School district

School districts are a form of special-purpose district which serves to operate the local public primary and secondary schools.

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United States

In the United States, public schools are run by school districts, which are independent special-purpose governments, or dependent school systems, which are under the control of state and local government. A school district is a legally separate body corporate and politic. School districts are local governments with powers similar to that of a town or a county including taxation and eminent domain, except in Virginia, whose school divisions have no taxing authority and must depend on another local government (county, city, or town) for funding. Its governing body, which is typically elected by direct popular vote but may be appointed by other governmental officials, is called a school board, board of trustees, board of education, school committee, or the like. This body appoints a superintendent, usually an experienced public school administrator, to function as the district's chief executive for carrying out day-to-day decisions and policy implementations. The school board may also exercise a quasi-judicial function in serious employee or student discipline matters.

Not all school systems constitute school districts as distinct bodies corporate. A few states have no school systems independent of county or municipal governments. One prominent example is Maryland, where all school systems are run at the county or, in the case of Baltimore City, the county-equivalent level. Other states, such as New York, have both independent school districts and school systems that are subordinate to cities. The Hawaii State Department of Education functions as a single state-wide school district. This is unique among the states, but the Puerto Rico Department of Education operates all schools in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, thus also functioning as a single school district.

In the 2002 Census of Governments, the United States Census Bureau enumerated the following numbers of school systems in the United States:

Terminology

Although these terms can vary slightly between various states and regions, these are typical definitions for school district constitution:

Schools

Districts

These terms may not appear in a district's name, even though the condition may apply.

Europe

Outside the United States, other jurisdictions often will have autonomous districts (or equivalent) authorities to represent various groups seeking autonomy, such as linguistic groups, or religious groups. The U.S. school districts, which tend to be based largely on geographical divisions, generally avoid these issues, as English is such a dominant language, and religion is largely excluded from public education by the legal doctrine of the separation of church and state and the widespread existence of private schools run by religious organizations. In much of the world, religious (confessional), linguistic, and other divisions, are a significant factor in organizing school districts or equivalent authorities.

In England and Wales, school boards were established in 1870, and abolished in 1902, with county council and county borough councils becoming the Local Education Authorities.[3]

In France, the system of the carte scolaire was dismantled by the beginning of the 2007 school year. More school choice has been given to French students, however, priority is given to those that meet the following criteria:

In Italy, school districts were established in 1974 "Provvedimenti Delegati sulla scuola" ("Assigned Laws [to the Government] about the school").[4] Each district must contain a minimum of 10,000 inhabitants. The federal government attempted to link the local schools with local society and culture and local governments. The school districts were dissolved in 2003 by the "legge finanziaria" (law about the government budget) in an attempt to trim the national budget.[5]

Examples

See also

References

External links