A study of district supervision of vocational home economics teachers in Virginia public schools

The supervisory staff for vocational home economics education in Virginia includes a State and Assistant State Supervisor and twelve district supervisors. Nine of the district supervisors are white and three are Negro.

The State Supervisor provides overall leadership for the program and handles all administrative matters relating to budgets and reports. The Assistant State Supervisor is State Advisor for the Future Homemakers’ organization and works with local school divisions on plans and equipment for new and remodeled departments. She also assists the State Supervisor in giving leadership to the program.

Approximately one-half of the district supervisor’s time is available for assistance to vocational home economics teachers in Virginia. It is the responsibility of the district supervisors to work directly with teachers in determining the nature of programs needed, in planning and developing programs, and in evaluating results. They also work closely with local administrators in the various school divisions on ways of facilitating and improving the program concerned. In addition to the supervision of the teaching programs, the district supervisors have overall responsibility for the school lunch programs operating in their respective districts. No attempt has been made in this study to evaluate the effectiveness of district supervision of the school lunch program.

During the 1950-1951 school term there were 306 white secondary high schools which employed 482 vocational home economics teachers and 90 Negro secondary high schools in which 124 Negro vocational home economics teachers were employed.

Much planning is continuously being carried on by the supervisory staff in an effort to help home economics teachers to make their programs as effective as possible. The extent of the assistance received by vocational home economics teachers from their district supervisors has long been of concern to those responsible for guiding the program. However, there has been no organized study of supervisory assistance given to home economics teachers in Virginia. The investigator proposed to make a study of this nature in the hope that it would prove helpful in finding more and better ways in which the supervisor could assist home economics teachers with their instructional problems.