This article examines the role and functioning of school management committees in the Russian Empire during the last third of the 19th and early 20th centuries, situating their development within the broader context of societal modernization, democratization, and administrative decentralization. Drawing on normative documents and ego-documents as primary sources, the author argues that the establishment of these committees represented a significant step toward decentralizing internal school governance. While the committees contributed positively to school infrastructure development and financial management, their effectiveness was undermined by persistent tensions between principles of collegiality and unilateral authority, limited financial autonomy, insufficient state oversight, low engagement among committee members, and their dependence on school administrations. By the early 20th century, these structural weaknesses led to a crisis in the functioning of management committees, culminating in their eventual abolition. Nevertheless, the author contends that these bodies played a crucial role in mitigating authoritarian tendencies within school governance and laid the groundwork for the emergence of both bureaucratic and state-public models of educational administration.