New York Laws
Article 19 - Medical and Health Service
909 - School Hygiene Districts.

§ 909. School hygiene districts. 1. The board of supervisors of any
county, with the approval of the commissioner of education, shall have
power to establish in such county a school hygiene district which shall
include the supervisory district or districts in such county, as defined
in this chapter. The board of education of any union free school
district of four thousand five hundred or more population, which employs
a superintendent of schools, or of any city having a population of less
than fifty thousand, within such county, may at any time adopt a
resolution requesting that such union free school district or city be
included within such school hygiene district, and after the approval of
such request by the district committee on school hygiene, herein-below
mentioned, and by the commissioner of education, and upon the subsequent
filing by the clerk of such board of education of a certified copy of
such resolution and of a certified copy of such approvals with the clerk
of the board of supervisors, such union free school district or city
shall be included within such school hygiene district.

2. When such a school hygiene district is established, as hereinabove
provided, the board of supervisors shall appropriate funds for the
salary and necessary expenses of a district director of school hygiene.
Funds may also be appropriated for assistants to the director of school
hygiene. Within thirty days after such appropriation is made the
chairman of the board of supervisors shall call a meeting, to be held at
a date as early as practicable, of the district superintendents and
school superintendents in such school hygiene district together with the
chairman of the board of supervisors, at which meeting such persons
shall organize themselves into a district committee on school hygiene
and shall elect a chairman thereof. In any school hygiene district which
includes part or all of a county health district, as defined in the
public health law, the district health officer of such county health
district shall be a member of such committee. The district director of
school hygiene and assistants shall be appointed by and work under the
direction of such district committee on school hygiene. They shall meet
the qualifications established by the commissioner of education and be
certificated as supervisors of teachers. Any person appointed as such
district director of school hygiene shall be a physician duly licensed
and registered to practice in this state and shall have practiced as a
physician, or been engaged in public health work, for at least two
years.

3. It shall be the duty of the district director of school hygiene to
advise, assist, and exercise general supervision over, medical
inspectors, dentists and school nurses in the public schools in such
school hygiene district; to keep informed as to their work and require
such reports from them as he may deem necessary; to see that suitable
recommendations based on the findings of the medical inspectors in their
examinations of pupils are brought to the attention of their teachers
and of those in parental relation to such pupils; to aid, and keep
informed as to the work of, oral hygienists, nutrition workers, and
other school employees engaged in health work in such schools; to
inspect, and report to the proper authorities on, the sanitary
conditions of school buildings, and in other ways to promote the
physical welfare and health education of pupils. Whenever the board of
supervisors, or, in a county constituting, in whole or in part, a county
health district, the district health officer thereof, shall, under any
provisions of law now in force or hereafter enacted, assign any public
health nurse to the duties of a school nurse in any school or schools
within a school hygiene district, she may be assigned to perform such
duties under the direct control of the district director of school
hygiene of such school hygiene district. Such district director of

school hygiene shall be subject to supervision by the state medical
inspector of schools.

4. If it be ascertained upon any test or examination held by a medical
inspector under the provisions of section nine hundred four of this
article in any of the school districts within a school hygiene district
that any of the pupils are afflicted with defective sight or hearing or
other physical disability and the parents have been duly notified as to
the existence of such defects and physical disability and are unable to
provide the necessary relief and treatment for such pupils and such fact
is reported by said medical inspector to the district director of school
hygiene, such district director shall have power and it shall be his
duty to provide relief for such pupils within the amount appropriated
for such purpose by the board of supervisors.

5. The board of supervisors, after determining the amount of the
appropriation necessary for the salary and expenses of such district
director of school hygiene and assistants, shall levy one-half of such
amount by tax on the towns, union free school districts and cities, if
any, included within such school hygiene district, and shall apportion
such amount, so levied, among such towns, union free school districts
and cities, according to the assessed valuation of the taxable property
therein. Whenever a board of supervisors shall make such an
appropriation and levy such a tax, the commissioner of education shall
apportion to each such town, union free school district and city, an
amount equal to that so levied upon each such respective town, union
free school district or city. The board of supervisors shall likewise,
after determining the amount of the appropriation necessary for expenses
incurred for the relief of pupils under subdivision four of this
section, levy the total amount by tax upon the towns, union free school
districts and cities, if any, included within such school hygiene
district, and shall apportion such amount so levied among such towns,
union free school districts and cities according to the assessed
valuation of the taxable property therein. The sums collected from the
taxes so levied, and the amount apportioned by the commissioner of
education, shall be paid to the county treasurer of such county, who
shall expend such moneys for the purposes hereinabove provided and in
the same manner as other county charges are paid.