PUBLIC-SCHOOL REVENUE. When the State auditor has certified the amount of the educational income for the year, the State superintendent shall deduct therefrom amounts sufficient to pay the current expenses of the department of education, and the expenses of the normal schools; the remainder he shall apportion among the townships and other school districts of the State.1 This apportionment is made by setting apart the amount due to the district as interest on its 16th section fund," or other trust fund held by the State; then, districts having no such amount due them are to be apportioned a proportionate amount, equal, per capita, to that paid to districts having such an income as described: The basis of this apportionment shall be the latest filed enumeration of school population in the townships and districts; the proportion of each district shall be divided pro rata between the two races.3 When made, the apportionments for each county must be sent in writing to the county superintendent.+ When the apportionment is complete, it must be reported by the State superintendent to the State auditor, and by him to the State treasurer." The poll-tax collected in each county is paid to it as its school money, as its share of the amount collected from polls in the State. The poll-tax collected in a county belongs to it, as its share of the proceeds of such tax; the amount paid by each race is kept separate and so reported Each township or other district is entitled to the poll-tax collected in it; and each race therein to the poll-tax paid by it.8 The school revenue due to each county from sources other than the poll-tax, having been certified to the State auditor, his warrant on the tax-collector of the county in favor of the county superintendent, and the payment of said warrant, is accounted as the payment of so much school money." Local school moneys for public schools must be expended in the districts wherein they are raised.10 EDUCATION OF TEACHERS. When 10 teachers, of either race, are licensed in a county, the county educational V board must hold a teachers' institute, of which the superintendent is president, and the other members of said board are vice-presidents. Said institute must meet at least thrice a year, and said teachers must attend at least one of these meetings, no fee or assessment being required. The exercises at said meetings shall relate to methods of teaching and discipline, choice of text-books, &c.11 COLLEGE BOARDS. The University of Alabama and the Alabama College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts are to be managed by boards of trustees, appointed by the Governor, confirmed by the senate; one third each year. The Governor and State superintendent are members of each board, ex officio.12 COUNTY EDUCATIONAL BOARD. The educational board of each county must comprise the county superintendent and 2 teachers of said county, apppointed by him; the board must meet at least once in each quarter year, examine applicants for teachers' licenses, issue the same, keep a record of all licenses issued, revoke the same for good cause, organize and maintain teachers' institutes for teachers of each race." The county superintendent is appointed by the State superintendent, for two years, except when special laws otherwise direct. 13 His duties are to keep and disburse school moneys, remove delinquent township superintendents and appoint their successors, bring suit against trespassers on school lands, and apportion schools between the races in each township.14 He must receipt to tax-collectors for all school moneys received from them, reporting the amounts to the State superintendent.15 He must settle finally with tax-collectors on May 1 of each year, reporting result to the State superintendent.16 He must keep a book showing all receipts, apportionments, and payments of school moneys, and when and to whom paid.1 He must report annnally the condition of public schools in his county to the State superintendent, and is liable to forfeit his pay and commission if he fail to make such report by November 10,18 His bond must be satisfactory to the State superintendent.1 His term of office begins October 1 of the year following that in which the Stato superintendent is elected.* His compensation is $75 a year, and 2 per cent. upon all moneys legally disbursed by him. He must post at the county court-house half-yearly, on April 1 and October 1, a statement of all school receipts, disbursements, and balances on hand; and may be fined $10 for failure to do so.1 The township superintendent is appointed by the county superintendent for two years. He must determine the location of public schools in his township." He must call a meeting of parents and guardians on the last Monday in October to settle public-school business.7 If, after ten days' written notice, parents and guardians do not attend said meeting, he may proceed without them.8" He must visit every public school in his township at least once each year. He must report to the county superintendent the annual income from rent, or proceeds of the school lands in his township.10 He is exempt from jury duty during his term of service." TEACHERS. Teachers of public schools must have been examined, must have answered at least 70 per cent. of the questions propounded by the board of examiners, and must possess licenses or certificates of qualification therefrom. Said certificate must show that the holder has been examined as follows: For the third (lowest) grade, in orthography, reading, penmanship, primary arithmetic, primary geography, and elementary physiology and hygiene; for the second grade, in the foregoing, and in practical arithmetic, United States history, English grammar, intermediate geography, elementary algebra, and physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the effects of alcohol and narcotics on the human system; for the first grade, in the foregoing, and also in higher algebra, physics, geometry, and the theory and practice of teaching. These certificates are valid, respectively, for 1, 2, and 3 years,12 Teachers are to be selected with a view to obtaining such as will secure large attendance of children of school age.13 They are not to be employed for less than 3 scholastic months, nor to teach less than 10, nor more than 50 pupils.14 They are to be paid quarterly, on the first Saturdays of January, April, July and October. 15 They are paid by the county superintendent, on vouchers approved by the township officers. 16 They may sue, and recover from the county superintendent the salary due them, if he fail to pay the same promptly.17 The contract to employ them must be in writing, and in duplicate, made with the township superintendent and approved by the county superintendent.18 Teachers are removable for cause by the township superintendent, but must be paid for the time actually employed in teaching.9 They must register the daily attendance of their pupils, and submit their books to the inspection of the township superintendent.20 They must make quarterly reports of enrolment, attendance, studies, days of teaching, and other matters, before they can demand their pay." ARKANSAS. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FREE-SCHOOL SYSTEM. Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable, and efficient system of free schools, whereby all persons in the State between the ages of six and twenty-one years may receive gratuitous education.22 SCHOOL DISTRICTS. Each school district shall be a body corporate by the name and style of "School district No. of the county of Every district shall hold in its corporate name the title of lands and property which may be acquired by said district for school-district purposes.1 No new school district shall be formed having less than 35 persons of scholastic age residing within the territory included in such new district, and no district formed shall, by the formation of a new district, be reduced to less than 35 persons of schol astic age. The county court shall have the right to form new school districts, or change boundaries, on a petition of a majority of all the electors residing within the territory affected: Provided, Such territory has the requisite number of children and property to comply with the existing laws in such cases." LEGAL SCHOOL POPULATION. The legal school age is from six to twenty-one years.3 SEPARATE SCHOOLS FOR THE RACES. Each district school board must make provision for establishing separate schools for white and colored children.4 MINIMUM LENGTH OF SCHOOL YEAR. The shortest annual term of school is three months of twenty days each.5 TEXT-BOOKS. The State superintendent is required to prepare, for the benefit of the common schools, a suitable list of text-books on orthography, reading, mental and written arithmetic, penmanship, English grammar, modern geography, and history of the United States, and to recommend the same to teachers and directors." STATE SUPERVISION. At each general (biennial) election a State superintendent shall be elected by popular vote." He is charged with the general superintendence of the business relating to the free common schools; must have an office at the State capital in which he must keep all books, reports, documents, and other papers pertaining to his department, and must there attend when not necessarily absent on business.s He must furnish to each county examiner suitable questions for the examination of teachers; hold a teachers' institute annually in each judicial district of the State; arrange the programme for such institute, and preside thereat when present. In his absence the assembled teachers may organize and hold such institute.9 He must prepare and transmit to county examiners school registers, blank certificates, reports, and other printed blanks, with forms and instructions, to be forwarded to directors and other school officers, to aid such officers in making their reports and carrying into effect the provisions of the school laws.10 He must ascertain the amount, disposal, and safety of the school funds; recommend measures for their security, preservation, and productiveness, and enforce their proper application by suits against defaulters or other parties liable." On or before November 1, each year, he must prepare and submit to the Governor of the State an annual report, showing for each county and the whole State the number of persons between the ages of 6 and 21 years upon the first day of the previous July; the number of each sex and race; the number that attended free common schools during the year ending the 30th of June; the number of schools, pupils, studies, average wages of teachers; the number, material, and cost of school-houses erected during the year and previously, and the place and attendance of institutes held,12 He shall report respecting the permanent school fund and other property apportioned to school purposes; the investments made of the same; the revenue accruing therefrom; the amounts received from per capita assessments and all other sources; the amount and object of all school expenditures and all unexpended amount in the county treasuries.13 To this report he must append a statistical table, compiled from the materials transmitted to his office by school officers, giving proper summaries, averages, and totals.14 The annual report of the State superintendent must be transmitted by the Governor to the General Assembly at the opening of the session, and be published as soon as practicable in numbers not exceeding 5,000,15 On the first Mondays of July and of January in each year, the superintendent must make and publish to the several counties of the State a pro rata apportionment of the revenues remaining in the State treasury available for school purposes, based upon the number of persons between 6 and 21 years residing therein upon the first Monday of July preceding. The county clerks shall draw their requisitions on the State auditor in favor of their county treasurers for such amounts as the said counties may be entitled to receive for the support of common free schools.1 TAXATION FOR THE SUPPORT OF FREE SCHOOLS. The General Assembly must provide for the support of common schools by taxes, which may never exceed in any one year 2 mills on the dollar of the taxable property of the State, and by an annual poll-tax of $1 on every male over twenty-one years of age; the General Assembly may authorize school districts to levy by a popular vote a tax not to exceed 5 mills on the dollar in any one year for school purposes, but no such tax shall be appropriated to any other purpose or to any other district than that for which it was levied. STATE COMMON-SCHOOL FUND. The proceeds of all lands that have been, or may be, granted by the United States to this State; all moneys, stocks, bonds, lands, and other property belonging to any fund for purposes of education; the net proceeds of all sales of lands and other property that may accrue to this State by escheat, or from sales of estrays, or from unclaimed dividends, or distributive shares of the estates of deceased persons; any proceeds of the sale of public lands which may have been or may be hereafter paid over to the State (Congress consenting); 10 per cent. of the net proceeds of the sales of all State lands; and all the grants, gifts, and devises that are made to this State, and not otherwise appropriated, shall be securely invested and sacredly preserved as a public fund, to be designated as the "common-school fund" of the State, except the proceeds arising from the sale or lease of the sixteenth section [lands].3 The annual income from said fund, together with the poll-tax heretofore mentioned, and so much of the ordinary annual revenues of the State as may be set apart by law for such purposes, shall be faithfully appropriated for maintaining a system of free common schools, and shall be appropriated to no other purpose whatsoever. The State auditor shall, on requisition from the State superintendent of public instruction, draw warrants on the State treasurer for payment to the several county treasurers of the school revenues due their respective counties." STATE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF THE SCHOOL fund. The Governor, secretary of State, and State superintendent constitute a board of commissioners of the common-school fund, and must meet semi-annually at the office of the State superintendent on the first Mondays in February and in August; but the Governor may assemble the members of said board at any time at his discretion, The Governor shall be president of said board, and the superintendent of public instruction shall act as its secretary. The said board shall have the management and investment of the common-school fund of the State, and shall from time to time, as the same may accumulate, invest them in bonds of the United States or of the State. All moneys required by law to be paid into the treasury to the credit of the common-school fund, may, if not paid within 30 days after they have become due, be recovered, with interest due thereon, by action in any court having jurisdiction; and such action shall be prosecuted by the attorney-general of the State, or by the prosecuting attorney of any judicial district within the State, when directed by said board. All moneys belonging or owing to the common-school fund, or accruing as revenue therefrom, together with the State school tax, shall be paid directly into the State treasury, and shall not be paid out except on the warrant of the auditor." COUNTY SUPERVISION. The county judge shall appoint a county examiner for each judicial district in the county. The county examiner must quarterly hold a public examination of persons wishing to teach in the common schools; these examinations to be held in orthography, reading, penmanship, mental and written arithmetic, English grammar, modern geography, and history of the United States. Competent persons of good moral character may receive certificates corresponding with their qualifications; but the examiner may not license any person addicted to profanity, drunkenness, gambling, licentiousness, or other demoralizing vices, or who does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being. 8 'Mansfield's Digest, chap. 135, sec. 6159. 2 Const., art. 14, sec. 3. 3 Mansfield's Digest, chap. 135, sec. 6121. 6 Ibid., sec. 6123. Ibid., secs. 6134-6138. 7 Ibid., sec. 6139. 8 Ibid., secs. 6183, 6186. He shall issue three grades of certificates, to be styled certificates of the first, of the second, and of the third grades; those of the first, to be valid in the county for two years; those of the second, for one year; those of the third, for six months.' He shall have power to appoint some suitable person to hold teachers' institutes and examine teachers in his county, in case of his inability to attend such institutes and examinations. Teachers are required to attend the public examination, to become members and attend the regular session of the teachers' institute as soon as the same shall be established; and no teacher may be charged for loss of time, when necessarily absent from school to attend such examination or institute.3 Public schools must be closed on days appointed for public examination of teachers, and during the sessions of teachers' institutes not more than five days during any one session.* The county examiner must, in his annual report, give the number, names, and addresses of all deaf-mutes, blind, and insane in each school district, under 30 years of age.5 Each county examiner is required to encourage the inhabitants of his county to form and organize school districts, establish public schools therein, indicate sound methods of instruction, labor to create an interest in the public schools, and annually, or or before September 20, make a tabular abstract of the reports made to him by the school directors in his county, as to districts, children of school age, attendance, and average attendance of such, male and female, white and colored; branches tanght, teachers, school-houses, grounds, money raised by tax, amounts expended, and for what, revenue from cominon-school fund and from other sources, how and for what expended, and what amounts were, at the close of the school year, unexpended and in the treasury." Failure to attend to any of these duties or to forward an abstract of directors' reports to the State superintendent involves a penalty of $25, with all costs, to be paid into the county treasury.7 The examiner must keep in his office a record and description of each school district, with the boundaries clearly defined; also a record of any change or alteration of boundaries.8 He must annually transmit to the county clerk of his county a written report, showing the number of persons between the ages of 6 and 21 years residing in each school district of his county.9 The county clerk must lay said report before the county court, to be used in making the apportionment of the general school fund to the various school districts.10 A county which, by change of county lines, or by the formation of a new county or counties, fails to receive the school funds that should be apportioned to it, from its school population being reckoned with that of the county or counties to which said funds may be apportioned, must be reimbursed for the loss thus incurred, said loss to be corrected in the first following apportionment of school revenue if possible, or, if not then made, in the second."1 Amounts refunded according to this provision must be deducted from the funds apportioned to the counties which originally received the erroneously apportioned revenues.12 MUNICIPAL OR TOWNSHIP SUPERVISION. Any incorporated city or town in this State, including the territory annexed thereto for school purposes, may be organized as a single school district in the manner and with the powers hereinafter specified.13 Upon the written petition of twenty voters of such city or town, it shall be the duty of the mayor, within five days, to designate a day, not less than seven nor more than fifteen days distant, for holding an election in said city or town for the purpose of voting upon the adoption of this act for the government of public schools therein, and for the election, by ballot, at the same time, of a board of six school directors for said city or town.14 Two of these shall serve until the third Saturday in May next after their election, two for one year and two for two years thereafter, and two directors, to serve three years, must be elected annually to fill the vacancies thus created. Said board must fill any vacancy that may occur therein until the next annual election. 15 Said board must hold a regular meeting on the last Saturday in each month, and may hold stated meetings at such other times as they may appoint, four members to constitute a quorum. 16 1 Mansfield's Digest, chap. 135, secs. 6187, 6188. Ibid., 6193. Ibid., sec. 6243. Act of March 27, 1885, sec. 1. Mansfield's Digest, chap. 135, Ibid., secs. 6190, 6191. 12 Ibid., sec. 6181. |