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A scrapbook documenting alternative education at the Harrisburg Central Opportunity School, ca. 1937-1944+, by educator David Porter (1909-1997)

Including 50+ notes from parents illuminating the range of adversity students faced; 95 original photographs in and out of the classroom; 70+ newspaper clippings related to student outcomes and other initiatives in alternative education; and many student-made items & ephemera.

Wooden boards, 12 x 19.5 inches, (80) pages. In the kind of album students would make at the school: cover with onlaid parquetry design and decorative hinges; heavy paper stock with a decorative border drawn around each page, and some creative solutions for mounting multi-page documents. Very Good with occasional chipping and edgewear to the toned leaves, one lined with tape along the bottom. Occasional abrasion and a few photos with edge tears, taped news clippings, one torn with loss. Lacking 4 of the mounted parquetry diamonds, some dulling to boards. Quirky and unwieldy, but retaining nearly all its original content.

An evocative and immensely empathetic collection of primary documents from the Central Opportunity School in Harrisburg, Pa., ca. 1937-1944+. Opening in 1936, it was described as a pathway to success for “exceptional children… whose physical and mental differences make it difficult for them to adjust themselves to the normal school program…,” typically due to developmental and behavioral disorders.

Porter’s scrapbook documents the social and economic adversity that exacerbated student barriers to learning. It resonates loudly with challenges in modern education and the burdens placed on educators to provide stability and meet students’ needs well beyond the classroom.

Written from 1937 to 1944, food and housing insecurity are primary issues demonstrated in the 50+ notes from parents. Full of irregular spelling and penmanship, some written on the backs of envelopes and other scraps—they capture the voices of people who are often recorded only as statistics relating to race, poverty, incarceration, single-parent and housing status. (1) Among their messages are requests to help get shoes, haircuts, check for lice, and an overwhelming demand for school lunch, with multiple examples of parents forced to choose between affording rent and feeding their children. Excuses for student absences are humorous and heartbreaking in turn. One boy “had too much parade,” another “didn’t know he had school.” A poignant note from 1938 explains, “We are living in a garrage and we do not have much heat or not very much to eat, so you see we are looking for the volunteers to come and take us out of here at any time…”

Poor nutrition and sanitation are also reflected in the preponderance of gastrointestinal distress keeping students out of the classroom: “I am very sorry that I have to send you so many notes but Richard’s bowels have been bad all night. Will you please allow him to go to the basement?” On another occasion, "his rectum was too sore.” Notes struggle, understandably, to spell "diarrhea;" one euphemizes, “kept the toilet busy.”

The student’s perspective is documented in reflective writing and direct quotes. A 6-page study of previously well-behaved boy who started stealing, says he “does not want to become a gangster or hold up man. He thinks when he is older, he will want a good job and be able to stop stealing… His reason for stealing now is that the people he steals from have more money than they need.” Indicating that the boy’s actions are part of a conscious risk-reward evaluation: “He knows just where he can be sent and for how long.”

Not all students’ struggles were financially driven. A student with a developmental disability invited Porter to a Halloween party—but he and his guest were the only attendees. He wrote, “the home was clean and above average in comforts for the body,” but he “feared” abusive elements, including a “vindictive” aunt giving “love pats,” and a “war-broken father.”  (2) The burden to protect children from domestic danger is evident in messages from a mother begging the school to ban her sons’ drunk father, and another fishing for the whereabouts of a child in protective custody.

Aggression on school grounds is documented in notes like “[—] told me to stick the book up my ass,” and complaints from parents, including “John is coming home & saying that the boys in his work bench doing dirty things showing him his worm & telling him to suck it,” and “Will you please stop those fat kids from hitting Shirley every time she comes out of school.” Teachers share the frustration, too. One asks Porter: “She told me to go to Hell… is sitting like a mule refusing to do anything… Any suggestions?”

A letter from an exasperated mother implores Porter to beat her son, and says the teachers at the school are too nice. “My husband don’t like to lay his hands on him because... he would not know when to let up. And around this neighborhood people would have him arrested.” She tells Porter, “I don’t care what you do to him or how hard you punish him. I won’t say a word.” (3) Another mother disowns her son, blaming the system for facilitating his bad behavior and introducing him to criminals. (4) 

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The album includes 95 original photographs showing students in the classroom, at the workbench, and showing off their wares. Younger students are also seen on field trips, playing baseball, and exploring public spaces. Goofy and characterful, they give a face to the “criminal youth” represented in ~40 newspaper clippings about various persons related to the school. Dating up to 1948, many document student outcomes that are not always, or even often, positive. Among regular reports of theft and arson are outliers: one boy becomes a war hero, another is sentenced to the electric chair.

The content is rounded out with ~30 clippings related to other education and youth aid programs that contextualize the Central Opportunity School as part of a wider movement. Subjects include the Boone School in Philadelphia, the Berks County Boys Home, Allentown Boys Haven, W.P.A. initiatives, and evolving scholarship on psychological and social factors influencing adverse youth behavior.

The scrapbook resonates with persisting issues in educating students with behavioral problems and alternative needs. Margaret Winzer wrote in 1993 that, “Unlike overt and visible disabilities, disordered behavior cannot be detached from the observer. Rather, it is a subjective reality constructed on the basis of a judgment as to what is tolerable, appropriate, and acceptable.” She also noted, “A century and a half of applying various models of intervention have met with only the most limited success, and the picture of how these students fare in the school remains bleak” (129-130).

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David H. Porter began as a manual arts teacher at the boys’ school 1937, was promoted to head teacher in 1938, and principal in 1940. In the summer of 1944, he was appointed “Director of Pupil Accounting and Child Guidance” for the Harrisburg School District. The scrapbook represents the beginning of his career-long efforts to address external barriers to education.

After becoming Superintendent in 1969, Porter implemented a busing program to end “de facto” segregation. Computerized student assignment, along with restructuring grade levels and expanding early childhood education, rectified racial imbalance and improved outcomes for students throughout the district. The program’s success landed Porter an invitation to address Walter Mondale’s Select Senate Committee on Equal Education. Testifying in August 1971, a week after Nixon disavowed busing as part of the proposal to desegregate schools in Austin, the New York Times noted he “refuted the Nixon position point by point, in an account of the actual experience of [Harrisburg],” but lamented, “the facts put forward by Dr. David H. Porter were ignored, because he was not ‘newsworthy’ enough.” He retired in 1974.

David H. Porter received a bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University, a master's in education from Temple University, and an honorary doctorate in pedagogy from Elizabethtown College. He was president of the Pennsylvania Conference for the Education of Exceptional Children, the Pennsylvania Association for the Improvement of Pupil Attendance and the Special Education Department of the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

References: Ade. The administration of vocational education in Pennsylvania (1939); Harrisburg Telegraph: “Modernized Opportunity School Provided in City” (8/27/36) & “Child Guidance Director Begins Duties” (8/2/44). Wicker, “The Harrisburg Story,” New York Times (8/8/71). Winzer, M. The History of Special Education: from Isolation to Integration (1993).

FOOTNOTES / ADDITIONAL TRANSCRIBED EXCERPTS

1. A few more examples (standardized):

• “I am writing in regards to Brendon… he seems like he is so far away, and he never wants to go out and take part in the outdoor activity. All he wants to do is sit around the house and stare at people and the kindness of treatment is out of the question. The kinder you are to him the more trouble he gets into such as carrying matches and putting fire to paper.”
• “just a few lines to tell you to keep Lester father away from the school… he does nothing but drink, and he is not fit to be around children… If you do not keep him away from there it will be trouble”
• “Will you find out who the men were that took Theodore to the hospital last week to get his head fixed up?…his head has stitches in it and they must be taken out. I fixed it last night myself for it was dirty… they will need to see that he is treated on account of [infection]"
• “Richard was absent from school last Thursday and Friday on account of pain in his limbs. We are going to have him sent to Pottsville to see what he can do in way of some appliance to his right limb…”
• “Please excuse Robert for being absent yesterday as he was not well enough to go to school. He had too much parade. He isn’t a well child at any time and that walk was too much for him without pushing a wagon over the entire parade route”

2.
From Porter's write-up
Richard brought beautifully written invitations to school asking us to a Halloween party on Saturday evening. I said I could stay only a few minutes but would run in at 8:00 to say "hello." This I did, taking a friend with me and a box of candy for the children.
I was late in arriving. No guests had arrived. The house was decorated. The dining room was really elaborately done. No expense had been spared— toys, balloons, favors, streamers, etc. The table was set— candles favors, Coke, cake, cut, etc. I looked it over, was sincerely enthusiastic in praise and said that I must leave. Then his grandmother said, “No one would come but you.”

Needless to say, my friend and I removed our coats. Richard was jittery. I suggested games. He had none. Most of the talk centered around W.C.T.U., evening worship, the grandmother’s and aunt’s past successes, the family, accomplishments… And now… Richard. (Porter's ellipsis).

Questions like this, “Is it a feeble minded school? Isn’t it terrible for him to sass me? Is he learning the 3 R’s?” blazed at me... They embarrassed me by discussing my personality quite openly. The voiced opinion was that I would do and Richard was lucky.
The home was clean and above average in comforts for the body. I fear that Richard and his grandmother’s evening worship, his aunt’s discussed “love pats,” and the open talk of nervousness, a war-broken father, health, and abilities supplied little food for the soul.

The grandmother seemed sincere in her efforts; the aunt much more vindictive.
Poor Richard. Poor grandmother.

3.

Harrisburg, Pa.
Mar. 5, 1940
Dear Mr. Porter,
I am sending Carpenter back to school today. I would of sent him yesterday, but he was sick all day Sunday and yesterday but feels much better now since I gave him a laxative. My husband will not let me take Carpenter to school as we are as much disgusted with him as you are. He talks back to me, but he gets my hand across his face. My husband don’t like to lay his hands on him because he said he does not like to start on him because he knows he would not know when to let up. And around this neighborhood people would have him arrested.

But I certainly am sorry he acts this way. I cannot understand what is the matter with him. He used to be so nice. I think he has it in his head that he can quit school when he is sixteen. If he don’t listen in school, give him a [beating] with a strap and I don’t care if you put welts on him. And I don’t care if they send him to a reform school… My husband said don’t take him to school let them put him away. Maybe that will learn him a lesson. It just looks to me like he is too lazy to move around. I don’t care what you do to him or how hard you punish him. I won’t say a word. For I try and try to make something out of him.

I know that all the teachers up there are very nice and Carpenter knows it too, but he thinks because he is soon sixteen he can just do as he pleases. But he promised me he is going to do better and if he don’t let me know and neighbors or [no] neighbors my husband will punish him if I give him permission. And I know the very next time we hear anything he stays home from camp this summer and I told him so he said he would listen and he better had. And when he talks back, take your fist and knock him down and he knows he does not talk back to me and get away with it. I am awful sorry this happened but God knows I tried to raise him better. And thanks very much for letting me know about it. His stepfather gave him a very good talking to and he also told him the very next time we hear anything again he is going to give him one of the worst beatings he ever had So please let me know if he ever acts this way again…”

4.
May 20, 1940. Sent to Porter's colleague.
In regards to Robert being sent to Paxtang from the Central School once more… that school has been the beginning of all these crimes these boys ever done. Please Remember what I always told you when these things once began. Then I was through. the rest was absolutely up to you as you know you where the fault of the boys being sent to that awful school. Now it is absolutely up to you to find a home for Robert as he can not never come back home to me any more for this is just the beginning of what he will be the rest of his life dont forget I haent (sic) deserted him this has all been carelessness do to the fact that he has been put in a gang of that kind now the rest is entirely up to you to get a home for him and there is no use in coming to me for I mean just what I say. I mean to shove the thing if it comes to the point that I hafta. For I am positively Finished.”