Chap. 12.—An ACT to provide for the appointment and removal of
district school trustees, and to repeal the fourth clause of the Seventh
section of the seventy-eighth chapter of the Code of 1873.

Approved January 11, 1877.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly, That on and after
the first day of July, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven,
vacancies existing or occuring in district boards of school
trustees shall be filled by the joint action of the county
superintendent of schools, the county judge, and the attorney
for the conmonwealth in each county, who are hereby created
a board for that purpose, to be known as the school trustee
electoral board, a majority of whom shall constitute a quo-
rum: provided, that no person who is unable to read and
write sball be appointed a trustee; and provided, also, that
nothing in this act shall be construed to give any authority
or power to said electoral board to interfere in any way with
the appointment as heretofore of school trustees by munici-
pal councils, or to disturb in any way the present law bearing
on the action of said municipal councils in the premises.

2. The said school trustee electoral board shall have power,
and it shall be its duty, to declare vacant, and to proceed to
fill, the office of any trustee who fails to qualify, and to de-
liver to the clerk of this board his official oath in the usual
form within thirty days after ha has been notified of his
appointment, which notification shall be promptly given by
the clerk. The board shall also vacate the office of any and
every trustee who fails to discharge the duties of his office
according to law.

3. The county judge shall be the chairman of said board,
and the county superintendent of schools its clerk. Any
member may call a meeting by giving due notice to the other
two. All proceedings shall be recorded in a bound volume,
and such record book, and such stationery and postage as
may be required for correspondence with trustees, shall be
paid for from the county school fund, on the warrant of ‘the
said board, in the usual form: provided the cost of the same
shall not exceed five dollars in any one year. It shall, fur-
thermore, be the duty of the clerk of said board to furnish
the board of education with a list of the county trustees and
such other information as may be called for.
4, The clerk shall convene the said electoral board promptly
when unexpected vacancies occur, and also at least thirty
days before the expiration of regular terms of office, so that
the district boards may be kept full and no members be left
to hold over unnecessarily. And in case of a failure cn the
part of the clerk to attend punctually to this or any other of
the dufies devolving upon him, he shall, for each offence, be
tined by the board not less than one nor more than five dol-

ars.

5. It shall be the duty of the county superintendent of
schools to report to the said electoral board the failura of the
clerk of any district school board to make and deliver his
annual report in form and time as required by law, where-
upon a fine shall be entered upon the record of the electoral
board against such delinquent clerk of five doliars for the
original default, and an additional fine of fifty cents a day
for every day of continued failure until the report be deliv-
ered. The county superintendent of schools, as clerk of the
said electoral board, shall immediately notify in writing the
chairman of the district board of school trustees of the enter-
ing of this fine, and the amount shall be subtracted from the
noxt instalment of the delinquent clerk’s pay.

6. The fourth clause of the seventh section of the seventy-
eighth chapter of the Code of Virginia, and all other acts or
parts of acts, are hereby repealed, in so far as the same are
inconsistent with this act. ,