Purpose of the study - Educators and lay citizens alike, in the main, want the schools to extend their services so as to meet all the educational needs of the youth. Surveys of the schools in the Hopkins County District in recent years have convincingly revealed that these services are not being rendered. At the suggestion of the Hopkins County School Superintendent H.W. Wilkey, and others this study is being made. This is an intensive study of the schools of Hopkins County as they exist today, with suggestions for a plan of reorganization to bring them to the point of future needs.

For several years many of the leading educators of the different states and the leading schools of higher education have been studying and advocating the community school idea. There have been many community schools established with various plans and ideas installed. Some are more advanced than others, but all are established with a long time plan in view. Many conferences have been held, and experts have been consultants and co-ordinators, and several visits have been made within the community to see at first hand the workability of school and its affect upon the lives of the children and citizens of the community. After these conferences and visits to various communities with community schools in operation, Hopkins County, under the capable leadership of its County Super intendent and Western Kentucky State Teachers College as Co-ordinator, begun its program of community schools in the fall of 1942. Since the over-all plan has been in operation for three years, the writer became convinced that a worth-while study could be made on the subject.