Title V – Institutes and Schools providing Upper Secondary schooling
Chapter VI – Educational Institutions
Art. 204 – Girls’ boarding schools owned by the State and girls’ public institutes and schools

1. The aim of State-owned girls’ boarding schools is to care for the education and intellectual and physical development of the young girls who attend them.

2. Such institutes shall receive public legal status; they shall be subject to the supervision of the local education authorities to whom shall be sent for approval the acts and resolutions of the boards of directors, to be specified by the regulations to be issued pursuant to Article 205.

3. The administration of each boarding school is entrusted to a board of directors, consisting of a chairperson and two directors, unless otherwise provided for in the bylaws and unless the same board decides on the addition of two more members designated by assistance or welfare entities who take on the obligation of entrusting to the boarding school a consistent number of young persons. The meetings of the board are attended, with advisory vote, by the principal of the boarding school whose presence is mandatory, for the purposes of meeting validity, when dealing with the educational and didactic order and progress of the boarding school. The director’s proposals in this matter, if not accepted, will be attached, together with her observations, to the minutes to be submitted to the supervisory authority.

4. The boarding school’s board of directors is appointed by decree of the Minister of Education. The board holds office for three years and may be confirmed again. The functions of chairperson and of director are performed without compensation. When a member of the board ceases to hold office for any reason during the three-year period, he or she is replaced but only for the remaining period.

5. The board of directors may be terminated by the Minister of Education when, despite having been called upon to comply with the obligations imposed by law, the board persists in violating them, or for other serious reasons. In such case, the school’s administration is entrusted by the Minister, for the maximum period of one year, to an extraordinary commissioner. The allowances to be paid to said commissioner shall be defined by the decree of appointment and charged to the school’s budget.

6. The board of directors of the boarding school shall apply bylaws containing rules on the establishment and operation of the board, the administration of assets and the admission of pupils, without prejudice to compliance with the informational principles of the original foundation principles. The bylaws are approved by decree of the Minister of Education in consultation with the Minister of the treasury and after consultation with the Council of State.

7. The board of directors passes resolutions on the budget, on the final statement of accounts, on contracts and agreements of any kind, on tuition fees and any other contributions, and on actions to be brought or defended in court. It supervises and works to preserve an increase in profit. It directly supervises the principal and, through the principal the rest of the staff of every category and grade as well as the operation of the boarding structure and of the schools, and exercises all of the other powers it is vested in by law, regulations and bylaws.

8. State-owned girls’ boarding schools may be annexed to primary schools, lower and higher secondary schools. In such case, the principal also acts as principal of the annexed schools and institutes.

9. As regards assistance by the Attorney General, what is provided for national boarding schools also applies to state-owned girls’ boarding schools.

10. Every state-owned girls boarding school shall be granted free and perpetual use of the state properties placed at the boarding school’s service, regardless of when the assignment was made. The ordinary maintenance of the state properties granted for use shall be the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Works.

11. For the purpose of exemption from duties and taxes, state-owned educational institutions are equated for all purposes with state administrations.

12. In addition to state-owned girls’ boarding schools, this article also applies to other public institutions for the education of girls referred to in Royal Decree No 1312 of 1 October 1931, as amended, except for those provisions that refer exclusively to state-owned institutions.

13. The management of the state-owned girls’ boarding school of Naples is entrusted to an educational director or to a principal of the schools annexed to it.