During the Great Depression of the 1930s, public schools struggled. Many closed, school years got shorter, and teachers sometimes didn’t get paid. In 1932, a law lowered property taxes to help the economy, but it drastically cut funding for schools. In 1933, the county unit plan replaced more than 400 small school districts with 55 larger county-run systems run by five-member boards. The state gave them more money, and by 1939, all counties had a full nine-month school year.