This day in history: Long before COVID-19 disrupted the classroom, a more timeless problem was keeping kids from learning

From 1976: Spokane educators were increasingly frustrated over an age-old problem: truancy.

As many as 150 school-aged children were defying mandatory attendance laws. Some were dropouts, some were children of transients, and some were members of “one cultural group that questions the need for education,” according to the Spokane Chronicle.

The Chronicle referred to that group as “Gypsies,” which today is considered a pejorative term for Roma people.

Educators said they recently had a “break-through” with that group, when some of them began attending a night class aimed at teaching reading and writing.

“To break a tradition in a culture is very difficult,” one educator said. “I am satisfied with our progress.”

From 1926: Mr. and Mrs. Carl Olsen returned to their Second Avenue home and “detected a man in the house.” Mrs. Olsen went to her bedroom and found a “thief crouched in the corner.” He then “grabbed two suitcases and dived through a second story window to the ground about 16 feet below.”

Mr. Olsen grabbed his revolver and gave chase. He soon saw a man walking toward him with the two suitcases.

“Here’s your grips, mister,” the man reportedly said. “I met a fellow down here on a bicycle and had a tussle with him.”

The man said he knocked the thief off the bicycle and told officers they could find the abandoned bicycle “up the road,” which they did.

Yet there was one big problem. When Mrs. Olsen laid eyes on the good Samaritan, she identified him as the thief she saw in her room.

The man tried to declare his innocence by claiming that he “could not ride a bicycle.”

The investigation continued.