ance to the school commissioner who shall apportion the same equitably among the districts to which the parts of the dissolved districts were annexed, to be by them applied as their district meetings shall determine. 12. Though a district be dissolved, it shall continue to exist in law, for the purpose of providing for and paying all its just debts; and to that end the trustees and other officers shall continue in office, and the inhabitants may hold special meetings, elect officers to supply vacancies, and vote taxes; and all other acts necessary to raise money and pay such debts shall be done by the inhabitants and officers of the district. § 13. The commissioner, or a majority of the commissioners in whose district or districts a dissolved school district was situated, shall by his or their order in writing, delivered to the clerk of the district, or to any person in whose possession the books, papers and records of the district, or any of them, may be, direct such clerk or any other person to deposit the same in the clerk's office in a town in the order named. Such clerk or other person, by neglect or refusal to obey the order, shall forfeit fifty dollars, to be applied to the benefit of the common schools of said town. The commissioner or commissioners shall file a duplicate of the order with such clerk. §14. All the rights, powers and duties conferred upon school commissioners by titles five and six of this act, including the sole authority to examine and license, under the rules prescribed by the superintendent of public instruction, all persons proposing to teach common schools, not possessing the qualifications mentioned in subdivision five of section thirteen of title five, shall ex tend to all districts organized under special acts, and all parts of such special acts inconsistent therewith are hereby repealed. (Added by chap. 512 of 1897, § 3.) School District Meetings and Voters. TITLE VII. S$ 1--6 Meetings in Common School Districts; the Election of School District Officers and their Powers and Duties. ARTICLE I. OF COMMON SCHOOL DISTRICT MEETINGS, WHO ARE VOTERS, AND THEIR POWERS. SECTION 1. Whenever any school district shall be formed, the commissioner or any one or more of the commissioners, within whose district or districts it may be, shall prepare a notice describing such district, and appointing a time and place for the first district meeting, and deliver such notice to a taxable inhabitant of the district. 2. It shall be the duty of such inhabitant to notify every other inhabitant of the district qualified to vote at the meeting, by reading the notice in his hearing, or in case of his absence from home, by leaving a copy thereof, or so much thereof as relates to the time, place and object of the meeting, at the place of his abode, at least, six days before the time of the meeting. 3. In case such meeting shall not be held, and in the opinion of the commissioner it shall be necessary to hold such meeting, before the time herein fixed for the first annual meeting, he shall deliver another such notice to a taxable inhabitant of the district, who shall serve it as hereinbefore provided. 4. When the clerk and all the trustees of a school district shall have removed from the district, or their office shall be vacant, so that a special meeting cannot be called, as hereinafter provided, the commissioner may in like manner give notice of, and call a special district meeting. § 5. Every taxable inhabitant, to whom a notice of any district meeting shall be delivered for service pursuant to any provisions of this article, who shall refuse or neglect to serve the same, as hereinbefore prescribed, shall forfeit five dollars for the benefit of the district. 6. A special district meeting shall be held whenever called by the trustees. The notice thereof shall state the purposes for which it is called, and no business shall be transacted at such special meeting, except that which is specified in the no tice; and the district clerk, or, if the office be vacant, or he be sick or absent, or shall refuse to act, a trustee, or some taxable inhabitant, by order of the trustees, shall serve the notice upon each inhabitant of the district qualified to vote at district meetings, at least five days before the day of the meeting, in the manner prescribed in the second section of this title. But the inhabtants of any district may, at any annual meeting, adopt a resolution prescribing some other mode of giving notice of special meetings, which resolution and the mode prescribed there by shall continue in force until rescinded or modified at some subsequent annual meeting. § 7. The proceedings of no district meeting, annual or special, shall be held illegal for want of a due notice to all the persons qualified to vote thereat, unless it shall appear that the omission to give such notice was willful and fraudulent. § 8. The annual meeting of each school district shall be held on the first Tuesday of August in each year, and, unless the hour and place thereof shall have been fixed by a vote of a previous district meeting, the same shall be held in the school-house at seven-thirty o'clock in the evening. If a district possesses more than one school-house, it shall be held in the one usually employed for that purpose, unless the trustees designate another. If the district possesses no school-house, or if the school-house shall be no longer accessible, then the annual meeting shall be held at such place as the trustees, or, if there be no trustee, the clerk, shall designate in the notice. 9. Whenever the time for holding the annual meeting in school districts shall pass without such meeting being held in any district, a special meeting shall thereafter be called by the trustees or by the clerk of such district for the purpose of transacting the business of the annual meeting; and if no such meeting be called by the trustees or the clerk within twenty days after such time shall have passed, the school commissioner of the commissioner district in which said school district is situated or the superintendent of public instruction may order any inhabitant of such district to give notice of such meeting in the manner provided in the sccond section of this title, and the officers of the district shall make to such meetings the reports required to be made at the annual meeting, subject to the same penalty in case of neglect; and the officers elected at such meeting shall hold their respective offices only until the next annual meeting School District Meetings and Voters. SS 10-13 and until their successors are elected and shall have qualified as in this act provided. § 10. Whenever any district meeting shall be duly called, it shall be the duty of the inhabitants qualified to vote thereat, to assemble at the time and place fixed for the meeting. § 11. Every person of full age residing in any school district and who has resided therein for a period of thirty days next preceding any annual or special meeting held therein, and a citizen of the United States, who owns or hires, or is in the possession, under a contract of purchase, of real property in such school district liable to taxation for school purposes; and every such resident of such district, who is a citizen of the United States, of twenty-one years of age, and is the parent of a child or children of school age, some one or more of whom shall have attended the district school in said district for a period of at least eight weeks within one year preceding such school meeting; and every such person not being the parent, who shall have permanently residing with him or her a child or children of school age, some one or more of whom shall have attended the district school in said district for a period of at least eight weeks within one year preceding such school meeting; and every such resident and citizen as aforesaid, who owns any personal property, assessed on the last preceding assessment-roll of the town, exceeding fifty dollars in value, exclusive of such as is exempt from execution, and no other shall be entitled to vote at any school meeting held in such district, for all school district officers and upon all matters which may be brought before said meeting. No person shall be deemed to be ineligible to vote at any such school district meeting, by reason of sex, who has one or more of the other qualifications required by this section. § 12. If any person offering to vote at any school district meeting shall be challenged as unqualified, by any legal voter in such district, the chairman presiding at such meeting shall require the person so offering, to make the following declaration: "I do declare and affirm that I am, and have been, for the thirty days last past, an actual resident of this school district and that I am qualified to vote at this meeting." And every person making such declaration shall be permitted to vote on all questions proposed at such meeting; but if any person shall refuse to make such declaration, his or her vote shall be rejected. 13. Any person who shall willfully make a false declaration of his or her right to vote at any such school meeting, after his or her right to vote thereat has been challenged, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor. And any person not qualified to vote at any such meeting, who shall vote thereat, shall thereby forfeit five dollars, to be sued for by the supervisor for the benefit of the common schools of the town. 14. The inhabitants entitled to vote, when duly assembled in any district meeting, shall have power, by a majority of the votes of those present: 1. To appoint a chairman for the time being. 2. If the district clerk be absent to appoint a clerk for the time. 3. To adjourn from time to time as occasion may require. 4. To elect one or three trustees as hereinafter provided, a district clerk and a district collector, and in any district which shall so determine, as hereinafter provided, to elect a treasurer, at their first meeting, and so often as such offices or any of them become vacated, except as hereinafter provided. All district officers shall be elected by ballot. At elections of district officers, the trustees. shall provide a suitable ballot-box. Two inspectors of election. shall be appointed in such manner as the meeting shall determine, who shall receive the votes cast, and canvass the same, and announce the result of the ballot to the chairman. A poll-list containing the name of every person whose vote shall be received shall be kept by the district clerk, or the clerk for the time of the meeting. The ballots shall be written or printed, or partly written and partly printed, containing the name of the person voted for and designating the office for which each is voted for. The chairman shall declare to the meeting the result of each ballot, as announced to him by the inspectors, and the persons having the majority of votes, respectively, for the several offices, shall be elected. 5. At the first meeting, or at any subsequent annual meeting, or at any special meeting duly called for that purpose, the qualified voters of any school district are authorized to adopt by a vote of a majority of such voters present and voting, to be ascertained by taking and recording the ayes and noes, a resolution to elect a treasurer of said district, who shall be the custodian of all moneys belonging to said district, and the disbursing officer of such moneys. If such resolution shall be adopted, such voters shall thereupon elect by ballot a treasurer for said district. No person shall be eligible to the office of treasurer unless he is a |