December 14, 1934
The School Defense League (La Liga Pro-Defensa Escolar) was founded in San Antonio, representing more than forty organizations seeking the improvement of school facilities. The league, headed by Eleuterio Escobar, Jr., grew out of the Committee on Playgrounds and School Facilities under Council 16 of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which Escobar chaired. Within a few months of its formation the committee had developed a coalition for school reform from seventy-three civic, social, labor, and religious groups representing 75,000 persons. The league fought against overcrowding and the use of dilapidated buildings as schools; it also argued for more teachers, cafeteria space, and playgrounds. It found only eleven schools on the West Side of San Antonio, where much of the Hispanic population lived, but twenty-eight schools elsewhere in town. It also found forty-eight students per room on the west side but only twenty-three in other sections. Finally, the league discovered that the school board allocated $24.50 per pupil to the West Side but $35.96 elsewhere. Overcrowding caused 1,000 first-graders to attend half-day classes on two shifts. To solve the problem the league recommended building five new elementary schools and a junior high school.
