Mass. Gen. Laws » Part I Title XII Chapter 72
Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 72, § 3 (2026)

School returns; contents

✓ current as of July 2026
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Section 3. The superintendent of schools shall annually on or before September fifteenth transmit the school returns to the commissioner, signed and sworn to by him, containing the following information together with any other information required by the commissioner in accordance with section one of chapter sixty-nine:—

First. The average daily membership of the public and vocational schools of the town for the school year last preceding the date of said certificate as determined under section eight.

Second. The amount of money raised by taxation by the town and expended during the fiscal year last preceding said date for the support of public schools, including the wages of teachers, and transportation of children, or board in place thereof, fuel, the care of fires, schoolrooms and school premises, repairs, supervision, textbooks and supplies, and school sundries or incidentals, but excluding alterations of school buildings, other than repairs, and construction of schoolhouses and contributions for, and reimbursements on account of, the support of public schools from the commonwealth or from other sources than local taxation; and the total expenditures, classified, for the public schools during the school year last preceding said date.

Third. That the town has maintained during the school year last preceding the said date each of its schools, as required by section one of chapter seventy-one, for a period of not less than one hundred and eighty days, or for what shorter period one or more schools have been maintained, if specifically exempted by the department.

Fourth. That the town has, during said school year, complied with said chapter seventy-one in the matter of school instruction, and the number of days schools were in session.

Before filing said school returns, the superintendent shall submit them to the chairman of the school committee, who shall countersign them on oath, if, after examination, he finds them correct.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 2 cases, 1965–1990 · leading case: Town of Brookline v. Governor, 553 N.E.2d 1277 (Mass. 1990).
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Town of Brookline v. Governor, 553 N.E.2d 1277 (Mass. 1990). · cites it 2× “), and (2) certification from the Commissioner of Education of acceptance of the end of year pupil and financial report submitted pursuant to G.L.c. 72, § 3 (1988 ed.). Section 4 of St.”
Sch. Comm. of New Bedford v. COMMR. OF Educ., 208 N.E.2d 814 (Mass. 1965). “No requirement of an oath was indicated. It was requested that the report be filed “on or before April 1,1964,” four months before July 31, 1964, when the 1964 annual return was to be filed in accordance with G.”
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.