The Education Act 2004 states that board members are to be appointed. Before appointments can occur, some positions will require an election.
All appointments to school boards (except board appointed members) are made by the Returning Officer (the Executive Branch Manager, Governance).
School board elections - what are they and why do we need them?
A school board election is an approved process for the selection of representatives to the school board. School board election processes are designed to be fair and democratic.
School board timeframes for 2024 appointments are available here. These have been updated to reflect the amended timeframes due to the move to online voting.
Assistant Returning Officer (ARO)
Each school must have at least one Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) who is responsible for coordinating the election process in their school. More information about the role of the ARO is in the school board handbooks.
Assistant Returning Officer Training
The School Boards team provides training to Assistant Returning Officers. The training has concluded for 2022 and new material prepared to support online voting process. That new material is published below.
Online voting process
The online voting process is managed through the Qualtrics survey system, which is the same system that is used for the School Satisfaction and Climate surveys.
The factsheet provides an overview of the system:
Online voting fact sheet (198kb)
Online voting fact sheet (95kb)
The School Boards Team has also produced the detailed instructions for AROs here:
Detailed instructions for online voting (355kb)
Detailed instructions for online voting Word (99kb)
Detailed instructions for online voting
These are available as a document to download as well as a separate webpage.
AROs will communicate with their school community via email about how to login and vote.
Assistant Returning Officers are no longer required to provide the results of elections as this will be generated by the online voting system.
If you have any questions after reviewing the information then please contact the School Boards team in the Governance Branch via email: EDUSchoolBoards@act.gov.au or phone: (02) 6207 6846.
Election Template Forms and Ballot Materials
The following template forms and ballot materials are used for Assistant Returning Officers to adapt for their school board elections. These have been updated for use in the online voting process.
- Nomination Form
- Candidate Statements
- Scrutineer Appointment Form
Governance Branch can provide support and advice to schools.
Casual Vacancy
A casual vacancy occurs when an appointed member resigns from the school board before the completion of their term of appointment e.g. no longer have a child at the school if a parents and citizen member on the school board. The filling of a casual vacancy is for the remainder of the term of office that has been vacated only.
More information about Casual Vacancy is in the School Board handbooks located on the School Board page.
Governance and Community Liaison Branch can provide support and advice to schools filling casual vacancies.
Composition of parents and citizens members
From 1 January 2021, the Education Amendment Act 2020 (the Amendment Act) came into effect and changed the composition of the parents and citizens members on school boards. The changes created sub-categories of parents and citizens members within the Act.
For schools with parents and citizens associations, these sub-categories are:
- parents and citizens association (P&C) representatives (coming from anyone who is a member of the P&C Association for the school)[1];
- parent representative members (including carers and guardians); and
- where there are insufficient nominations to fill a parent position, a local community representative member (which is from people who live nearby or are otherwise associated with the school, who are not also a parent, carer, or guardian.[2]
For schools without parents and citizens associations, these sub-categories are:
- parent representative members (including carers and guardians); and
- local community representative members (people who live nearby or are otherwise associated with the school who are not also parents, carers or guardians).[2]
[1] The membership of each parents and citizens association depends on the constitution of that association as registered with Access Canberra under the Associations Incorporation Act 1991.
[2] Note: This is a separate role to the ‘Appointed Member’ positions which are directly appointed by the Director-General to school boards. The Appointed Member is sometimes colloquially referred to as the ‘Community Member’.
Contact and support
All School Board requests and queries should be directed to:
School Boards team
Governance Branch
Education Directorate
GPO Box 158
Canberra ACT 2601
Phone (02) 6207 6846
Email: EDUSchoolBoards@act.gov.au