Strathkinness came under the Landward Area of the St. Andrews School

Board which included the two schools in Strathkinness and Boarhills School.

The former Parish School became the North Public School and the former Free

Church School became the South Public School. Four of the five members

of the first School Board were heritors, with John Whyte Melville chairman.

The fifth member was the Principal of the United College, St. Andrews. The

Board appointed a School Officer, Mr. Andrew Thom, Joiner, Strathkinness,

to ‘report parents failing in their duty of providing for the children between

the ages of five and thirteen years elementary education in Reading, Writing

and Arithmetic’. A census required by the Education Department of all

children of school age and the amount of schooling they had already had,

showed that there were 195 children of school age and of these 20 had not

been to school.

There is no evidence that in Strathkinness the laird’s son sat alongside

the ploughman’s son. If any of the heritors sent their children to Strathkinness

School it is not recorded. Some of them sent their children to Madras in St.

Andrews and John Whyte Melville’s son went to Eton. In the opinion of both

Mr. Mauchline and Mr. Findlay the School Board did not understand either

the children or the school they were responsible for.

However, the School Board did not have an easy task; the Education

Department was constantly pushing for needed improvements which cost more

money than the Board could easily find. If these improvements were not

made and if teaching standards should fall, they could lose a percentage of

their grant. This happened several times in Boarhills, and it was threatened

more than once in Strathkinness when the School Board seemed to be ignoring

or unnecessarily delaying action recommended or even insisted upon by the

Department. The School Board depended on these grants from the Education

Department, and on the ratepayers, to fund the schools. There was a deficit

every year and the Poor Rate was increased regularly to meet expenses. The

ratepayers often objected, as in 1884 when ‘complaints were made by some

householders in Strathkinness of the heaviness of the School Rate levied

upon that village’. When there were large expenses such as extensions

or major alterations demanded by the Education Department, the School

Board was forced to borrow, with the cost to the ratepayers being spread

over several years.

When requested to have all the school property assessed, the Board found

that the former Free Church schoolmaster’s house was in better condition

than the Parish schoolmaster’s house, which was in a poor state, and the

former Parish School was in better condition than the former Free Church

School, which was in a poor state. As both schools and both schoolmasters’

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