meeting, to be by him delivered to the director chosen at such meeting, and by said director recorded at length as a part of the records of the district (4647). A school district created by special legislative enactment cannot be dissolved or changed by the school inspectors (17 Mich. 223). SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENT. In case the inhabitants of the district fail to organize as above indicated, the clerk shall give a new notice and the residents of the district shall proceed in the same manner as in case of first notice FAILURE TO (4648). DISTRICTS. Fractional districts are districts formed from territory taken from two or more adjoining townships. FRACTIONAL Such districts are formed by joint action of the township boards of inspectors of the townships interested. They are organized in the same manner other primary school districts, and the officers report to the clerk of the township in which the school house is situated. The inspectors assign a number to each school district thus established (4649). UNORGANIZED LEGALLY as Any unorganized territory cannot be included in a school district and taxed for school purposes (45 Mich. TERRITORY. 559), unless at the request of the owner (4655). The proceedings in the organization of school districts are many times informal and irregular. The statute and courts have wisely declared that, however awkward and improper may have been such proceedings, a school district is deemed duly organized when any two of the officers elected at the first meeting have filed their acceptances in writing with the director, and the same have been recorded in the minutes of such first meeting. Every school district is presumed to be legally organized when it has exercised the franchises and privileges of a district for the term of two years; and such school district and its officers shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities, and be subject to all the duties and liabilities conferred upon school districts by law (4650; 81 Mich. 339). A district organized under the laws of Michigan has a corporate existence and possesses the usual powers of a corporation for public purposes (4652). CHANGES IN THE BOUNDARIES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL DISTRICTS. These are effected by the inspectors, under certain regulations and restrictions. After a district has exercised its corporate functions for several years, its boundaries should not be altered for trivial reasons. The official acts of inspectors in the change of district boundaries are therefore quite carefully guarded by the statutes. Whenever the board of school inspectors contemplates an alteration of the boundaries of a district, the township clerk (and for meetings of boards to act in relation to fractional districts, clerks of the several townships interested) gives at least ten days' notice of the time and place of the meeting of the inspectors, and of the alterations proposed, by posting such notice in three public places in the township or townships, one of which notices is posted in each of the districts that may be affected by such alteration. Whenever the board of school inspectors of more than one township meet, they elect one of their number chairman and another clerk (4653). NOTICE OF TRANSFER OF The inspectors may, in their discretion, detach the property of any person or persons from one district TERRITORY OF and attach it to another, except that no land TAXPAYERS. which has been taxed for building a school house can be set off into another school district for the period of three years thereafter, without the consent of the owner thereof; and no district can be divided into two or more districts without the consent of a majority of the resi dent taxpayers of said district; and no two or more districts can be consolidated without the consent of a majority of the resident taxpayers of each district (4654). CONSENT OF The inspectors have the right to detach such territory as they see fit (except as stated above), unless such action would practically destroy the district (67 Mich. 601); but they have no authority to divide up the district and destroy it without the consent of a majority of the resident taxpayers; nor can they destroy it by cutting it up into pieces, and attaching all the territory to other districts without such consent (71 Mich. 87). The inspectors may attach to a school district any person INDIVIDUALS residing in a township and not in any organized district, at his request; and, for all district purposes, except raising a tax for building a school house, such person is considered as residing in such district; but when set off to a new district, no sum is raised for such person as his proportion of the district property (4655). In all cases where an alteration of the boundaries of a school district is made, the township clerk is required within ten days to deliver to the director of each district affected by the alteration, a notice in writing, setting forth the action of the inspectors and defining the alterations that have been made (4656). NOTICE OF When a new district is formed in whole or in part, from one or more districts possessed of a school house or entitled to other property, the inspectors, at the time of forming such new district or as soon thereafter as may be, ascertain and determine the amount justly due to such new district from any district out of which it may have been in whole or in part formed, as the proportion of such new district, of the value of the school house and other property belonging to the former district at the time of such division; and whenever, by the division of any district, the school house or site thereof is no longer conveniently located for school DIVISION OF purposes and is not desired for use by the new district in which it may be situated, the school inspectors of the township in which such school house and site is located, may advertise and sell the same and apportion the proceeds of such sale, as also any moneys belonging to the district thus divided, among the several districts erected in whole or in part from the divided district. DEBTS FOR- Such proportion is ascertained and determined according to the value of the taxable property of the respective parts of such former district at the time of the division, by the best evidence in the power of the inspectors; and such amount of any debt due from the former district which would have been a charge upon the new had it remained in the former district, is deducted from such proportion: Provided, That no real estate thus set off, which has not been taxed for the purchase or building of such school house, shall be entitled to any portion thereof, nor be taken into account in such division of district property. Graded Schools. The term graded school as used in the laws of the State is sometimes confused with those schools which have, by authority of the school board and teacher, adopted a graded course of study according to the manual and course of study published by the superintendent of public instruction. In using the term we refer exclusively to districts organized under the law for graded schools. All such schools are first organized as primary districts, and all graded schools, whether created under special acts or organized under general laws, are subject to the general primary school law, except in so far as the acts creating them or under which they are organized, are inconsistent with it (18 Mich. 400). HOW CLASSIFIED. Any school district containing more than one hundred children of school age may organize as a graded NUMBER OF CHILDREN. district. HOW ORGANIZED. The vote may be taken at any school meeting properly called, and a two-thirds vote of the qualified voters is required (4746). The district voting to organize as a graded district, elects at such meeting a board of trustees, and the time from the date of the meeting to the date of the next annual school meeting is reckoned as one year. ALTERATION IN BOUNDARIES OF GRADED DISTRICT. The authority to make changes in the boundaries of graded districts is given to the board of inspectors, with the following limitations: HOW No alteration can be made in the boundaries of any graded school district, without the consent of a majority of the trustees of said district, which consent must be spread upon the records of the district and placed on file in the office of the clerk of the board of school inspectors of the township or city to which the reports of said district are made (97 Mich. 127). Graded school districts are not restricted to nine sections of land (4749).* Whenever two or more contiguous districts having together more than one hundred children of school TION OF DIS- age, have published in the notices of the annual meetings of each district the intention to take CONSOLIDA TRICTS. *NOTE.-Section 4749 was amended by the legislature of 1899 by adding a proviso: That any three or more tax paying electors having children between the ages of five and twelve years. residing one and onehalf miles or more from a school house in such district, feeling aggrieved by any action of the board of trustees with reference to the alteration of a school district, affecting their interests, may within sixty days from the time of such action appeal to the judge of probate of the county in which such school house is situated Said appellants shall file a bond with said judge of probate, in the penal sum of two hundred dollars, indemnifying said school district of any and all costs made on such appeal in case the appellants shall not prevail therein. Whereupon said judge of probate shall be empowered to entertain such appeal, and review, confirm or set aside or amend the action. (Act 258, 1899.) |