NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Township Schools To Become Part of County System (1923)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, February 1, 1923 – page 2, columns 2-3:

[TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: This is an excerpt from a longer article]

COUNTY UNIT SCHOOL BILL
The proposed County Unit School bill, known as Senate bill No. 87, was introduced in the Senate last week. The bill provides, among other things, that the township school corporation be abandoned and that “the county be declared a municipal corporation for school purposes.” If this bill becomes a law, the township trustees will no longer have charge of the schools, but the management will be vested in five members elected for a term of four years. One of these members is to be chosen from each commissioner’s district and two at large.

These five members, who are to serve without pay, constitute the county board of education and will have entire control of all of the schools in the county, except in towns and cities that maintain their own school corporations. They will choose the county superintendent of schools […]

The present elected trustees, according to the provisions of the bill, will constitute the first county board of education and will serve until Dec. 31, 1926. The section providing that members of the county board of education serve without pay does not apply to the present trustees. They will draw salaries as heretofore allowed, but will not have direct charge of their township schools.

Should this bill become a law, within ten days after it goes into effect the present trustees are to meet and organize themselves into a county board of education and immediately each one is to “turn over and assign to the county board of education all property belonging to his school township, after which the county board of education assumes all debts and financial obligations legalized by law and legally incurred by the trustee of the school township and shall pay the same.” The county treasurer of each county shall be the treasurer of the county board of education and shall collect and keep all money separately and pay the same upon warrant from the county board of education. They shall make the treasurer a reasonable allowance for doing this extra work.