§ 721a - Withdrawal from district
§ 721a. Withdrawal from district
(a) A school district that is a member of a union school district may vote to withdraw from the union school district if one year has elapsed since the union school district has become a body politic and corporate as provided in section 706g of this title.
(b) When a majority of the voters of a school district present and voting at a school district meeting duly warned for that purpose votes to withdraw from a union school district the vote shall be certified by the clerk of the school district to the secretary of state who shall record the certificate in his or her office and give notice of the vote to the commissioner of education and to the other member districts of the union school district. Within 90 days after receiving notice, those member districts shall vote by Australian ballot on the same day during the same hours whether to ratify withdrawal of the member district. Withdrawal by a member district shall be effective only if approved by an affirmative vote of each of the other member school districts within the union school district.
(c) If the vote to ratify the withdrawal of a member district is approved by each of the other member districts, the union school district shall notify the commissioner of education who shall advise the state board of education. At a meeting held thereafter, if the state board finds that the pupils in the withdrawing district will attend a school that is in compliance with the rules adopted by the board pertaining to educational programs, the board shall declare the membership of the withdrawing school district in the union school district to end as of July 1 immediately following or as soon thereafter as the obligations of the withdrawing district have been paid to, or an agreement made with, the union school district in an amount satisfactory to the electorate of each member district of the union school district. The board shall give notice to the remaining member districts in the union of its meeting and give representatives of the remaining member districts an opportunity to be heard. It shall then determine whether it is in the best interests of the state, the students, and the school districts remaining in the union district for the union to continue to exist. The board may declare the union dissolved as of July 1 immediately following or as soon thereafter as each member district's obligations have been satisfied, or it may declare that the union shall continue to exist despite the withdrawal of the former member district. The state board of education shall file the declaration with the secretary of state, the clerk of the withdrawing district, and the clerk of the union school district concerned.
(d) A vote of withdrawal taken after a union school district has become a body politic and corporate as provided in section 706g of this title but less than one year after that date shall be null and void. (Added 1967, No. 277 (Adj. Sess.), § 36; amended 1977, No. 7; 2007, No. 154 (Adj. Sess.), § 29; 2009, No. 44, § 11, eff. May 21, 2009.)