22. Consider whether or not your school may be profitably organized into a state graded school or in certain cases into a free high school. Section 430f.

Read chapter 256, laws of 1905, if you have anything like sixty-five pupils enrolled in a one room school house. If a two department state graded school is established the district will be entitled to special aid to the amount of $200 each year and if a three department school is established $300 will be paid annually. See chapter 289, laws of 1909. (Sections 496d to 4961 inclusive.)

23. Entertain any other matter relating to the management of the affairs of the district.

24. Adjourn sine die if the business of the district has been satisfactorily completed. If not satisfactorily completed, it will be well to adjourn to a near future day. By so doing the trouble of calling a special meeting will be avoided. As many adjournments as are necessary to complete the business of the district may be legally taken.

DISTRICT OFFICERS

Elections, terms and acceptance. Section 431. The officers of the district shall be a director, treasurer and clerk, who shall be residents of the district and hold their respective offices for three years and until their successors have been elected or appointed, but not beyond ten days beyond the expiration of their term of office without being again elected or appointed; provided, that at the first election of such officers in any newly organized district the clerk shall be chosen for one year, the treasurer for two years and the director for three years; and thereafter each officer shall be chosen for three years. Any person present at a meeting at which he shall be elected one of the board shall be deemed to be notified thereof; and any person so elected and not present shall be notified thereof by the clerk of said meeting within five days thereafter; and unless each person elected and notified shall within ten days after his election file with the clerk his refusal in writing to accept the office he shall be deemed to have accepted the same.

See Forms Nos. 15 and 16.

For law relating to school boards of seven members, see chapter 421, 1905, found under section 430 relating to powers of districts.

In reckoning the terms of district officers, the time from the first meeting of a legally organized district to the first annual meeting, no matter how short that may be, is to be considered a year, because al subsequent elections must take place at the annual meetings of the district; hence, at the first annual meeting after its organization the district will elect a clerk, at the second a treasurer, and at the third a director, each for a term of three years. Ordinarily, but one district officer will be elected at an annual meeting, but it will sometimes be necessary to fill the unexpired terms of those who have vacated their offices.

Section 443 provides that treasurers shall hold their offices until their successors are elected or appointed, and qualified by filing the required bonds.

Section 513 makes women twenty-one years of age eligible as school district officers after one year's residence in the district. Persons who have declared their intention to become citizens are eligible to district offices. After December 1912 all electors and officers must be citizens of the United States as well as of the state.

District board. Section 432. The director, treasurer and clerk shall constitute the district board. Meetings of the board may be called by any two members thereof by serving on the other member a written notice of the time and place of such meeting at least twenty-four hours before such meeting is to take place. No act authorized to be done by the board shall be valid unless voted at its meeting. No formal notice of a meeting will be required where all members are present and consent to consider matters relating to the district.

The decision of a majority at a meeting properly convened, is the decision of the board, but the decision of a majority, or even of all three, under other circumstances, is not the decision of the board. It is merely the concurrent opinion of the members, and is no more the decision of the board than the concurrent opinion of the members of the legislature, arrived at by taking their separate votes at their respective homes, would be an act of the legislature. 37 Wis., 54; 59 Wis., 518.

It was held in 16 Maine R., 185, that the dismissal of a teacher by two, a majority of the board, was illegal, because the third was not notified, although he was out of town. The court says: "That does not allow the majority to dispense with the rule requiring notice. They are not in such cases constituted the judges whether the notice would be effectual to secure his attendance. Nor would it be entirely safe to entrust them with such power, as it would afford an opportunity to select an occasion when they might judge that a notice would be ineffectual, and thus, by neglecting to give it, free themselves from the presence of a dissenting minority. It may often happen that those will be able to attend, who were believed to be so situated that their attendance could not be expected. Nor is there any difficulty in giving the requisite notice in such cases, as one left at the usual place of residence would be sufficient."

A single member of the board may be authorized to carry out a vote or determination of the board, such as making a purchase, engaging work to be done, etc.

In Nevil v. Clifford, 63 Wis., 435, the court held that:

1. The school board has the power to build a schoolhouse out of funds provided by the district for that purpose, but has no power to build, or cause to be built, a schoolhouse, and then make the cost of the building a charge against the school district.

2. The voters at a school district meeting cannot authorize the school board to contract a debt on behalf of the district, or to levy a tax in an amount beyond the limit of their own powers in that behalf.

3. Nor can a school district ratify a contract or acts of the school board, which it would have no power to authorize in the first instance.

4. A school district though containing less than 250 inhabitants may borrow a sum exceeding $600 for the purpose of building a

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schoolhouse, if the money is borrowed on such terms that it will not be necessary, in order to repay it, to levy a tax exceeding $600 in any one year. See subd. 11, sec. 430, and secs. 474, 475, 476, 476a; also sections 474a, 495, and 261.

Filling vacancies. Section 433. The board may fill by appointment any vacancy that may occur in their number within ten days after such vacancy shall occur; and if such vacancy shall not be so filled the town or village clerk, and in the case of a joint district the clerk of the town or village in which the schoolhouse is situated, shall fill such vacancy by appointment. Any person upon being notified of his appointment shall be deemed to have accepted the same unless within five days thereafter he shall file with the clerk or director a written refusal to serve; and any person so appointed shall hold office until the next annual meeting, at which the electors shall fill such vacancy for the unexpired term.

See Forms Nos. 17, 18 and 19.

Section 962, of the Wisconsin statutes, declares when offices become vacant. That section is here inserted:

Section 962. Every office shall become vacant on the happening of either of the following events:

1. The death of the incumbent.

2. His resignation.

3. His removal.

4. His ceasing to be an inhabitant of the state; or if the office be local, his ceasing to be an inhabitant of the district, county, town, city or village by or for which he shall have been elected or appointed, or within which the duties of his office are required to be discharged.

5. His conviction of any infamous crime, or of any offense involving violation of his official oath.

6. The decision of a competent tribunal declaring void his election or appointment, or adjudging him insane.

7. The neglect or refusal of any person elected or appointed or re-elected or re-appointed to any office to give or renew his official bond, or to deposit the same in the manner and within the time prescribed by law.

8. The neglect or refusal of any officer in office to execute and file an additional bond, when lawfully required, in the manner and within the time so required or prescribed by law.

9. The death or declination in writing of any person elected or appointed to fill a vacancy, or for a full term, before he qualifies, or his death or such declination before the time when, by law, he should enter upon the duties of his office, to which he was elected or appointed.

10. On the happening of any other event which is declared by any special provision of law to create a vacancy.

This section introduces authority for the village clerk to appoint members of district boards, or members of boards of joint districts, in all cases where the members of the boards themselves fail to fill a vacancy in their own number.

This power of appointment by the village or city clerk does not extend beyond the limits of the district in which an organized village or city is located.

When a vacancy in the board of a joint school district has not been filled by the board itself within ten days, such vacancy must