Manitowoc County WI Archives History - Schools .....History Of The Kiel School District ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/wi/wifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 15, 2008, 3:52 pm HISTORY OF KIEL SCHOOL DISTRICT Supt. R. S. Way The Kiel school district was organized as Schleswig district No. 4 about the year 1858. There are no written records of its formation except those on file in the county offices. The Schleswig assessment roll of 1859 shows that the original Schleswig district No. 4 which included the settlement of Kiel, was composed, of all of the southern half of Schleswig. When Schleswig No. 5 and No. 7 were organized about 1862, Schleswig No. 4 was then made up of sections 19, 20, 29, 30, 31, 32. That was its areal extent until 1930 when most of the farming community around Kiel withdrew and organized the present Schleswig joint district No. 4. The present Kiel Jt. No. 1 school district was at first Schleswig No. 4. Shortly after its organization, it became Scheswig joint No. 4, joint with New Holstein township in Calumet county. In 1892, Kiel became a village and this school district became Kiel school district Jt. 1, joint with Schleswig, Calumet county, and Sheboygan county. In 1920, Kiel became a city and the school district boundaries remained as they had been. After the 1930 withdrawal the Kiel school district remained Kiel Joint No. 1, joint only with Schleswig and with Calumet county. Col. Henry F. Belitz, a pioneer settler, donated the land for the first public school at what is now the northeast corner of Paine and First Streets. The one room frame school building erected on it was about 30 x 60 feet with windows on all sides. It was built on a stone foundation which placed the building just above the ground level. Carl J. Meiselwitz, one of the pupils who attended that school in the 1870's, states that the school had a large entrance door which opened into a combination entry and cloakroom. The classroom had long wooden benches and desks of several sizes to accomodate the small, middle-sized, and the mature children attending. A high platform across one end of the room was used by the teacher to look out over the heads of the pupils. The room was heated by a stove while the matter of ventilation was cared for by opening the windows. Later on when it became a two department school it was divided into two rooms. This building was sold to Julius Drews who moved it across the street and remodeled it into a home. A second school was built in 1879. It was a one story brick-veneered structure with one school room on each side of the hallway running north and south. The school was about 32 x 40 feet with a basement and cost $751 according to the town clerk's report to the county: superintendent. Mr. Meiselwitz states that it is now the south one-half of the Adolph Meiselwitz factory at First and Paine streets. In 1884, a second story addition was voted to the brick building erected in 1879. This addition followed the pattern of the original building and cost $667. The Kiel school by this time was offering a three year high school course and all of the four rooms were used for grades or high school classes. Kiel was growing rapidly at that time so' the building erected in 1879 and enlarged' in 1884 was again inadequate by 1898. Accordingly, the voters in 1898 authorized the construction of a two-story, four room addition to the old building. This is the present north half .of the Meiselwitz factory. The building operations lasted for several years as new rooms were completed and put into use. The village clerk's report to the superintendent show that the sum of $6,000 was spent in 1898-99, another $3,000 in 1902-03, and another $2,800 in 1904 to 1906. Within ten years, after the erection of the addition, the city, of Kiel was faced with the problem of providing a modern grade and high school building to meet the school needs of this and surrounding communities. The voters in 1909, authorized a new high school building to be erected a few feet south of the old brick school. This new structure was to be brick-veneered and not to cost in excess of $15,000. It was a two-story building with about four classrooms on each floor and with a full-sized basement. The entire building was used as a high school. Today the structure is used by the Hansen Glove Company as a factory building. By the 1920's, the voters saw that a modern grade and high school plant demanded an adequate campus with playgrounds, an athletic field, a gymnasium, a large auditorium, rooms for vocational courses, an adequate library, and the best of classrooms, equipped with the best of teaching and learning aids. To provide the Kiel children, as well as the ever-increasing high school enrollment from the, surrounding areas, with such a setup and to care for future expansion of the school plant, the voters authorized the purchase of the old Wooden Ware site on which the present grade and high school is located. The deed was filed on May 1, 1924 and shows that the district paid $1,759.20 for the Woodenware site. The present building, though far exceeding the needs of the community in 1928 and costing about $150,000, has become so crowded that plans are now being considered to construct a large addition on to the north to provide rooms for vocational classes and other courses. The Kiel public school was one of the .first schools outside of Manitowoc and Two Rivers to become a graded and then a high school. By 1870, there were 200 children of school age residing in the district- with 121 of that number attending at some time during the term. By 1873, a two department school was already being maintained with Prin. C. F. Eller and Louise Hockmeyer as teachers. Three-teachers were employed as early as 1880 and four teachers by 1885. A three year high school was organized in 1885 with the first class cmposed of Edmund and Frieda Krieger, John Muenster, and Clara Heins Dassler graduating in 1887. Teachers' records on file in the county superintendent of schools' office indicate that three high school instructors, six grade teachers, and one kindergarten teacher were employed by 1904. Today the Kiel school system employs a staff of 25 teachers with 17 of them teaching high school courses. Although Kiel has been a city since 1920, it was not until the summer of 1947 that a city superintendent of schools was elected and the school was taken out of the supervision by the county superintendent of schools. The assessment rolls of 1859 list these as pioneer settlers and land owners of the original Kiel school district: Ernest Berg, Hugo Luebben, A. Fremming, Christ Duerwachter, Adam Best, Christ Feile, Math. Bufkhardt, H. F. Belitz, John Barth, Herman Gilbert, Carl Lindeman, Philip Arnold, Jacob Faust, and Adam Wilhelm. The first teacher in Kiel, in the 1850's was a Mr. Belitz. He was succeeded by James McCabe. The names of principals serving this district up to 1906 as recorded in the teachers' book in the county office are: Carl F. Eller-, Webster Barrager, and A. R. Wittmann in the 1870's; P. J. Hewitt and W. W. Stewart in the 1880's; and Goff Morrissey, F. J. Curtis, and C. Vande Walker in the 1890's and early 1900's. Teachers known to have taught in Kiel in addition to the named principals were Susan Dan-forth, Louise Hockmeyer, Myra Bourne, Sophie Bredemeyer, Joanna and Anna Lueps in the 1870's; and Otto Hyer, a Mr. Klingman, Miss Boelsingr, Jane Pierce, Ethel Reed, Ida Olson, Ella Dassler, Caroline Knutson, Johanna Meggers, Anna Broeckert, Serena Salomon, Max Goeres, Anna Danforth, Bertha Rodenbeck, Berthilde Grueningen, Calvin Reineking, Addie Vande Walker, Mamie Gunderson, Belle Holmes, Catherine Conway, Genevieve Frawley, Clara Krieger, Hattie Georgenson, and. Marie Striebel between 1880 and 1906. Henry F. Belitz was the school clerk from 1872 to 1874. Other district residents serving on the board were clerks Friedrick Mohr 1874, August Goebing 1877, W; J. Guetzloe 1894, August Lindner 1896, and Wm. Greve 1904. Other well-known citizens served on the school board since 1855. The five member school board was first set up in 1936 and replaced the three member board organization in vogue since the district was organized. According to county records, summer and winter sessions were held up to about 1873. The winter terms were for six or seven months while the summer session beginning in May was usually for three months. Kiel was one of the first districts to have a ten month school term in 1874. A private school was established in the community in 1855 for short terms each year. Today, Kiel has a large parochial school enrolling about 200 children of the city and surrounding districts. The public grade school includes a modern kindergarten and six well-equipped classrooms which are attended by the children from this community and from Schleswig Jt. 4 school district which has no schoolhouse. A fleet of buses transports high school students into Kiel from a radius of eight to ten miles. Kiel, the little city that does big things, is' doing big things in an educational way for the children in Kiel and for those living within the trading area of this progressive city. Additional Comments: Extracted from: 1848 - 1948 CENTENNIAL HISTORY of the Manitowoc County School Districts and Public School System EDITED BY JOS. J. RAPPEL, COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 1948 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wi/manitowoc/history/schools/historyo250gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wifiles/ File size: 9.8 Kb