This section sets attendance and funding rules for high schools and gives local boards certain powers over school placement and tuition.
There shall be maintained in each county of the state one (1) senior high school, which shall give at least one (1) full course of study approved by the state board of education. Local boards of education may establish additional high schools. No junior high school shall be established and maintained with fewer than one hundred (100) pupils in average daily attendance. No senior high school shall be established and maintained with fewer than three hundred (300) pupils in average daily attendance. Any senior high school in a state of transition may be initially established with fewer than three hundred (300) pupils in average daily attendance; provided, that as soon as the period of transition has been completed, the senior high school shall not have fewer than three hundred (300) pupils in average daily attendance. Nothing in this part shall prohibit the consolidation of any two (2) or more high schools now established into one (1) high school, even though the combined average daily attendance of the pupils in the consolidated high school is less than that required in this part. Nothing in this part shall be construed as abolishing any high school now established. Local boards of education may, in unusual circumstances, establish and maintain high schools with fewer pupils in average daily attendance than is prescribed in this section; provided, that prior approval is granted by the commissioner of education and the state board of education upon request of the respective local board of education. Local boards of education shall designate the schools that the pupils shall attend. Any high school operated by a local board of education, sharing in state and local school funds, shall be open without tuition to all resident students eligible to attend under policies of the local board of education. High school pupils residing in one county may be admitted to the high schools of another county, as provided by § 49-6-3104. Every local board of education shall collect tuition from pupils who are not living in Tennessee, at the same rate as the average cost per pupil in the system attended; however, pursuant to board policy, a child of a teacher residing outside the state may attend a school within the school district where the nonresident teacher is employed at no tuition charge. This tuition shall be paid to the bonded fiscal agent of the respective school system to be placed to the credit of the respective school fund. These pupils shall not be counted in computing the average daily attendance for purposes of receiving state school funds. No high school shall be approved or its graduates given diplomas or statements of credits by the commissioner, or the average daily attendance of its students be counted in the distribution of the state and county high school funds, that does not meet the provisions of this part as to number and qualifications of teachers, number of students, school term, course of study and such other conditions as may be prescribed by the state board of education under this part.