Education/Schools - Historical Notes

Superintendent or Director of Schools

The act referenced below once affected the office of superintendent of education in Pickett County, but is no longer operative.

1. Private Acts of 1967-68, Chapter 4, created and established in Pickett County, Tennessee, the office of County Superintendent of Schools, which position was filled by election by the qualified voters of said county. In the event of vacancy in the office of County Superintendent of Schools in said county after the regular August, 1968, the Quarterly County Court would elect someone to fill said vacancy until a successor was elected at the next general election.

General Reference

The following acts constitute part of the administrative and political heritage of the educational structure of Pickett County but are no longer operative since they have either been superseded, repealed, or failed to receive local approval. Also referenced below are acts which repeal prior law without providing new substantive provisions.

1. Acts of 1901, Chapter 472, established a special school district to be known as School District No. 11. [All special school districts which were not taxing districts were abolished by the general education act of 1925.]
2. Acts of 1907, Chapter 281, created an independent school district out of parts of Pickett County and Overton County, to be known as the Bethsaida District.
3. Acts of 1909, Chapter 494, was a compulsory education act requiring the parents or guardians of any child between the ages of eight and fourteen to send their children to school for at least four months or eighty consecutive days each year.
4. Private Acts of 1917, Chapter 555, was a general education law for Overton and Pickett Counties governing the operating procedures of the elementary and high schools in the county systems and in the special school districts. Private Acts of 1923, Chapter 195, removed Pickett County from this Act's provisions.
5. Private Acts of 1917, Chapter 670, re-established the Bethsaida School District out of parts of Pickett and Overton Counties. This act was more elaborate than the original 1907 act, setting out the exact boundaries, method of selecting the trustees and their duties and requiring an annual scholastic population. This act was repealed by Private Acts of 1925, Chapter 573.
6. Private Acts of 1917, Chapter 707, was House Bill No. 1177 and was identical to Chapter 670 of the Private Acts of 1917, which was its companion Senate Bill.
7. Private Acts of 1925, Chapter 10, provided for the election by popular vote of a County Superintendent of Public Schools, but this act was repealed in the next legislative session by Private Acts of 1927, Chapter 322.
8. Private Acts of 1925, Chapter 256, authorized the Pickett County Board of Education to pay Otto Groce the sum of $311.32 out of the elementary school funds for the purpose of refunding to him the amount which he had personally advanced for the erection of the Jones Chapel School House in 1922.
9. Private Acts of 1927, Chapter 396, created a five member County Board of Public School Directors for Pickett County to be elected from the county as a whole for five year terms. The County Board of Education was abolished.
10. Private Acts of 1929, Chapter 439, provided that the county superintendent of education would be elected biennially by the Quarterly County Court at its January term. Private Acts of 1933, Chapter 648, and Private Acts of 1937, Chapter 738, were both amendatory to the original act, adjusting the annual salary of that position.
11. Private Acts of 1941, Chapter 318, established a five member County Board of Public School Directors, one member to be elected from each of Pickett County's civil districts by the voters in that district. This was amended by the Private Acts of 1949, Chapter 721, to provide that the school board would be elected by the Quarterly County Court.
12. Private Acts of 1972, Chapter 210, attempted to amend the Private Acts of 1967-68, Chapter 5, by providing for the election of a fifth member of the school board from the county at large, and by requiring that all members of the school board be at least eighteen years old.