Did you know that school boards have been around longer than the United States of America itself? We declared our independence on July 4th, 1776, and officially became the United States of America on September 9th, 1776 (a wonderful public school teacher taught me that). But the first local school board can be traced back to well before the Revolution. Back in 1647, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law requiring towns within the colony to establish and maintain their schools. Fast forward 248 years and there are now just under 13,500 public school districts in the United States.