Duties, Pay, etc. of Latter Officers, Judicial Department, Circuit Court Officers, Secretary of State, his Duties, Pay, etc, Auditor, his Duties, Pay, etc., Superintendent of Public Instruction, his Duties, Pay, etc., Attorney-General, his Duties, Pay, etc, National Political Conventions, Counties Comprising the Congressional Districts of Illinois, Counties Comprising the Senatorial Districts of Illinois, Counties comprising the State Supreme Court Grand Divisions, Counties comprising the State Supreme Court Election Districts, Counties comprising the Appellate Court Districts, Counties comprising the Circuit Courts, CIVIL GOVERNMENT. THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Q. What are the officers of a school district called? Q. How many directors are there in each district? Q. For what term are they elected? A. Three years. Q. When are they elected? A. One director is elected every year at the annual district election, which is held on the third Saturday of April. Q. What notice must be given before the election? A. Ten days before the election the directors must put up notices in three of the most public places in the district, stating the place where the election will be held, when the voting will begin and end, and the questions that will be voted on. Q. What must the directors do within ten days after the election? A. They must meet and choose one of their number president and another clerk of the board of directors. Q. What are the president's duties? A. To preside at the meetings and execute the orders of the board. Q. What are the clerk's duties? A. To keep a record of the acts of the board, and submit it on the first Mondays of April and October to the town treasurer. On or before July 7, annually, to report to the town treasurer such facts as the treasurer must report to the county superintendent. DUTIES OF DIRECTORS. Q. What are the duties of the whole board of directors? AS TO TEACHERS? A. To appoint teachers and fix their pay, and to dismiss them for incompetency or bad conduct. AS TO SCHOOL MANAGEMENT? A. To visit schools and make rules for their government. To direct what branches shall be taught. Not to permit a change of text books oftener than once in four years. AS TO REPORTS TO TREASURER? A. To report to the town treasurer whatever facts the law requires him to report to the county superintendent. AS TO TAXATION? A. To levy a tax sufficient, with the district's share of the State fund, to maintain school at least five months in the year. Directors can not levy a tax of more than three per cent. for building and two per cent. for other educational purposes. They can levy a tax sufficient to maintain school nine months of the year, if the tax does not exceed two per cent. of the assessed value of all the property in the district. AS TO REPORTS TO VOTERS? A. Directors must at the annual district election submit to the voters a report of all sums of money received and paid out by them during the year (having sent a copy to the town treasurer within five days of the time of election), and must post on the door of the house where the election is held the town treasurer's exhibit of the sums received and expended by the district during the preceding year. They must also give the names of all persons between the ages of twelve and twenty-one in the district who can not read and write, and state the causes of the neglect to educate them. HOW DISTRICTS RECEIVE THEIR SHARE OF THE STATE FUND. Q. How do districts receive their share of the State school fund? A. On the first Monday in January every year, next after taking the census of the State, the State auditor issues to the superintendent of schools in each county an order on the county treasurer for a sum of money proportioned to the number of children in the county under twenty-one years of age. For example, if the number of children under twenty-one in any county is one-fiftieth of all the children in the State, that county will receive one-fiftieth of the whole school fund of the State. Next, the county superintendent must require each town treasurer to give a sufficient bond for the safekeeping of the money to be paid over to him, and then pay to him a sum proportioned to the children under twenty-one in his town. The trustees then find how much each district is entitled to, the sum being proportioned to the children in the district under twenty-one. They then let the directors of each district know what sum belongs to their district, and that sum is paid out by the town treasurer as the directors give orders. The directors' orders for the payment of money must be in writing. HOW DISTRICTS MAY BE DIVIDED. Q. Who lay out a town in school districts? Q. How can the boundaries of districts be altered? A. Trustees may alter them when petitioned so to do by two-thirds of the voters in the districts to be altered. The voters who are dissatisfied at the alterations may appeal to the county superintendent, if they will do so within ten days from the time when the alterations are made. The county superintendent can take such action as seems to him best. TRANSFERRING PUPILS. Q. How may pupils be transferred from one district to another? A. By getting the written consent of a majority of the directors of both districts. Q. What is the smallest number of families that may be organized into a district? A. No new district can be created containing less than ten families. II. THE TOWN. TOWNS AND TOWNSHIPS DISTINGUISHED. Q. In what town (or township) do you live? Give its bounds. What cities or villages does it contain? How many are its school districts? Q. Who lay out towns? A. Three commissioners, appointed by the county board. (See page 22.) Q. Who lay out townships? A. United States surveyors, when the Government lands are first surveyed. A township is six miles square. Q. Do the "towns" of a county coincide with its "townships?" |