Board of education

A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or higher administrative level.

The elected council helps determine educational policy in a small regional area, such as a city, county, state or province. It usually shares power with a larger institution, such as the government's department of education. The name of the board is also often used to refer to the school system under the board's control.

The government department that administered education in the United Kingdom before the foundation of the Ministry of Education was also called the Board of Education.

History

The American board of education traces its origins back to 1647 with the formation of the American public school system, the Massachusetts Bay Colony mandated that every town within its jurisdiction establish a public school. Committees sprang up to run the institutions, and in the 1820s the state of Massachusetts made the committees independent of local governments, establishing the model for the autonomous school districts that exist throughout the country today. The U.S. Constitution left authority over education in the hands of the states under the Tenth Amendment, which reserved to them all powers not explicitly given to the federal government, and the states passed that authority on to local school boards. For more than a century, local boards were solely responsible for public educations funding, standards, instruction, and results. At their height in the 1930s there were as many as 127,500 boards. Some sparsely populated states had more school board members than teachers. For much of their history, the boards presided over school systems serving agrarian and industrial economies.

School boards in Scotland

School boards in Scotland were involved in determining the overall policies, objectives and ethos at the school. Boards have a special duty to promote good relationships between the school, its parents and the community and also form a channel for the flow of information between these groups. School Boards were introduced in 1988 as part of the Government's policy of encouraging parental involvement in schools. They comprise parent, teacher and 'co-opted' members, with parents in the majority. 'Co-opted' members may be drawn from local business or the community. They were abolished by the Scottish School Act 2006 introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 28 September 2005, which would see them replaced by a two-tier system of Parent Forums and Parent Councils.

They were established by the School Boards Act 1988, which mandated that they be set up in education authority schools in Scotland. Boards consist of elected parent and staff members and other members co-opted by the elected members. Board members hold office for four years, with half the parent places coming up for election every two years. The initial round of elections to school boards was held in 1989-1990, with parental elections biennially thereafter.

School boards in England and Wales

School boards were public bodies in England and Wales between 1870 and 1902, which established and administered elementary schools.

School boards were created in boroughs and parishes under the Elementary Education Act 1870 following campaigning by George Dixon, Joseph Chamberlain and the National Education League for elementary education free from Anglican doctrine. Education was still not free of fees. Members were directly elected, not appointed by borough councils or parishes. Each board could:

School boards were abolished by the Education Act 1902, which replaced them with local education authorities.