Duties and Powers of Boards of Advice.

The duties of boards of advice shall be—

1. To assign the district to every school within their the jurisdiction, defining its boundary; and to hang up a map or description, or both these, authenticated by the signatures of the chairman and of the correspondent, in the town hall or district post-office.

2. To exchange districts with one another, duly notifying the Minister of the changes made, and with power on the part of the Minister to disallow the changes.

3. To settle whether a child is or is not within the statutable distance from a State school.

4. To hear appeals when a schoolmaster refuses to let children be transferred to another school during the school half-year.

5. On the first Monday of every month to receive rolls for the last month from every school in the district, with separate truant lists showing the children who have fallen short of the legal page 86 number of attendances, and with the foils of the absence books showing the reasons, given by the parents.

6. To order the truant officer of the district, or the police if the truant officer cannot attend, to prosecute parents who have offended against the provisions of the Education Act.

7. To communicate with the department at the end of every three months, forwarding tabular statements of attendances, and explaining if there have been any special reasons to make the attendance in the district irregular.

8. To expend so much of a petty cash fund, not exceeding £5 a school for every school where there are more than one, or £10 where there is only one, as is needed for temporary repairs and improvements such as are not allowed for in the maintenance fund; for instance, on fencing, mending a roof or tank, planting trees or putting up a verandah.

9. To receive all fines levied in the district by the police magistrate for truancy, with power to spend them on the objects above enumerated or in prizes to the school children of the district.

10. To decide whether they will receive into the district a teacher who has been suspended during the last year or at any time removed from his post for misconduct, the department being bound to give the board notice beforehand in all such cases-.

11. To enter any school and watch the ordinary work, not interrupting it; to inspect the lists after roll call; to make entries in the book kept for the purpose as to the punctual attendance of teachers and pupils, and as to the general efficiency of the school. To be present at the inspector's visits, having notice beforehand when he will come; and to be present also at the half-yearly or yearly examinations by the head teacher.

12. Where a charge of a trifling kind is brought against a teacher to communicate with the department and require that an inspector be commissioned to investigate it within two months.

To act as a board of enquiry by themselves, if both parties agree to this in writing, in which case the decision of the board shall be final, and the department shall take action upon it.

Where a serious charge is brought, such as of immoral conduct or peculation, to communicate with the department and obtain a special court, suspending the teacher meantime till the department has taken action.

13. To determine the time at which the midsummer and midwinter holidays begin, with the reservation that the former shall not begin later than Christmas Day. In cases approved of by the Minister to transfer a period, not exceeding a month, of vacation from the holidays as actually distributed to some other time that may be more convenient for the district.

14. To determine whether the time of recess in the middle of the day is to be an hour or an hour and a half, and whether it is to begin at 12, 12.30, or 1.

15. To amalgamate, where it shall seem desirable, any two schools within their district in Class G on the half-time principle, drawing one and three-fifths salaries and reasonable costs of trans- page 87 port from the department in each such case of amalgamation; or to amalgamate schools in the way indicated by co-operation between the boards of two different districts. But notice of such amalgamations must be given to the department; and all payments of salary shall be made in the usual course through the department.

16. To decide whether a school shall be closed through fear of infection, or to exempt the parents of an outlying district from attendance for a time in cases where their children would pass through an infected quarter. But the board must instantly apprise the Minister of the action it has taken in such cases; and the Minister may overrule it.

17. To exempt children from twenty per cent, of the statutory attendances in cases where one parent is dead, or permanently absent from home, or disabled by illness, and where it appears that the services of the child or children are needed at home.

18. To direct what use shall be made of school buildings after the children are dismissed from school or on days when no school is held therein.

19. To meet within a week of election and elect a chairman and correspondent, whose names shall be gazetted. In case a chairman or correspondent resigns or vacates office to elect his successor at the time of his resignation or vacating, or within two weeks of the notification that he has resigned or vacated. In case the board neglects to do this the Governor in Council may nominate a chairman and correspondent.