OOP: prefects & head boy

[Robert Jones]

No: HPFGUIDX 95088

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "shrtbusryder2002" 
<shrtbusryder2002 at y...> wrote:
> The thread I'm responding to was posted last June and I could 
never 
> search all the posts since, but during yet another reread of PoA I 
> noticed something. In PoA Ch 4 pg 61 Scholastic it says,
> 
>     "At that moment Mrs. Weasley entered the bar, laden with 
> shopping bags and followed by the twins, Fred and George, who were 
> about to start their fifth year at Hogwarts; the newly elected 
Head 
> Boy, Percy; and the Weasleys' youngest child and only girl, Ginny."
> 
>     Newly Elected rather than newly appointed seems to imply 
popular 
> vote in my mind. Could easily explain the ever popular James 
getting 
> Head Boy over Prefect Remus.

Bobby: could it be that they are elected by the *faculty* rather 
than a popularity contest among the students (in which case Hermione 
is in trouble)?  How does the British private school system in 
general work in this regard?