Common Council resolutions and reports began to be organized by a numbering system in Dec. 1932. Before that time the resolutions were kept folded up in chronological order, roughly by subject or Council committee (such as Parks, Judiciary, Fire, Police, etc.). This set of pre-1932 resolutions represents those labeled as Schools, and date from 1866-1932. While most of the documents are resolutions created by the Committee on Schools, a number of resolutions have communications from the Board of Education attached.
The original order of these reports was not maintained. In arranging this series, the resolutions were grouped alphabetically together by the building or site name; therein, chronologically.
Resolutions dealing with schools in general (usually multiple schools) were filed chronologically in a General series, along with some historical information on the schools in La Crosse, including some information on buildings rented by the Board of Education for use in school purposes. North Side and South Side schools were separated into their appropriate series, North Side Schools and South Side Schools. All of the old school buildings from the North and South sides are well represented, except for the branch schools which often were one to four room wooden buildings. Resolutions about the branch schools were usually filed with the main building, unless the branch later became a “regular” school building (such as the case with Logan Branch School that became the site of Roosevelt Elementary School). Resolutions dealing with more than one school were photocopied and filed under each school name.
The final series, Special Topics, includes resolutions about Industrial Education, the Normal School (later called State Teachers College, and finally University of Wisconsin-La Crosse), School for the Deaf, Teacher’s Salaries, and Vocational School (later Coleman School, Western Wisconsin Technical Institute, and now called Western Wisconsin Technical College). The Vocational School program began in the high schools and the first vocational school not associated with the public school system was located at the former First Ward School site at Vine & 6th streets.
