Chap. 79.—An ACT to amend and re-enact an act entitled an act to
provide for the appeals from the action of district school boards, in
certain cases, approved March 30th, 1875.

Approved February 13, 1877.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly, That the act en-
titled an act to provide for appeals from the action of district
school boards in certain cases, and for this purpose to amend
and re-enact the fifty-third section of the seventy-eighth chap-
ter of the Code of Virginia, approved March thirtieth, eigh-
teen hundred and seventy-five, be amended and re enacted so
as to read as follows:

§ 53. The board of school trustees shall provide suitable
school houses with proper furniture and appliances in every
school district; and to that end may hire, purchase, or build
such houses, according to the exigencies of the district and
the means at their disposal: provided, that any five heads of
families belonging to tbe district, who may feel aggrieved by
the action of the district board in fixing the location of a
school-house on a particular spot, or in discontinuing a school,
which they may have established by employing and paying
a teacher in any house they may have purchased, hired, or
occupied free of rent for the purposes of said school, shall be
allowed to appeal from such action to a special board of re-
ference, to be composed of the county superintendent as pre-
sident, and any two trustees whom he may associate with
him from any other district in the county, except that of the
district concerned; and on the written request of heads of
families aforesaid, addressed to the county superintendent,
it shall be the duty of that officer, without unnecessary delay,
to call a meeting of the board of reference, at or near the
disputed place or places, giving due notice to all parties con-
cerned. And if, at the time and place appointed, the board
of reference be present, the said board shall proceed to hear
both sides of the case, to examine in person all competing
locations, and to decide where the school-house in question
shall stand; or, as the case may be, whether the school in
question shall be continued as a public free school; which
decision shall be final. This board shall have jurisdiction
over all questions which shall be presented to its considera-
tion, by similar appeal, concerning the action of the district
board in respect to any subject on which the district board
now has final power. <Any action taken by this board of
reference shall be duly recorded in the record book of the
district board, whose action is reviewed, and also in the book
of the county superintendent of schools.

2. This act sball be in force from its passage.