Massachusetts Statutes

Section 44. No committee shall by rule, regulation, or otherwise, restrict any teacher in, or dismiss him for, exercising his right of suffrage, signing nomination papers, petitioning the general court or appearing before its committees, to the extent that such rights, except vot…

Section 45. No person shall demand or accept from any applicant for the position of teacher in the public schools a fee or other compensation exceeding two dollars, and no additional sum shall be charged to cover expenses or for any other reason, except that further compensation,…

Section 47. The committee may supervise and control all athletic and other organizations composed of public school pupils and bearing the school name or organized in connection therewith. It may directly or through an authorized representative determine under what conditions the …

Section 47A. The superintendent may contract to employ athletic coaches hired under the provisions of section fifty-nine B for periods not in excess of three years. The provisions of section forty-one relative to tenure shall not apply to such athletic coaches, unless they are ot…

Section 48. The principal at each school, subject to the direction of the superintendent, shall, at the expense of the school district, purchase textbooks and other school supplies, and consistent with the district policy, shall loan them to the pupils attending such school free …

Section 48A. School committees shall have authority to organize school safety patrols, consisting of pupils, whose functions shall be to encourage pupils to cross highways at designated crossings and when conditions are safe, to assist drivers of school buses in maintaining safet…

Section 48B. The school committee may make expenditures for the purchase and care of uniforms to be worn by employees whose duties require the preparation, handling and serving of food in connection with the sale of school lunches, or involve the care, maintenance, repair or heat…

Section 49. Pupils in the public schools may, if the committee so votes, purchase from the town, under such regulations as the committee may prescribe, any textbooks which are to be, or have been, used by them in such schools.

Section 49A. At any time after the annual appropriations for the ensuing fiscal year are made by a city or town or by all the member cities and towns of a regional school district, a school committee may order materials, supplies and equipment and may contract for services for th…

Section 4A. Every town which, without having received a specific exemption from the board of education, fails to keep open all schools required to be maintained under sections one and four or fails to provide school facilities under section six for grade nine through twelve, the …

Section 50. A change may be made in the school books used in the public schools by a vote of two thirds of the whole school committee at a meeting thereof, notice of such intended change having been given at a previous meeting.

Section 51. The school committee may, at any national, state, or foreign exposition, make an exhibition showing the character, standing, or work of its public schools.

Section 52. The school committee shall serve without compensation, except that a member of a school committee of a city, town, regional school district or superintendency union may be compensated for his services by a majority vote of the city council in a city having a Plan D or…

Section 53. The school committee shall appoint one or more school physicians and registered nurses, shall assign them to the public schools within its jurisdiction, shall provide them with all proper facilities for the performance of their duties and shall assign one or more phys…

Section 53A. A superintendency district formed and conducted under the provisions of section sixty, or a superintendency union formed and conducted under the provisions of sections sixty-one to sixty-four, inclusive, may employ one or more school physicians and may employ one or …

Section 53B. The towns comprised in a superintendency district or union employing, to the satisfaction of the department, one or more school physicians and registered nurses in accordance with the provisions of section fifty-three A shall be exempt from the provisions of section …

Section 54. Every school physician shall make a prompt examination of all children referred to him as provided in this chapter, and such further examination of teachers, janitors and school buildings as in his opinion the protection of the health of the pupils may require. Every …

Section 54A. A physician employed by a school committee or a person who has completed a full course in emergency medical care as provided in section six of chapter one hundred and eleven C shall be assigned to every interscholastic football game played by any team representing a …

Section 54B. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the department of public health shall promulgate regulations governing the administration of medications, including psychotropic medications to children in school settings, in accordance with sections 7 and …

Section 54C. (a) Each school district, vocational district, charter school, approved private day or residential school and collaborative school shall provide and maintain at least 1 automated external defibrillator, AED, on site at each school facility where instruction is provid…

Section 55. A child infected, or in a household where a person is infected, with a disease dangerous to the public health as defined in accordance with section six of chapter one hundred and eleven, or in a household exposed to contagion from any such disease in another household…

Section 55A. A child showing signs of ill health or of being infected with a disease dangerous to the public health as defined in accordance with section six of chapter one hundred and eleven shall be sent home immediately, or as soon as safe and proper conveyance can be found, o…

Section 55C. Each teacher and pupil of any school, public or private, shall, while attending school classes in industrial art or vocational shops or laboratories in which caustic or explosive chemicals, hot liquids or solids, hot molten metals, or explosives are used or in which …

Section 55D. (a) Upon the issuance of a musical wind instrument to a student who is permitted to use or borrow the instrument while attending any public or commonwealth charter school or prekindergarten to grade 12, inclusive, the school issuing the instrument shall inform the st…

Section 56. If any child is found to be suffering from any disease or defect, or if any child is found to have any defect or disability requiring treatment, the school committee shall forthwith notify the parent or guardian of such child.

Section 57. The committee, or the board of health in those municipalities where school health services are the responsibility of the board of health, shall cause every child in the public schools, and at the individual request of a parent or guardian of a pupil in a private schoo…

Section 57A. The department of elementary and secondary education, in consultation with the department of early education and care, shall, subject to appropriation, issue guidelines to assist districts in developing screening procedures or protocols for students that demonstrate …

Section 59. The school committee of a town not in a superintendency union or district shall employ a superintendent of schools and fix his compensation. A superintendent employed under this section or section sixty or sixty-three shall manage the system in a fashion consistent wi…

Section 59A. In any town, having a valuation of less than two million five hundred thousand dollars, which is not a member of a superintendency union under the provision of section sixty-one, the school committee shall, subject to the approval of the department, employ a full-tim…

Section 59B. The superintendent of a school district shall appoint principals for each public school within the district at levels of compensation determined in accordance with policies established by the school committee. Principals employed under this section shall be the educa…

Section 59C. At each public elementary, secondary and independent vocational school in the commonwealth there shall be a school council consisting of the school principal, who shall co-chair the council; parents of students attending the school who shall be selected by the parent…

Section 59D. Superintendents and principals in every school district in the commonwealth shall pursue opportunities to establish school-community partnerships that may advance policy development, staff development, curriculum development, instructional enrichment and may provide …

Section 6. If a town of less than five hundred families or householders, according to such census, does not maintain a public high school offering four years of instruction, it shall pay the tuition of any pupil who resides therein and obtains from its school committee a certific…

Section 61. The school committees of two or more towns, each having a valuation less than two million five hundred thousand dollars, and having an aggregate maximum of seventy-five, and an aggregate minimum of twenty-five, schools, and the committees of four or more such towns, h…

Section 62. The department may form or readjust such unions whenever it becomes necessary to include one or more towns otherwise unable to comply with the preceding section, and in so doing may disregard the minimum number of schools prescribed therein, but no such readjustment s…

Section 63. The school committees of such towns shall, for the purposes of the union, be a joint committee and shall be the agent of each participating town, provided that any school committee of more than three members shall be represented therein by its chairman and two of its …

Section 64. The salary of the superintendent in such a union or in any twelve grade regional school district or the combined salary received by a person serving in a dual capacity as a superintendent in a union and a regional school district or in two or more regional school dist…

Section 67. A superintendent of schools who accepts any commission, fee, compensation, or reward of any kind for obtaining for any person a position as teacher in the public schools shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars. A school di…

Section 68. Every town shall provide and maintain a sufficient number of schoolhouses, properly furnished and conveniently situated for the accommodation of all children therein entitled to attend the public schools. If the distance between a child's residence and the school he i…

Section 69. The school committee shall provide for each schoolhouse under its control, which is not otherwise supplied, flags of the United States of silk or bunting not less than two feet long, such flags or bunting to be manufactured in the United States, and suitable apparatus…

Section 69A. On every public school building within the commonwealth there may be placed in a conspicuous location a suitable plaque which shall contain the words ''For God and Country''. Such plaques may be donated by veterans or civic organizations or individuals.

Section 6A. Any city, town, or regional school district, acting through its school committee, may, if the school committee finds it has adequate space, accept in any of its schools, including vocational schools, any pupil who resides outside the commonwealth and may contract with…

Section 6B. (a) As used in this section, ''military-connected student'' shall mean a student who is an unemancipated person whose parent or guardian: (i) is in the active military service of the United States; or (ii) is full-time status during active service with the National Gu…

Section 70. A town may, at a town meeting, determine the situation of its schoolhouses.

Section 71. For the purpose of promoting the usefulness of public school property the school committee of any town may conduct such educational and recreational activities in or upon school property under its control, and, subject to such regulations as it may establish, and, con…

Section 71A. A school committee may, subject, however, to all other provisions of law, designate the locations for the erection of highway safety stations for children awaiting a school bus; provided, that such locations have been approved by the school superintendent or, as his …