Instruction, headed by a Superintendent elected jointly by the Senate and Assembly for a three-year renewable term.

The School Commissioners began approving school building projects in union free districts in 1864.

Average daily attendance was used to compute part of general school aid starting 1866, in the hope of encouraging attendance.

Hough, Franklin B. Historical and Statistical Record of the University of the State of New York during the Century from 1784 to 1884.

Starting in 1886 the Department of Public Instruction loaned glass lantern slides to teacher training institutions, school districts, and adult learning groups.

See footnote 13 State-funded, tuition-free, one-year training classes for rural school teachers were offered in selected rural high schools starting in 1889.

Starting in 1890 the Secretary (then the redoubtable Melvil Dewey, also head of the State Library) supervised full-time inspectors of secondary schools, libraries, colleges, and other institutions reporting to the Regents.

Growing public concern about child labor in factories and sweatshops helped persuade the Legislature to pass a strong compulsory attendance law in 1894.

The state minimum legal standards for teacher training and certification applied to city school districts starting 1897, and most smaller cities used the state teacher examinations.

After consolidation of the City of Greater New York (1898), the city rapidly established a public high school system throughout the five boroughs.

Starting in 1904 a division (later bureau) of statistics manually collected and tabulated data on school district enrollments and finances, and used the data to calculate state aid.

Lincoln, Charles Z. The Constitutional History of New York from the Beginning of the colonial Period to the Year 1905 . . ., 5 vols.

After 1906 Regents exams were not offered in first- and second-year language courses.

Starting in 1910 private trade schools were required to be licensed and inspected.

__________. Souvenir of the Dedication of the New York State Education Building, Albany, October 15, 16, 17, 1912.

After Draper's death in 1913, a rewriting of the Regents rules by Regent Pliny T. Sexton tended to make the University the primary administrative unit.

In 1917 the Legislature abolished all the thousands of common school districts and formed them into "township units." Because there was no equalizing formula, school taxes shot up, taxpayers protested, and a year later the township system was abandoned.

After 1918 technical high schools, offering a more academic curriculum, were established in the largest cities.

While the Museum's exhibits focused on New York's geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, and anthropology, staff began collecting historical artifacts by the 1920s.

In 1921-22 the Board of Regents made Regents exams optional in those schools, providing that they used tests of the College Entrance Examination Board or local exams approved by the Department.

The normal school program was extended from two to three years starting 1922.

Starting 1923 the Department administered Regents literacy exams and each year issued thousands of literacy certificates to naturalized citizens, qualifying them to vote.

At their high point, in 1925, Regents high school exams were given in 68 different subjects.

Just a few counties had established vocational education and extension boards (VEEBs, authorized under a 1926 law) to teach occupational courses.

Executive Budget . . . Albany: 1928+. (Published annually, this document provides an overview of current and proposed Department programs, revenues, and expenditures.)

The Regents, with advice from the New York Library Association, established the first basic service standards for public libraries in 1931.

The "social studies" -- an amalgam of history, geography, civics, and economics -- were given a central place in a new secondary school curriculum approved by the Regents in 1934.

The Department's first central mail room, complete with postage meter, was opened in 1935.

Since 1942 the Commissioner's regulations have been published in book or loose-leaf format.

In 1944 a Council on Rural Education, funded by farm organizations, recommended a "new type of rural supervisory district," responsible to school districts and responsive to needs of rural people.

A separate public relations office was set up in 1948.

Abbott, Frank C. Government Policy and Higher Education: A Study of the Regents of the University of the State of New York, 1784-1949.

A major new state aid program for county and multi-county library systems was started in 1950, and has been enhanced and reformulated several times since.

The fiscal units remained stable for decades (the Wicks Commission report of 1951 found the apportionment bureau to be "efficient and well- administered").

In 1953 the Regents obtained seven FCC permits for UHF channels; under a law passed the next year the Regents chartered educational television (ETV) councils to operate the stations.

The first modern state aid for educating children who did not speak English was authorized in 1955.

In 1956 Commissioner Allen issued an order in an appeal case, in effect permitting former (but not current) members of subversive organizations to hold professional jobs in the public schools.

The Regents of the University of the State of New York, 1784-1959.

Brind, Charles A. "Legal and Administrative Problems of the Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department." Albany Law Review, 24 (1960), 80-94. (Focuses on the sometimes controversial power of the Commissioner to review determinations of local public school officers and boards.)

Footnote: 2 In 1962 the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Regents' prayer violated the First Amendment.

Professional rehabilitation services in sheltered workshops, the first in the nation, were funded in 1963.

Federal aid (ESEA Title I) enabled the Department to develop Pupil Evaluation Program (PEP) tests to measure reading, writing, and math skills in grades 3, 6, and 9, starting in 1965-66.

The New York State inter-library loan network was established in essentially its present form as a multi-level, cooperative system in 1966.

In 1967, three experimental community school districts were set up in New York City, with support from the Ford Foundation.

The first sign of fiscal stringency appeared in 1969, when the Governor's budget proposal recommended a five per cent cut for all agencies.

Around 1970 some special projects attempted "the humanization of the curriculum and the school as a whole," stressing social and environmental problems.

Department policy on bilingual education was established by a Regents' position paper in 1972.

The statistical data on higher education is now generated from the Higher Education Data System, or HEDS. The system began to be developed in 1973 and in recent years has been based in networked micro-computers.

In 1974 the Legislature reduced Regents' terms of office, with the avowed aim of replacing pro-busing incumbents.

Computerization of professional licensing and registration functions began in 1975.

The Archives assumed custody of archival records held by the Library and began operations in the new Cultural Education Center in 1978.

The federal Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 provides funds for training unskilled, needy youths and adults, while Even Start is a unified family literacy program for children and adults.

After 1983 a centralized administrative audit unit for external programs was set up, including the audit function from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Commissioner Gordon Ambach brought the three streams of tests, standards, and school review and improvement into the Regents Action Plan to Improve Elementary and Secondary Education, approved in 1984.

Albany: 1985. (Contains a brief historical overview and a guide to local information sources.)

A statewide HIV-AIDS awareness program began in 1987, in cooperation with the Department of Health.

The Regents College Degrees and Programs became fully independent of the Education Department in 1991 but continues to be governed by the Board of Regents.

The full Board of Regents meets monthly (except August) and since 1994 has held some meetings outside of Albany.

Following a critical review by the Rockefeller Institute in 1995, newly-selected Commissioner Richard P. Mills committed the Department to developing an overall strategic plan to clarify the agency's mission and improve services to its many customers.

Concern that this structure insulates a BOCES from public scrutiny prompted legislation requiring the Commissioner, starting 1996, to submit an annual report to the Governor and the Legislature on BOCES finances and pupil performance.

In August 2010, the new Ferguson Elementary School opened, to educate students in the surrounding Ferguson every year.

York Academy opened in August 2011 in the historic pre-Civil War Smyser-Royer building located at 32 W. North Street in the City of York.