Communities had to plan on whether the increase was permanent or temporary.
If permanent, you built more buildings and/or brought in trailers as satellite classrooms.
If temporary, you either brought in trailers, erected low cost Quonset huts or even contracted with local churches to use their space for the overflow.
Some schools guessed wrong and found surplus buildings on their hands at the end of the boom. Some communities converted them into senior centers. Others sold them to local farmers for pennies on the dollar to convert to hog barns.
Average class size for that era was close to 40 kids. Most of the teachers had to work during the summer to make ends meet. They weren't a separate government pampered unionized elite who earned more in nine months than most of the parents of their students earned in 12.
And, still, we managed to produce better results than most of our modern counterparts. Why do you suppose that is?
Good points — how did America cope in the era of 40 kids in a class, much weaker teacher unions, and other issues? Yet it seems that kids got a better education back then compared to now, in spite of those problems.
I recently saw some talking head show on TV. An older black man was there; I don’t remember his name or why he was there. But anyway, he said that he grew up in the south in the days of segregated schools, and that he got a better education in his segregated school than kids get today in our major cities.
Ten years ago the crisis was not enough kids. Hell they we’re talking about letting the upper Midwest revert to prairie because of the falling population.
Look up the “Buffalo Commons” idea from the 80’s