A school district is an administrative and regulatory body responsible for the management of education institutions within the territorial limit under its jurisdiction. A school district commonly is responsible for managing the money received, commonly from the superintending, superior governing body for the region. School districts are commonly responsible for the hiring of employees and the payment that can be effectively earned and withhold with the exception of the legal rights given by the superior regional body identified by the country or determinate state.
North America United States
In the U.S., all states except Hawaii have their K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts. A school district usually operates 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 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 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 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. 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 a school system that is separate but similar to a town's or a county's powers. These include the power to enter contracts, 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 the district or the local government to approve 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 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 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, or county boundaries. Although the majority of districts in Indiana usually adhere to the county level, at least half adhere to a group of townships within a county with several counties having anywhere from two or three to as much as five districts in a county. Some even adhere to a single township, these are usually found in metropolitan areas such as those in Lake, LaPorte, Marion, and St. Joseph Counties, but some other rural districts have so far avoided consolidation. Only 7 districts cross county lines and one district even crosses over the Ohio border. 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."State and Local Government Special Studies: Governments in the United States 1951". Property Taxation 1941. U.S. Census Bureau. G-SS-No. 29, March 1952. p. 2 (Google Books RA3-PA56).
In most Southern states, school systems operate either as an arm of county government or at least share coextensive boundaries with 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." Florida school district governments have boundaries that parallel those of counties. - Text list According to Fischel, older and more populous municipalities "tend to have boundaries that closely match those of 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 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.Linda Jacobson, Report Faults Hawaii's Statewide School District, Education Week (December 10, 2003).Jan Zulich, Hawaii's School System Is One of a Kind, The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 70, No. 7 (March 1989), pp. 546-549.
According to a 2021 study, the demographics of voters who elect local school boards in 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."
History 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, a decrease of 38,127 or 35%."State and Local Government Special Studies: Governments in the United States 1951." Property Taxation 1941. U.S. Census Bureau. G-SS-No. 29, March 1952. p. 1-2 (Google Books RA3-PA55 and PA56). Many states had enacted 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. In 2013 the number of U.S. school districts was under 13,000. By 2013 the rate of school district consolidation across the country had declined.
Previously areas of 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 the newly created Alaska Unorganized Borough School District, which was broken apart into twenty-one school districts the following year.Barnhardt, Carol, "Historical Status of Elementary Schools in Rural Alaskan Communities 1867–1980." Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN), University of Alaska Fairbanks. Retrieved on March 13, 2017.
In the 2022 Census of Governments, the United States Census Bureau enumerated the following numbers of school systems in the United States: 12,546 school district governments 571 county-dependent school systems 227 municipal-dependent school systems 36 state-dependent school systems 479 township-dependent school systems
School districts in the US have reduced the number of their employees by 3.3%, or 270,000 between 2008 and 2012, owing to 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.
Terminology Although these terms can vary slightly between various states and regions, these are typical definitions for school district constitution:
Schools An elementary or primary school usually includes kindergarten and grades one through five or six. In some school districts, these grades are divided into two schools. Primary school is most commonly used for schools housing students in kindergarten through grade two or three in districts where the older elementary students are in intermediate schools (see below). A middle school usually includes grades six or seven through eight or nine. In some places, the alternative terms junior high school or intermediate school are still used. Junior high school often refers to schools that cover grades seven through nine. Intermediate school may also be used to refer to schools that cover grades three through five (or so) when they are separated from elementary schools, or the name Intermediate school may be used in a way synonymous with middle school or junior high school in other school districts. A high school usually includes grades nine or ten through twelve and may also include grades seven and eight. Many high schools cover only grades ten to twelve; this type of school is sometimes referred to as a senior high school.
Districts
These terms may not appear in a district's name, even though the condition may apply. A unified school district includes elementary and secondary (middle school and high school) educational levels. The word central in a district's name indicates that the district is formed from a consolidation ("centralization") of multiple districts and that the central district's operations are centralized relative to those of the previous districts. The word community in a district's name indicates that the district is formed to serve a community of people with common interests and associations and with a community center. The word free in a district's name indicates that no tuition is charged to attend district schools. In New York, it is used in conjunction with the union to indicate a district composed of multiple, formerly independent common school districts now free of restrictions placed on New York State's common school districts. The word union or consolidated in a district's name indicates that it was formed from two or more districts.