Prior schools placed under control
- Section 2 declares that all schools previously established in the Philippine Islands under the auspices of the Military Government are placed in the Department created by Section 1.
- Section 2 makes those previously established schools subject to the control of the Department’s officers.
General Superintendent: powers and duties
- Section 3 names the chief officer General Superintendent of Public Instruction.
- Section 3 provides that the General Superintendent is appointed by the Commission and serves under the general supervision of the Military Governor, with an annual salary of six thousand dollars.
- Section 3 empowers the General Superintendent to:
- establish schools in every pueblo in the Archipelago where practicable, and reorganize existing schools where necessary;
- appoint a City Superintendent of Schools for Manila and division superintendents for other parts of the Archipelago, and appoint teachers and clerks authorized by law, in accordance with Act Numbered Twenty-five enacted October seventeenth, nineteen hundred, and prescribe their duties;
- fix salaries of division superintendents and teachers within limits established by law;
- fix the curriculum for primary, secondary, and other public schools and decide in what towns secondary schools shall be established;
- divide the Archipelago into school divisions, not more than ten in number, fix boundaries, and change boundaries when necessary, with Manila and its barrios forming one division;
- prescribe the authority and duties of the principal teacher over other teachers, and duties regarding schoolhouse and school property;
- prescribe plans for construction of schoolhouses by municipalities, the amount of land required, and hygiene rules for schools;
- make contracts for purchase of school supplies authorized by law, and when practicable, invite bids by public advertisement and award to the lowest responsible bidder;
- determine towns where English teachers paid from the Insular Treasury teach, exercising discretion in favor of towns showing loyalty to the United States through peaceful conditions and in favor of towns that construct and maintain suitable schoolhouses through local taxation or contributions;
- in case of a vacancy, discharge all duties during the vacancy or make a temporary appointment;
- examine and pass upon requisitions for funds by division superintendents and forward them, with recommendation, to the Chief Executive for submission to the Commission;
- make semi-annual administration reports to the Military Governor and the Commission on or before January first and July first each year, and recommend school law changes in regular semi-annual reports;
- exercise general supervision and prepare and promulgate rules for examinations and determination of qualifications for applicants for division superintendents and teachers, and for guidance of officers and teachers, consistent with the Act.
Advisory Board of Education
- Section 4 creates a superior advisory board of education composed of the General Superintendent and four members appointed by the Commission.
- Section 4 requires the board to hold regular meetings once in two months and special meetings called by the General Superintendent, with meeting days fixed by resolution.
- Section 4 provides that the General Superintendent acts as president, the General Superintendent’s chief clerk acts as secretary and keeps minutes.
- Section 4 requires the board to assist the General Superintendent through advice and information on educational needs and conditions, make investigations, and recommend amendments to the Commission.
- Section 4 sets compensation at ten dollars per meeting for each of the four appointed members, with additional payment of actual and necessary travel and hotel expenses for non-residents of Manila, upon requisition by the General Superintendent.
- Section 4 sets members’ terms at three years or until successors are appointed and qualified.
School leadership positions and expenses
- Section 5 provides for a City Superintendent of Schools for Manila with an annual salary of three thousand dollars.
- Section 6 requires a division superintendent for each school division, with an annual salary not less than two thousand dollars and not more than twenty-five hundred dollars.
- Section 7 provides that actual expenses of the General Superintendent and division superintendents while traveling or absent on official business are paid out of the Insular Treasury.
- Section 8 provides that, except where otherwise provided, provisions describing duties and powers of division superintendents apply to the City Superintendent for Manila.
Division Superintendent: administration and control
- Section 9 authorizes each division superintendent to appoint native school teachers for schools within the division and fix their salaries from year to year within limits prescribed by law.
- Section 9 requires division superintendents to examine schoolhouses for public instruction to determine suitability and hygienic condition.
- Section 9 allows division superintendents, subject to approval of the General Superintendent, to discontinue a schoolhouse that appears to be unsuitable and dangerous if no other schoolhouse is available, and makes it unlawful thereafter to use the condemned schoolhouse for public school purposes.
- Section 9 gives division superintendents authority to pass upon, accept, reject, or modify plans for new schoolhouses and proposed sites by local authorities, and to report action to the General Superintendent.
- Section 9 provides that local authorities or the local school board may appeal a division superintendent’s decision on schoolhouse plans or site to the General Superintendent, whose decision is final.
- Section 9 requires division superintendents to:
- investigate agricultural conditions in their division and report for recommendations on places and number of agricultural schools;
- ensure through personal visits and required reports that curriculum for primary and secondary schools prescribed by the General Superintendent is complied with;
- make themselves familiar with supplies and textbooks needed and report early so they may be contracted for and furnished by the General Superintendent;
- appoint one-half of the local school board in each pueblo in their division (as provided in Section 10);
- maintain a residence and office in one of the large towns in the division, from which pueblos can be reached conveniently.
Local school board and school districts
- Section 10 requires establishment, in each municipality organized under a General Order of the Military Governor or under a municipal code enacted later, of a local school board.
- Section 10 provides that local school boards consist of four or six members, determined by the division superintendent, plus the president or alcalde as member ex officio.
- Section 10 provides that one half of members (excluding the ex officio member) are elected by the municipal council, and the other half are appointed by the division superintendent, with terms of two years and continuing until successors are duly elected or appointed.
- Section 11 allows removal of appointed or elected local school board members after due notice and hearing by the division superintendent, subject to approval of the General Superintendent, and allows the General Superintendent to suspend such members temporarily.
- Section 12 assigns local school boards powers and duties to:
- visit schools and report bi-monthly to the division superintendent on school condition and pupil attendance;
- recommend sites and plans to the municipal council for schoolhouses;
- adopt rules for assigning pupils to multiple schools in the pueblo, subject to division superintendent supervision;
- report annually to the municipal council the amount that should be raised by local taxation for school purposes for the current year;
- report directly to the General Superintendent whenever necessary on school condition and make suggestions.
- Section 13 requires each pueblo to constitute a school district and requires the municipal council to provide support of all schools established within its jurisdiction by local taxation as amply as possible.
- Section 13 authorizes the division superintendent, in exceptional cases where topography or communication difficulty requires, to attach part of one pueblo’s area to another pueblo’s school district, and to fix the amount just for contribution by the former municipal council to the latter’s annual school expense.
Instruction language, foreign teachers, and religion
- Section 14 mandates that the English language becomes the basis of all public school instruction as soon as practicable.
- Section 14 allows soldiers to be detailed as instructors until replaced by trained teachers.
- Section 15 authorizes and directs the General Superintendent to obtain one thousand trained teachers from the United States at monthly salaries of not less than seventy-five dollars and not more than one hundred and twenty-five dollars.
- Section 15 provides that the exact salary of each teacher is fixed by the General Superintendent based on the teacher’s efficiency and importance of the position.
- Section 15 requires the Government to pay necessary traveling expenses from teachers’ residences to Manila.
- Section 16 prohibits any teacher or other person from teaching or criticizing the doctrines of any church, religious sect, or denomination, or attempting to influence pupils for or against any such church or religious sect in any public school established under the Act.
- Section 16 provides that intentional violation of this prohibition results in dismissal from the public service, after due hearing.
- Section 16 permits, however, that the priest or minister of any church established in the pueblo where a public school is situated may teach religion in the school building for one half an hour three times a week to pupils whose parents or guardians desire it and express the desire in writing filed with the principal teacher of the school, to be forwarded to the division superintendent.
- Section 16 requires the division superintendent to fix the hours and rooms for such religious teaching.
- Section 16 prohibits public school teachers from conducting religious exercises or teaching religion or acting as designated religious teachers in the school building under the religious teaching authority.
- Section 16 prohibits requiring any pupil by any public school teacher to attend and receive permitted religious instruction.
- Section 16 authorizes the division superintendent, subject to approval of the General Superintendent, to forbid an offending priest, minister, or religious teacher from entering the public school building thereafter after due investigation and hearing if the religious opportunity is used to arouse disloyalty to the United States, discourage attendance, create disturbance of public order, or interfere with school discipline.
Teacher training and specialized schools
- Section 17 requires the establishment and maintenance in Manila of a Normal School for educating natives of the Islands in the science of teaching.
- Section 17 provides that the General Superintendent determines rules and the plan for organization and conduct and qualifications of pupils entering.
- Section 18 requires the establishment and maintenance in Manila of a Trade School to instruct natives of the Islands in useful trades.
- Section 18 provides that General Superintendent powers and duties regarding the Trade School are the same as those provided for the Normal School.
- Section 19 requires establishment and maintenance of a School of Agriculture in the Island of Negros.
- Section 19 provides that the superior advisory school board recommends to the Commission a proper site for the School of Agriculture for final determination.
- Section 19 provides that General Superintendent powers and duties regarding the School of Agriculture are the same as those provided for the Normal School.
Plans and appropriations for schools
- Section 20 authorizes and directs the General Superintendent, under supervision of the Military Governor, to procure plans and estimates for creation of school buildings deemed necessary and practicable, including buildings for the Normal School in Manila and Trade School buildings required by Sections seventeen and eighteen.
- Section 20 limits the estimated cost of such buildings and equipment to not exceeding four hundred thousand dollars.
- Section 20 requires submission of plans and estimates to the Commission.
- Section 21 directs the General Superintendent to prepare and submit to the Commission through the Military Governor a statement showing textbooks and other supplies needed for the year nineteen hundred and one, with estimated cost not exceeding two hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
- Section 22 appropriates twenty-five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, from any funds in the Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for organization and maintenance of the Normal School in Manila for the year nineteen hundred and one.
- Section 23 appropriates fifteen thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, from Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for organization and maintenance of the Trade School in Manila for the year nineteen hundred and one.
- Section 24 appropriates fifteen thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, from Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for organization and maintenance of the School of Agriculture for the year nineteen hundred and one.
Private schools, currency, effectivity
- Section 25 provides that the Act does not forbid, impede, or obstruct the establishment and maintenance of private schools.
- Section 26 provides that money sums mentioned in the Act are understood to be money of the United States.
- Section 27 provides that the Act takes effect on its passage.
- The Act is enacted on January 21, 1901.