Mass. Gen. Laws » Part I Title XII Chapter 71
Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 71, § 15 (2026)

Acceptance of organization provisions by electorate

✓ current as of July 2026
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 15. The selectmen or council of each of the several towns shall, upon receipt of the recommendation that a regional school district should be formed and of a proposed agreement therefor submitted in accordance with the provisions of sections fourteen to fourteen B, inclusive, or otherwise in the form and with the approval required by said sections, cause to be presented the question of accepting the provisions of sections sixteen to sixteen I, inclusive, and the proposed agreement or agreements. Said question shall be determined, in a town having an open town meeting, by vote with printed ballots at an annual or special town meeting to be held in either case within thirty days after receipt of such recommendation by the selectmen and, in a town having a representative town meeting or council, at an annual or special town election to be held in either case not less than thirty-five nor more than fifty days after receipt of such recommendation. The article in the warrant for such annual or special town meeting or election and the question on the printed ballots to be used at such meeting or election shall be in substantially the following form:

Shall the town accept the provisions of sections sixteen to sixteen I, inclusive, of chapter seventy-one of the General Laws providing for the establishment of a regional school district, together with the towns of , and , etc., and for construction, maintenance and operation of a regional school by said district in accordance with the provisions of a proposed agreement filed with the selectmen?

If a majority of the voters present and voting on said question in each of the several towns shall vote in the affirmative, said sections sixteen to sixteen I, inclusive, shall become effective, and the proposed regional school district shall be deemed to be established forthwith in accordance with the terms of the agreement so adopted notwithstanding any defect or omission in the creation or organization of any regional school district planning committee or regional school district planning board.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 4 cases, 1974–2012 · leading case: Doe v. Town of Blandford, 525 N.E.2d 403 (Mass. 1988).
Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment
Doe v. Town of Blandford, 525 N.E.2d 403 (Mass. 1988). “Compare G. L. c. 71, § 15, with G. L. c. Ill, § 27B (1986 ed.”
Boyce v. Greater Lowell Reg'l Vocational Technical Sch. Dist., 389 N.E.2d 451 (Mass. App. Ct. 1979). “71, § 16(c) and (d), which confer general taking authority and the authority to incur debt for property so acquired on regional school districts established pursuant to the provisions of G. L. c. 71, § 15. The other claimed defects in the order of taking argued on appeal are…”
Town of Arlington v. State Tax Comm'n, 314 N.E.2d 918 (Mass. 1974). · cites it 2× “The plaintiffs, five towns, members of the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School District, established pursuant to G. L. c. 71, § 15, brought a petition for declaratory relief in the Superior Court.”
Cavanaugh v. Tantasqua Reg'l Sch. Dist., 29 Mass. L. Rptr. 353 (Mass. Super. Ct. 2012). “The School District further argues that said action cannot be brought against it since a school district may be sued under G.L.c. 71, §15 only “to the same extent and upon the same conditions” as a town.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.