Public education in many communities in the USA has been made the function of a school district serving one or more towns. A school district is a unique body corporate and politic, usually with districts being coequal to that of a city or a county, and has similar powers including taxation and eminent domain. Its legislative body, elected by direct popular vote or by appointment by other governmental officials, is called a school board, board of trustees, or school committee, and this body appoints a superintendent, usually an experienced public school administrator, to function as the district's chief executive for carrying out day-to-day decisions and policy implementations. The school board may also exercise a quasi-judicial function in serious employee or student discipline matters.
In addition to the various schools it operates and the various support facilities they require for their operation, such as school bus yards, laundries, warehouses, and kitchens, some very large school districts operate medical clinics, television stations, and fully functioning campus police departments.
The Arkansas Education Association was organized in 1869 to promote the cause of public education and the education profession in Arkansas. It merged in 1969 with the seventy-one year old Arkansas Teachers Association which was organized to represent the interests of African-American teachers and students in the fight for equal and better educational opportunity in Arkansas' racially segregated schools.