regulations for the management of township and district libraries, and he shall transmit the same to the several officers intrusted with the care and management of said schools.

school fund, etc

(§4.) SEC. 4. He shall annually, on receiving notice from the audi- Apportionment tor general of the amounts thereof, and previous to the tenth day of of primary May, apportion the primary school interest fund among the several townships and cities of the State, in proportion to the number of children in each between the ages of five and twenty years, as the same shall appear by the reports of the several boards of school inspectors made to him for the year last closed, and shall prepare a statement of the amount in the aggregate payable to each county, and shall deliver the same to the auditor general, who shall thereupon draw his warrant upon the State treasurer in favor of the treasurer of each county, for the amount payable to such county. He shall also send written notices to the clerks of the several Notice to county counties of the amount in the aggregate to be disbursed in their clerks of amounts respective counties, and the amount payable to the townships and cities therein respectively.

to be disbursed.

returns.

(85.) SEC. 5. Whenever the returns from any county, township, Proceedings in city, or district, upon which a statement of the amount to be dis- case of defective bursed or paid to any such county, township, city, or district shall be so far defective as to render it impracticable to ascertain the share of primary school interest fund which ought to be disbursed or paid to such county, township, city, or district, he shall ascertain by the best evidence in his power the facts upon which the ratio of such apportionment shall depend, and shall make the apportionment accordingly.

tioned the next

(§6.) SEC. 6. Whenever any county, township, city, or district, when deficiency through failure or error in making the proper report, shall fail to may be apporreceive its share of the primary school interest fund, the superin-year. tendent of public instruction, upon satisfactory proof that said county, township, city, or district was justly entitled to the same, shall apportion such deficiency in his next apportionment; and whenever it shall appear to the satisfaction of said superintendent that any district has had three months' school, but failed to have the full time of school required by law, through no fault or negligence of the district or its officers, he may include such district in his apportionment of the primary school interest fund in his discretion.

(87.) SEC. 7. The superintendent of public instruction shall per- Other duties of form such other duties as are or shall be required of him by law, Superintendent. and at the expiration of his term of office deliver to his successor all property, books, documents, maps, records, reports, and all other papers belonging to his office, or which may have been received by him for the use of his office.

CHAPTER II.

FORMATION, ALTERATION, MEETINGS, AND POWERS OF DISTRICTS.

(§8.) SECTION 1. The township board of school inspectors shall Inspectors to divide the township into such number of school districts as may from form districts.

time to time be necessary, which districts they shall number, and May alter boun- they may regulate and alter the boundaries of the same as circum

daries of

Township clerk to deliver notice

inhabitant.

See App. B., forms 1, 2, 3.

Inhabitant to serve notice of first meeting.

stances shall render proper, subject to the provisions hereinafter made; but no district shall contain more than nine sections of land, and each district shall be composed of contiguous territory, and be in as compact a form as may be.

(§9.) SEC. 2. Whenever the board of school inspectors of any townof formation to ship shall form a school district therein, it shall be the duty of the clerk of such board to deliver to a taxable inhabitant of such district a notice in writing of the formation of such district, describing its boundaries, and specifying the time and place of the first meeting, which notice, with the fact of such delivery, shall be entered upon record by the clerk. The said notice shall also direct such inhabitant to notify every qualified voter of such district, either personally or by leaving a written notice at his place of residence, of the time and place of said meeting, at least five days before the time appointed therefor; and it shall be the duty of such inhabitant to notify the qualified voters of said district accordingly, and said Return of notice. inhabitant, when he shall have notified the qualified voters as required in such notice, shall endorse thereon a return, showing such notification with the date or dates thereof, and deliver such notice and return to the chairman of the 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 such district.

See § 138.

Notice and return to be recorded.

Proceedings in

organize district.

(810.) SEC. 3. In case the inhabitants of any district shall fail to case of failure to organize the same in pursuance of such notice as aforesaid, the said clerk shall give a new notice in the manner herein before provided, and the same proceedings shall be had thereon as if no previous notice had been delivered.

Formation of fractional districts.

To whom direct.

or of such dis

trict shall report.

When district deemed organ. ized.

(§11.) SEC. 4. Whenever it shall be necessary or convenient to form a district from two or more adjoining townships, the inspectors, or a majority of them, of each of such adjoining townships, may form such district, to be designated as a fractional district, and direct which township clerk shall make and deliver the notice of the formation of the same to a taxable inhabitant thereof, and may regulate and alter such district as circumstances may render necessary in the same manner that other districts are altered. The annual reports of the director of such district shall be made to the inspectors of the township in which the school-house may be situated, and the inspectors of such township shall number said district.

(812.) SEC. 5. Every such school district shall be deemed duly organized when any two of the officers elected at the first meeting shall have filed their acceptances in writing with the director, and the same shall have been recorded in the minutes of such first meetPresumption of ing. Every school district shall, in all cases, be presumed to have legal organiza. been legally organized when it shall have 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.

See App. A., ¶ 16-20

(§13.) SEC. 6. The record of the first meeting made by the director

of first meeting

shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein set forth, and of Director's record the legality of all proceedings in the organization of the district to be evidence. prior to the first district meeting; but nothing in this section contained shall be so construed as to impair the effect of the record kept by the school inspectors, as evidence.

CORPORATE POWERS OF DISTRICTS.

to be bodies cor

(§14.) SEC. 7. Every school district organized in pursuance of this School districts chapter, or which has been organized and continued under any pre- porate. vious law of the State or territory of Michigan, shall be a body corporate, and shall possess the usual powers of a corporation for pub.lic purposes, by the name and style of "School District Number Name and style. (such number as shall be designated in the formation thereof

by the inspectors), of" (the name of the township or townships

in which the district is situated), and in that name shall be capable Powers of of suing and being sued, of contracting and being contracted with,

and of holding such real and personal estate as is authorized to be purchased by the provisions of law, and of selling the same.

ALTERATION OF DISTRICTS.

(§15.) SEC. 8. Whenever the board of school inspectors shall contem- Meetings of plate an alteration of the boundaries of a district, the township clerk inspectoris (andfor meetings of boards to act in relation to fractional districts, the clerks of the several townships interested) shall give at least ten Notices of. days' notice of the time and place of the meeting of the inspectors, See App. B., and the alteration proposed, by posting such notice in three public form 16. places in the township or townships, one of which notices shall be see App. A., ¶ 1. in each of the districts that may be affected by such alteration.

alter districts.

tax-payers to be

(§16.) SEC. 9. The inspectors may, in their discretion, detach the Powers of property of any person or persons from one district and attach it to inspectors to another; except that no land which has been taxed for building a school-house shall be set off into another school district for the See App. A., ¶¶ 2, 3, 47. period of three years thereafter, except by the consent of the owner thereof; and no district shall be divided into two or more districts When consent of without the consent of a majority of the resident tax-payers of said obtained. district, and no two or more districts be consolidated without the consent of a majority of the resident tax-payers of each district. (§17.) SEC. 10. The inspectors may attach to a school district any Persons out of person residing in a township, and not in any organized district, at attached thereto his request; and for all district purposes except raising a tax for in certain cases. building a school-house, such person shall be considered as residing in such district; but when set off to a new district, no sum shall be raised for such person as his proportion to the district property.

See § 110.

district may be

alteration in

(§18.) SEC. 11. In all cases where an alteration of the boundaries of Township clerk a school district shall be made, the township clerk shall, within ten to give notice of days, deliver to the director of each district affected by the altera- districts. tion a notice in writing, setting forth the action of the inspectors and defining the alterations that have been made.

DIVISION OF PROPERTY.

See App. B., form 4.

When district is

(§19.) SEC. 12. When a new district is formed, in whole or in part, divided property from one or more districts possessed of a school-house, or entitled to to be appor.

tioned.

See App. A., ¶¶ 3, 47, 54.

other property, the inspectors, at the time of forming such new district, or as soon thereafter as may be, shall 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 shall no longer be conveniently located for school purposes, and shall not be 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 shall be located, may advertise and sell the Proceeds of sale same, and apportion the proceeds of such sale, and also any moneys

When school

house or site is not needed, may be sold.

to be appor

tioned.

See App. B., form 8.

When may not

be called.

Business of to be stated in notice.

Notices of meetings.

See App. B., forms 7, 9.

belonging to the district thus divided, among the several districts erected in whole or in part from the divided district.

(§20.) SEC. 13. Such proportion shall be 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, shall be deducted from such proportion: Provided, That no real estate thus set off, and which shall not have 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.

DISTRICT MEETINGS.

(§21.) SEC. 14. The annual meeting of each school district shall be held on the first Monday of September in each year, and the school year shall commence on that day: Provided, That any school district organized under the law for graded or high schools, or any school district organized by a special act of the legislature that shall so determine at an annual meeting, or at a special meeting duly called for that purpose, may hold its annual meeting on the second Monday of July in each year, or in the same manner may thereafter change the time of its annual meeting to the first Monday in September in each year, and the trustees and officers of the district shall date their terms of office from the date so chosen and until their successors are elected and qualified: Provided further, That such action in either case shall not change the time of the commencement of the school year or the taking of the annual school

census.

(§22.) SEC. 15. Special meetings may be called by the district board; and it shall be the duty of said board, or any one of them, to call such meetings on the written request of not less than five legal voters of the district, by giving the notice required in the next succeeding section; but no special meeting shall be called unless the business to be transacted may lawfully come before such meeting, and no business shall be transacted at a special meeting unless the same be stated in the notice of said meeting.

(§23.) SEC. 16. All notices of annual or special district meetings, after the first meeting has been held as aforesaid, shall specify the day and hour and place of meeting, and shall be given at least six days

officer to give

meeting not

of notice.

previous to such meeting, by posting up copies thereof in three of the most public places in the district, one copy of which for each meeting shall be posted at the outer door of the district schoolhouse, if there be one; and in case of any special meeting called for the purpose of establishing or changing the site of a schoolhouse, such notice shall be given at least ten days previous thereto : Provided, That when any of the district board shall receive a re- Duty of district quest to call a special meeting, as provided in the preceding sec- notice. tion, be shall forth with give notice, as above provided, of said meeting, which shall be called in not less than six nor more than twelve days from the time the said officer shall receive the notice aforesaid. No annual meeting shall be deemed illegal for want of When annual due notice, unless it shall appear that the omission to give such illegal for want notice was willful and fraudulent. (824.) SEC. 17. Every person of the age of twenty-one years, who who are quali has property liable to assessment for school taxes in any school dis- fed voters at trict, and who has resided therein three months next preceding any ings. school meeting held in said district, or who has resided three months next preceding such meeting on any territory belonging to such district at the time of holding said meeting, shall be a qualified voter in said meeting upon all questions, and all other persons who are twenty-one years of age, and are the parents or legal guardians of any children included in the school census of the district, and who have, for three months as aforesaid, been residents in said district or upon any territory belonging thereto at the time of holding any school meeting, shall be entitled to vote on all questions arising in said district which do not directly involve the raising of money by tax.

district meet.

lenged voters.

(§25.) SEC. 18. If any person offering to vote at a school district challenging meeting shall be challenged as unqualified by any legal voter in such voters. district, the chairman presiding at such meeting shall declare to the person challenged the qualifications of a voter; and if such person shall state that he is qualified, and the challenge shall not be withdrawn, the said chairman shall tender to him an oath, in substance as follows: "You do swear (or affirm) that you are oaths to be twenty-one years of age, that you have been for the last three tendered chal months an actual resident of this school district, or residing upon territory now attached to this school district, and that you are liable to pay a school district tax therein;" and every person taking such oath shall be permitted to vote on all questions proposed at such meeting. Or he may take the following oath, to-wit: "You do swear (or affirm) that you have been for the past three months an actual resident of this school district, or residing upon territory now attached to this school district, and that you are the parent or legal guardian of one or more children now included in the school census of this district;" and he may vote upon all questions which do not directly involve the raising of money by tax. If any person False oath so challenged shall refuse to take such oath, his vote shall be rejected; and any person who shall willfully take a false oath, or make a false affirmation, under the provisions of this section, shall be deemed guilty of perjury. When any question is taken in any other manner than by ballot, a challenge immediately after the

deemed per jury.