In the event any board of trustees shall fail or refuse to comply with the provisions of Sections 37-65-119 through 37-65-127, a failure to act being equivalent to a refusal, then any ten or more qualified electors who have personally signed said petition may appeal from the action or nonaction of such board of trustees to the chancery court of the county in which all or a major portion of such school district is situated, within twenty days after the date by which said board is required to determine whether such petition or petitions are properly signed by the required percentage of qualified electors necessary to require the opening of any school or schools of the district which have been closed. Such appeal shall not serve as a supersedeas or cause an opening of such school or schools pending the hearing of the appeal unless a court or chancellor in vacation, for good cause shown, orders such school or schools to be opened pending the appeal. The appeal shall be by sworn bill of complaint, filed in such chancery court within said twenty-day period. The secretary of the interested board or boards of trustees shall, within fifteen days after the filing of such bill of complaint, file in such chancery court a certified copy of all orders, petitions and findings by such board of trustees; however, he may, in his discretion, file, instead of making copies thereof, the duplicate original copy of the petitions theretofore filed or delivered, if such has been done, with the president or secretary of said board of trustees. Neither the provisions of this section nor any other provision of this article shall be or constitute any waiver of the immunity from suit of any school district or member of the board of trustees thereof except strictly in accord with the terms of this article.

The hearing on appeal shall be de novo and may be heard in term time or in vacation on such date as the chancellor may set. The court may enter such order as the board of trustees involved should have made or affirm the action of such board of trustees. Said appeal shall be tried in the same manner and by the same rules of pleading, procedure and evidence as other causes in chancery courts of Mississippi. The action of such board of trustees shall be affirmed if there be substantial evidence to support the action taken by it. The said board and any qualified electors of the district, by proper pleading, answer or demurrer as used in the chancery courts of this state, may defend the action or nonaction of the board from which the appeal is taken, and be a party thereto.

Any parties to such appeal may appeal from the decision of the chancellor or chancery court to the supreme court of Mississippi as in appeals in other cases from the chancery courts of this state and such case shall be a preference case and treated as such.