A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary or secondary schools or both in various countries. It not to be confused with an attendance zone, which is within a school district and is used to assign students to schools in a district and not to determine government authority.
29-660: DeSoto County Schools is a public school district based in Hernando , Mississippi ( USA ) and serving all public school students in DeSoto County in the Memphis metropolitan area . With an enrollment of more than 30,000 students, DeSoto County is the largest school district in the state of Mississippi. There were a total of 28,738 students enrolled in the DeSoto County School District during
58-454: A school board ) may be elected, appointed by a political office holder, serve ex officio , or a combination of any of these. An independent school district is a legally separate body corporate and political . Most school districts operate as independent local governmental units with exclusive authority over K–12 public educational operations and policies. The extent of their control is set by state-level law. Litigation against school districts
87-481: A "board of trustees," "board of education," "school committee," etc.. This body usually appoints or hires an experienced public school administrator to function as the district's superintendent of schools – a district's chief executive . The superintendent oversees daily operations, decisions and implements the policies of the board. The school board may also exercise a quasi-judicial function in serious employee or student discipline matters. School districts in
116-626: A certain degree comparable to a school district. Other arrangements are possible: certain types of special schools in North Rhine-Westphalia are run by the Landschaftsverbände . There also exist private schools , mostly funded by the States, but run by private entities like churches or foundations. In Italy , school districts were established in 1974 by the " Provvedimenti Delegati sulla scuola " ("Assigned Laws [to
145-568: A decline in property tax revenues during and after the Great Recession . By 2016 there were about 13,000 school districts, and the average student population was about 5,000. Although these terms can vary slightly between various states and regions, these are typical definitions for school district constitution: These terms may not appear in a district's name, even though the condition may apply. In England and Wales , school boards were established in 1870, and abolished in 1902, with
174-411: A decrease of 38,127 or 35%. Many states had passed laws facilitating school district consolidation. In 1951 the majority of the school districts in existence were rural school districts only providing elementary education, and some school districts did not operate schools but instead provided transportation to other schools. The Midwest had a large number of rural school districts. Previously areas of
203-705: A long history of violating federal mandates requiring civil rights reforms. In addition to the racial disparities in suspension rates, they suit also alleges that punishments differ widely for the same actions. In one fight, for instance, a black student was suspended a week for shouting, while the white girl with whom she fought was suspended for only two days. School district In the U.S., most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts. A school district usually operate several elementary , middle , and high schools . The largest urban and suburban districts operate hundreds of schools. While practice varies significantly by state (and in some cases, within
232-641: A minority of secondary schools , a few primary schools, and much further education . (Most schools are neither organized geographically nor publicly managed, although the Department of Education inspects and funds them and pays teachers' salaries.) Each ETB area comprises one or more local authority areas , with city or county councilors forming the bulk of the ETB board. The ETBs was formed in 2005 by amalgamating Vocational Education Committees established in 1930, also based on local government areas. In Hong Kong ,
261-455: A school system that is separate but similar to a town's or a county's powers. These include the power to enter contacts, use eminent domain , and to issue binding rules and regulations affecting school policies and operations. The power of school districts to tax and spend is generally more limited. For example, many school districts in New York state require a majority of voters living in
290-710: A single school district." Noting that most modern school districts were formed by consolidating one-room school districts in the first seven decades of the 20th century, Fischel argues that "outside the South, these consolidations were consented to by local voters" who "preferred districts whose boundaries conformed to their everyday interactions rather than formal units of government" and that "[t]he South ended up with county-based school districts because segregation imposed diseconomies of scale on district operations and required larger land-area districts." In New York , most school districts are separate governmental units with
319-449: A state), most American school districts operate as independent local governmental units under a grant of authority and within geographic limits created by state law. The executive and legislative power over locally-controlled policies and operations of an independent school district are, in most cases, held by a school district's board of education. Depending on state law, members of a local board of education (often referred to informally as
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#1732772719064348-466: A white principal to deal with white students and another black principal to deal with black students. Of the district's 42 schools, only two have black principals. While blacks make up approximately one third of the student population, they receive well over half of the suspensions from school. In 2015, the NAACP filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, alleging that
377-532: Is a geographic division over which a school board has jurisdiction. In Canada the term is used for the area controlled by a school board and is used interchangeably with school district , including in the formal name of the board. For example, see List of Alberta school boards . In the U.S. state of Virginia , the State Board of Education is charged under § 22.1-25 of the Code of Virginia with dividing
406-427: Is common and some law firms specialize in education law. Districts typically maintain professional liability insurance in order to pay its settlements and legal liabilities. As of 2023 in most U.S. states, public school districts may lay taxes to fund their operations. In others, such as Maine , some school districts are able to lay taxes and others are not. Independent school districts often exercise authority over
435-672: The Education Bureau divides primary schools into 36 districts, known as school nets, for its Primary One Admission System . Of the 36 districts, districts 34 and 41 in Kowloon and districts 11 and 12 in Hong Kong Island are considered the most prestigious. In Iranian cities school kids normal registrations are limited by school districts, register is online at my.medu.ir and the parent sees schools within range online. School division A school division
464-790: The Midwest and West tend to cross municipal boundaries, while school districts in New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions tend to adhere to city, township, and/or county boundaries. As of 1951 school districts were independent governmental units in 26 states, while in 17 states there were mixes of independent school districts and school districts subordinate to other local governments. In nine states there were only school districts subordinate to local governments. In most Southern states, school systems operate either as an arm of county government or at least share coextensive boundaries with
493-710: The Unorganized Borough of Alaska were not served by school districts but instead served by schools directly operated by the Alaska Department of Education and by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools. The state schools were transferred to the Alaska State-Operated School System (SOS) after the Alaska Legislature created it in 1971; that agency was terminated in 1975, with its schools transferred to
522-442: The county council and county borough councils becoming the local education authorities . 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 who meet the following criteria: In Germany , schools and teachers are predominately funded by the states of Germany , which also are in control of
551-424: The 2006–2007 school year. The gender makeup of the district was 48% female and 52% male. The racial makeup of the district was 26.05% African American, 67.91% White, 4.64% Hispanic, 1.22% Asian, and 0.18% Native American. 27.4% of the district's students were eligible to receive free lunch. The school district did not integrate until forced to by court order in 1970. As recently as 1997, one school had two principals;
580-557: The Government] about the school"). Each district must contain a minimum of 10,000 inhabitants. The national 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. In the Republic of Ireland, 16 Education and Training Boards (ETBs) administer
609-466: The United States tend to be different from the demographics of the students. This difference is "most pronounced in majority nonwhite jurisdictions and school districts with the largest racial achievement gaps ." There were 130,000 school districts in the country in 1930, with an average student population of 150. From 1942 to 1951 the number of school districts declined from 108,579 to 70,452,
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#1732772719064638-469: The district or the local government to approval their annual budget, but school districts in Virginia have no taxing authority and must depend on another local government (county, city, or town) for funding. A district's governing body, usually called a school board , is typically elected by direct popular vote but may be appointed by other governmental officials. The governing body might also be known as
667-481: The following key respect. Unlike school districts in most states, a Virginia school division is not a separate local government , but instead depends on appropriations and budget approvals from its associated general-purpose local government or governments (county, city, town). Legally, it is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia statute authorizes a school division to contract with
696-608: The newly created Alaska Unorganized Borough School District, which was broken apart into twenty-one school districts the following year. In the 2022 Census of Governments, the United States Census Bureau enumerated the following numbers of school systems in the United States: School districts in the US have reduced the number of their employees by 3.3%, or 270,000 between 2008 and 2012, owing to
725-504: The overall education policies. On the other hand, school buildings are mostly run and funded by municipal governments on different levels of the municipal system (municipalities proper, districts), depending on the size and specialization of a certain school or the population size of a certain municipality. As with other fields of government, for more specialized schools, special government bodies ("Zweckverband") can be established, where municipalities, and not voters, are members; these are to
754-441: The power to levy taxes and incur debt, except for the five cities with a population of over 125,000 ( Buffalo , Rochester , Syracuse , Yonkers , and New York City ), where the schools are operated directly by the municipalities. The Hawaii State Department of Education functions as a single statewide school district, unique among states. According to a 2021 study, the demographics of voters who elect local school boards in
783-477: The school district has violated the Civil Rights Act by discriminating "against Black students on the basis of race through its discipline policies and practices fostering a school-to-prison pipeline and fueling racial disparities." The suit asks the federal government to force the district to revise the vague code of conduct which allows for uneven punishments of minority students. The school district has
812-492: The state into school divisions. A school division is typically coextensive with a county or independent city , although it is also possible for a school division to comprise a city and a neighboring county (e.g., Williamsburg and James City County ) or a single town (e.g., West Point ). Although the term "school district" is popularly used, a school division in Virginia differs from a school district in most states in
841-556: The state's counties. A 2010 study by economist William A. Fischel found that "two-thirds of medium-to-large American cities have boundaries that substantially overlap those of a single school district" with substantial regional and state variations in the degree of overlap, "ranging from nearly perfect congruence in New England , New Jersey, and Virginia, to hardly any in Illinois, Texas, and Florida." Older and more populous municipalities "tend to have boundaries that closely match those of
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