When the Education (Scotland) Act was passed in 1872, the Roman Catholic community represented up to a third of the Scottish western urban population. The great majority of Presbyterian schools became Board schools but the Catholic authorities refused to enter the new system because they considered it as unofficially Presbyterian. Yet Catholics were nevertheless involved in the new system as ratepayers and they wanted to get some control over the spending of the educational tax. Thus a number of them became important actors on the newly elected councils. This article explores the ways in which Catholics fought the school board elections as well as the relation between Protestant and Catholic representatives on those boards in the west of Scotland (in Greenock and in the Monklands). It aims at studying the various conflicts which stemmed from inter-denominational collaboration as well as the modus vivendi which slowly emerged from 1872 until the passing of the 1918 Education Act.