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Detroit, Michigan, circa 1922. "Balch School students." Note the bin at left marked "STUFF ME with waste paper." Detroit Publishing glass negative. View full size.
Note that one of the architects of this school was William E. Higginbotham (1858-1922), perhaps a distant relative of Shorpy Higginbotham.
Architectural Forum, 1922Recent Developments in the Detroit School System
The necessity of making intensive use of all available school space in Detroit, for a rapidly increasing number of children of school age, led to the adoption of a school administration system of the "platoon" type which has in late months been receiving careful study by school authorities from many parts of the country. It was seen to be necessary that classrooms be made to provide for more than one set of pupils and that the idea of individual, permanent desk and seat be abandoned. To dovetail into this plan was the well recognized importance of varying the work of the school day, and as finally worked out the "platoon system" provides for two entirely separate sets of pupils, one set using the classrooms while the others are engaged with other school work, this latter set using the classrooms when the first set has begun its out-of classroom session. The intermediate school consists of six 60-minute periods, with an hour for lunch. Each period provides both the recitation and the study activities under the teacher who gives instruction in the subject. Every one of the boys and girls takes an hour daily for exercise and shower bath. An auditorium is in use each period. From 70 to 200 or 300 students assemble each period to listen to lectures on social and civic affairs.
George M. Balch Intermediate School, Detroit
Malcomson, Higginbotham & Palmer, Architects
This is one of the recent Detroit schools to be planned for operation on the "platoon system." It is of fireproof construction, with concrete and hollow tile floors. The exterior is of mingled shades of mat face brick with Indiana limestone trimmings. The building accommodates 1,080 pupils and was erected in 1920, when the cost of building was at its height, for $608 per pupil, or 55 ½ cents per cubic foot.
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