The significance of school districts as an object of study lies in the direct
manner in which the provision of public education serves the needs of society and is,
in fact, a societal undertaking. Public schooling is a major instrument for the
expression of the public will in a democratic society, and the school system both
models and maintains the essential attributes of that society. As a result, school
districts, the basic structural unit in the organization and operation of public schools
in Canada, create records which reflect the educational values and concerns of this
society at the most fundamental level. Because the effective administration of
education requires that records be kept, sometimes by law, it is essential to analyze
the functions of school boards as a means of understanding the records they produce
and their significance.
The aim of this study is to identify and synthesize those facts, laws, historical
developments, functions, and competencies common to the local administration of
education in British Columbia with the express purpose of establishing a framework
in and through which the archival control of their records may be examined. This
analysis is undertaken in accordance with the archival methodology of functional
analysis.
The need to examine and understand the legal foundation upon which school
districts and their controlling boards rests is critical because so many of their activities
are largely determined by law. Accordingly, the thesis begins with an analysis of the
legal framework of school district activity and shows that as political and legal entities
school districts are considered to be provincial agents, albeit acting in a local
capacity, with the status of quasi-municipal corporations. From this point of
departure, an analysis of the relevant statute law, common law, and administrative
law is then undertaken in order to determine the historical evolution of British
Columbia school boards, their mandate and their functions. This examination reveals
that each school board shares three primary or governing functions (legislative,
judicial, and executive) and two management functions (education administration and
business administration).
The thesis concludes by offering an evaluation of the implications of this study
for archival practice through an examination of several issues related to the archival
management of school board records as well as the reasons for their permanent
preservation by an archival agency.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/3545 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Gilbert, James Philip |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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