(a) The control of joint, contract, or consolidated schools, set up by two or more school districts, shall be vested in a joint school board from such school districts, and such board shall be chosen in the manner hereinafter provided for and for the purpose of this section, a joint, contract, or consolidated school board shall be referred to as a joint board.

(b) The joint board shall have full authority to act on all matters pertaining to the finance, location, construction, maintenance, and operation of schools set up as joint, contract, or consolidated schools, including the selection and hiring of teachers.

(c) The joint board shall consist of members chosen annually from the duly elected school boards of the school districts, each school district board electing a member or members to the joint board from among its own members.

(d) Unless the school districts that are parties to the contract have agreed upon a different method of allocating board members that is consistent with law, the allocation of the board members shall be as provided in this subsection. The school district with the largest number of pupils attending the joint, contract, or consolidated school shall have three members on the joint board. Each other school district shall have at least one member on the joint board, and its total membership shall be determined by dividing the number of pupils from the school district with the largest enrollment by three, rounding off the quotient to the nearest whole number, which shall be called the "factor" and by then dividing the pupil enrollment of each of the other school districts by the "factor," rounding off this quotient to the nearest whole number, this number being the number of school directors on the joint board from each of the other school districts. Pupil enrollment for the purpose of determining the number of members on the joint board to which each school district is entitled shall be taken from the school registers on January 1 of the calendar year in which the school year starts. The joint board shall annually select from among its members a chair and a clerk and shall also select a treasurer from among the treasurers of the contracting districts. (Amended 1961, No. 79; 1991, No. 173 (Adj. Sess.); 2011, No. 129 (Adj. Sess.), § 8, eff. May 11, 2012.)