New York State Education Department Division of Educational Finance Legal Files for Establishment and Alteration of School Districts and Vocational Education and Extension Boards B0554

New York State Education Department Division of Educational Finance Legal Files for Establishment and Alteration of School Districts and Vocational Education and Extension Boards

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Overview of the Records

Repository:

New York State Archives
New York State Education Department
Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12230

Summary:

This series relates to the formation and alteration of central rural and high schools; enlarged city schools; village superintendencies; union free schools; consolidated districts; BOCES; and VEEBS. Documents include orders of the commissioner of education and district superintendents; petitions for school district meetings; and minutes of organizing meetings of school districts. Common school and union free school district legal files were destroyed in the 1911 State Capitol building fire.

Creator:

New York (State). Education Department. Division of Educational Finance

Title:

Legal files for establishment and alteration of school districts and vocational education and extension boards

Quantity:

15 cubic feet

Inclusive Dates:

1873-1971

Series Number:

B0554

Arrangement

Arranged in 7 subseries: Subseries 1, Central School Districts, is alphabetical by county and thereunder alphabetical by central district name; Subseries 2, Enlarged City School Districts, is alphabetical by city; Subseries 3, Village Superintendency Districts, is alphabetical by village; Subseries 4, Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, is chronological; Subseries 5, Vocational Education and Extension Boards, is alphabetical by county; Subseries 6, Union Free School Districts is alphabetical by county, thereunder alphabetical by town, then numerical by district number; and Subseries 7, Consolidated Districts, is alphabetical by county, then alphabetical by name of annexing district.

Scope and Content Note

The division used these files to verify school district size for use in calculating state financial aid due. The series was maintained by a succession of units having responsibility for the apportionment of state financial aid to schools: Statistics Section in the Administration Division, c1911-1923; Statistics Bureau, 1923-1938 (transferred from Administration Division to Finance Division in 1928); Bureau of Apportionment, 1938-1954; Division of School Financial Aid, 1955-1964; and Division of Educational Finance after 1964.

Records pertain to central school districts; enlarged city school districts; village superintendency districts; boards of cooperative educational services (BOCES); vocational education and extension boards (VEEB); union free school districts; and consolidated school districts.

Subseries 1, Central School Districts. At the beginning of this subseries are lists of school districts annexed to central school districts. Legislation authorizing the establishment of "central rural schools" was adopted in 1914 (Chapter 55), but only one centralization occurred before 1925 when the legislature authorized additional financial aid for these districts (Chapter 674). The establishment of central high schools was authorized in 1917 (Chapter 137).

Following these are files for each central district which contain all or some of the following: commissioner of education's order laying out a central school district and town clerks' affidavits that orders were filed in their offices; petition from qualified electors to town clerk requesting a special meeting to organize a central school district; copy of notice of organizing meeting and town clerks' affidavits that the notices were filed in their offices; minutes of orgaqnizing meeting; commissioner's order designating a central school district; summary list of actions and dates of central district organization and alteration; other petitions to commissioner relating to the district (e.g., name change); "Consent and Order" for district boundary alternations-- consent to alterations by school districts' boards of education and order by district superintendent of schools effecting change; district superintendent's order dissolving a school district and annexing its territory to a central school district; petition from qualifying electors to school district trustees requesting a special meeting to consider consolidation of districts, notice of meeting, meeting minutes, and district superintendent's order effecting consolidation pursuant to Laws of 1913, Chapter 129 (these actions predate the formation of a central school district, but affect the area later incorporated in the central district); and occasional transmittal correspondence and maps of school districts.

Subseries 2, Enlarged City School Districts. This subseries contains the commissioner's order establishing an enlarged city school district, and the commissioner's order annexing a school district to a city school district.

The subseries also contains correspondence regarding the apportionment of financial aid to city school districts and claims for additional apportionment for these districts. In 1952 the legislature authorized the commissioner of education to lay out enlarged city school districts by consolidating city school districts of cities having populations of less than 125,000 with areas contiguous to the city districts (Chapter 810).

Subseries 3, Village Superintendency Districts ("Village Enumeration"). This subseries contains commissioner's orders declaring that a school district is recognized as a superintendency district and is entitled to employ a superintendent of schools because its population exceeds 4500.

Subseries 4, Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). This subseries contains no legal documents and consists solely of memoranda announcing the establishment or alterations of BOCES, under the authority granted by the Laws of 1948, Chapter 861.

Subseries 5, Vocational Education and Extension Boards (VEEB). This subseries contains copies of resolutions by county boards establishing VEEBs pursuant to the Laws of 1926, Chapter 505; and commissioner's orders establishing School Hygiene Districts pursuant to the Laws of 1924, Chapter 194.

Subseries 6, Union Free School Districts. This subseries contains the following kinds of documents relating to the establishment of union free school districts: copies of request for, notice of, and minutes of a meeting to organize a union free school district; district superintendent of schools' order designating a union free school district; copy of legislation establishing a union free school district; and occasional transmittal correspondence of local school officials.

The formation of union free schools, public secondary schools supported solely by local taxes and state financial aid, was authorized in 1853 (Chapter 433). In 1911, all Education Department records relating to the formation of school districts were destroyed in a fire in the State Capitol. At the beginning of the subseries is a file of correspondence relating to an attempt to reconstruct this information from local records. Additional records relating to this reconstruction of information are in series B0494.

Some union free school district files contain copies of organizational meeting minutes of districts formed before 1911. Union free school district files from Albany-Monroe counties only are present.

Subseries 7, Consolidated Districts. This subseries contains district superintendents' orders dissolving school districts and annexing their territory to another district and, in some cases, court orders relating to the district superintendents' orders. At the beginning of the subseries are files relating to the existence of villages and school districts with coterminous boundaries. The authority to issue orders consolidating districts was granted to school commissioners (later district superintendents of schools) in the first consolidated Education Law in 1909 (Chapter 21) as generally amended in 1910 (Chapter 410).