Chalkbeat

IPEC board member Edward Rangel joins The Mind Trust as chief program officer

2026-07-23T15:00:49+00:00

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Edward Rangel, a charter school founder and board member of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, will join The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based charter incubator, the organization announced Thursday morning.

Rangel will be chief program officer, overseeing several programs such as the tutoring initiatives Indiana Learns and the Indy Summer Learning Labs, according to a Mind Trust news release.

The hire solidifies IPEC’s ties to the charter school sector in Indianapolis. The founder of The Mind Trust, David Harris, chairs IPEC’s board. Rangel serves as one of three community members on the board, along with three district and three charter school representatives. IPEC members were appointed by Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.

Rangel will serve out his term on IPEC’s board, according to Kateri Whitley, vice president of communications at The Mind Trust. Board members have staggered term lengths from two to four years, and Rangel’s is two years.

Rangel, the founder and CEO of the charter operator Adelante Schools, also leads the IPEC working group tasked with creating a school accountability system. IPEC will use that system to determine whether to reassign school buildings when they’re underenrolled, as part of its work overseeing buildings, transportation, some finances, and accountability for Indianapolis Public Schools and charters.

On Wednesday night, IPEC voted unanimously to confirm a new executive director, Karega Rausch, who currently serves as president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. The Mind Trust applauded the move.

The Mind Trust also announced the hire of Cold Spring School CEO Cody Stipes as chief administrative officer on Thursday.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

A network of public microschools wants to expand across Indiana. Is it collaborating or competing?

2026-06-22T11:00:00+00:00

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Jen Shipley would have never considered public school for her rising third grader, whom she had homeschooled since kindergarten.

In public schools, she said she saw cuts to recess and enrichment, an overreliance on screens, and not enough time to give each student individual attention, she said.

But a 2025 meeting with Indiana Microschool Collaborative CEO George Philhower and Nature’s Gift microschool leader Erin Wolski changed her mind. They painted a picture of a public school located in the woods in Hancock County that would emphasize parental involvement and a flexible schedule, while drawing from Montessori and classical education to allow students to move at their own pace.

Over the next school year, Shipley’s daughter excelled in math where she had been struggling at home. It was hard to leave their full-time homeschooling community, but Shipley said it was worth it.

“I love that she can learn from teachers who love teaching reading and math,” Shipley said. “Sure I could teach my child a science experiment, but not with the same passion behind it.”

Nature’s Gift’s, which just wrapped up its first year, is the Indiana Microschool Collaborative’s first microschool. But the collective plans to open five more sites with spots for hundreds more students across eastern central Indiana. Planned sites in Richmond and New Palestine already have waitlists for admission, a sign that parents’ interest in microschools continues to grow.

The collaborative’s approach is distinctive — and not just for its education model. In fact, the Indiana Microschool Collaborative, or IMC, could be a harbinger of how emerging models for schooling in the state will increasingly blur traditional lines.

It’s a network of microschools, which operate with a degree of independence, but it’s also classified as a single charter school in terms of state funding. And it doesn’t just draw on resources and services from a traditional school district — its CEO, Philhower, is also that district’s superintendent.

Eastern Hancock Schools, a rural district serving around 1,200 students across three schools, provides administrative support to Nature’s Gift through a shared services agreement. However, the charter school is an independent entity and authorized by the Indiana Charter School Board.

Philhower envisions Indiana microschools working collaboratively with their local districts to offer families an alternative to leaving the public school system altogether. For families, this opens up possibilities like learning at home some days and learning in a classroom on others, while districts still earn some revenue from providing facilities or administrative support.

“At a broader level, the goal is not to create separation between schools but to create more connected and flexible public learning opportunities for families,” Philhower said.

Not everyone is so taken with the idea. Some Indiana superintendents have spoken to the collaborative about bringing microschools to their districts, said Jeff Butts, of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents. But the collaborative’s Richmond site has been criticized by the superintendent of the local school district, who said losing students to IMC would lead to district funding cuts and staff reductions.

That kind of financial crunch would hit rural districts especially hard, said Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, president at Indiana Coalition for Public Education.

Then there are broader concerns about whether such arrangements are appropriate or fair. Fuentes-Rohwer questioned how Philhower can promote both the district and the collective and serve both well.

“Charter schools are based on the idea that the public schools are failing to provide something for kids. Your job as a superintendent is to fix that, and provide what’s needed so that every student can be the best that they can be,” Fuentes-Rowher said. “If it’s about smaller class sizes or individualized attention, why is that not provided to all kids at the district?”

Philhower said he believes in school choice, and that all students should get to attend “a school that feels like it was designed for them.”

“Nothing is stopping us from providing that. One benefit to Eastern Hancock is we get to learn from these sites,” he said. “And these sites get to learn from us.”

Funding and operating microschools throughout the state

Indiana’s microschools have operated mostly as small private schools, although in 2023, Purdue Polytechnic High School opened the Lab School, a microschool within a public charter school serving around 20 students

The microschools’ approaches share an emphasis on small environments and personalized instruction. But with small staffs, there are some tradeoffs.

At Nature’s Gift, parents pick up and drop off every day. The school can incorporate some special education goals into small group instruction, but other services for students with an Individualized Education Program might be offered virtually, school leaders said. That format might not be appropriate for every student.

Each IMC site serves between 60 and 100 students, and will have “its own educators and identity that fits the local community,” Philhower said, though there is collaboration with districts “around professional learning, systems, curriculum design, and student experiences.”

Under Indiana law, IMC could be eligible to receive local property tax revenue from multiple districts. Philhower said IMC has not discussed participating in a referendum, and would only participate if its partner districts wanted the school to do so.

For state funding purposes, IMC is one big charter school, Philhower said. That also means the new locations are not subject to an Indiana law that requires charter authorizers to hold public hearings before granting charters to new schools.

That left local education leaders in one county blindsided.

Wayne County superintendents were not included in IMC’s plans to open a microschool on the campus of Indiana University East in Richmond this fall, said Mike McCoy, superintendent of the local district, Centerville-Abington Community Schools.

Philhower said the school works with its authorizer, the Indiana Charter School Board, on hearings. The board did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, IU spokesman Mark Bode said IU East shared initial information about the new school in late March, followed by a meeting with the superintendents in April.

If he had been asked for input, McCoy said he would have suggested a model within a district that would allow students to stay with their peers while also taking classes at the university. His district already sends some students to IU East for a teaching pathway and other college courses.

Enrollment in Centerville-Abington, which has about 1,700 students, has fallen in the last several years due in part to local demographic changes, McCoy said.

Philhower said it makes sense for districts with declining enrollments to work with IMC schools instead of merely losing those students. After dipping slightly during the pandemic, enrollment in Philhower’s Eastern Hancock district has recovered to where it stood a decade ago.

But McCoy said a loss of even 10 students to a microschool could force his district to cut a teaching position.

“Schools in Wayne County, we’re working together more than we ever have,” McCoy said. “It’s unfortunate that we’re going to lose students.”

What teaching and learning at a microschool is like

On a recent Friday, Nature’s Gift students boarded an Eastern Hancock school bus for a field trip to the Conner Prairie museum.

The school paid Eastern Hancock schools for the gas and the cost of the driver’s time for the field trip, said Wolski, the school leader. Two Nature’s Gift teachers planned the outing. (Eastern Hancock does not provide daily transportation to and from the school.)

Teachers at Nature’s Gift don’t typically spend the whole day with just one group of students; Wolski is the licensed teacher for the middle school, but might also pull aside a group of five second graders for additional reading instruction, she said.

“I don’t feel like I’m on an island, and my whole career, I felt like I was on an island,” said Wolski, who previously spent 16 years teaching in both general education and special education roles.

Wolski said IMC hopes to add a special education coordinator in the future to be able to offer more services — like identification — in-house, rather than relying on Eastern Hancock.

The group instruction at the school is based on skill level, so it’s easier for students to move at their own pace, Wolski said. A first grader recently joined her math group for third to fifth grade students.

These learning groups might include approximately a dozen students at a time, though the school comes together in larger cohorts to work on Project Lead The Way curriculum.

Some students attend in-person only part-time, and complete the rest of their instruction at home. The flexibility allowed Shipley’s daughter to attend Nature’s Gift in person three days a week, leaving time to attend a wilderness school program while completing schoolwork at home.

“We are always thinking about outside the box ideas,” Wolski said. “When you work closely with parents, you have that partnership, and you can problem solve a lot easier.”

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

How to run for school board in Indiana

2026-05-11T11:00:00+00:00

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With primary season officially over in Indiana, attention is turning to the November general election. For schools, the most important offices on the ballot may not be at the top.

School boards across the state will have seats up for election in November 2026, and for the first time they’ll be partisan races due to a new state law.

School board members vote on important issues affecting their school districts, including the hiring of a superintendent, and the district budget. The latter responsibility carries even more weight at a time when property tax caps could pressure districts into budget cuts.

Over the last few years, spending on school board campaigns has increased significantly in some communities. There have also been rising tension over policies about school choice, and curriculum. At the same time, school board races sometimes don’t have enough candidates to fill every seat that’s up for election.

“School board used to be the sleepy quiet board where you could get your toe in the waters in terms of running for office and serving,” said Patricia Russo of the Campaign School at Yale University, a nonprofit, issue-neutral organization that helps women prepare to run for office.

“Now it’s become very contentious. As a result of that, you need to be prepared and know what the issues are.”

School boards alums in Indiana include Republican Gov. Mike Braun, who served on the Greater Jasper school board.

Chalkbeat has compiled a list of common questions and answers about running for school board ahead of the filing deadline at noon on June 18. Here’s what candidates need to know before seeking a seat.

How do I run for school board in Indiana?

The first step for a would-be candidate might be one they’ve already done: figuring out whether public service is a path they want to take. One of the best ways to do that is to work for a campaign first before running, Russo said.

Once they’re sure, the next step is to determine what school district they reside in, as well as whether the open seats on that board represent a specific region within the district, or represent the district at large.

Then, they’ll need to fill out a petition of nomination for school board.

What forms do I need to fill out to be a school board candidate?

That petition is also known as a CAN-34, which can be found on the secretary of state’s website. This form has space for signatures — a school board candidate usually needs 10 signatures from voters in the district to run, though the rules can differ slightly for some districts, according to the Indiana School Boards Association. In a metropolitan school district, for example, a candidate needs 10 signatures from voters in the board district that the candidate is running to represent.

This petition of nomination must be filed with the county voter registration office and needs to be accompanied by a statement of economic interests, or a CAN-12. This form essentially asks a candidate to disclose how they make their money. It’s also available on the secretary’s website.

Candidates can start filing petitions of nomination on May 19 and must do so by noon on June 18.

Are all school board races partisan elections?

As of July 2025, all school board elections in Indiana are partisan, meaning candidates must do one of three things: declare a political party affiliation, declare an independent candidacy, or elect not to declare any affiliation. This information will appear alongside a candidate’s name on the ballot.

This controversial change was championed by conservative lawmakers and other advocates as a way to give voters more information about who they’re voting for. But critics fear it will invite partisan politics into school matters. The November 2026 election is the first time school board races will be partisan.

To declare affiliation with a major political party, the candidate must have voted in the two most recent primary elections in Indiana held by that party. If not, a candidate needs to seek approval from the county chairman of that political party before they can claim affiliation — and that certification must be filed with their candidacy.

Each county party will have their own process for candidates to seek chair approval — the Marion County Republican Party requests that candidates reach out here, for example, while Hamilton County Democrats ask that requests be emailed to chair@hamcodemsin.org.

A good starting point to find other contacts would be each party’s county directory, which can be found here for Democrats, and here for Republicans.

A candidate’s party affiliation could be challenged if they did not vote in the two recent primaries or obtain certification from the county chairman.

Multiple candidates with the same political affiliation can appear on the ballot because there’s no law establishing a primary process for school board candidates. That’s why straight-ticket voting still won’t include school boards seats.

Can I serve on the school board as a teacher, or if I don’t live in the school district?

A teacher or other school district employee can’t also be a school board member of the same school district. But they can run for a seat, as long as they leave their job before assuming office.

Candidates must also be residents of the school corporation, and if they’re running to represent a certain district on the board, they must be residents of that district for at least a year before the election.

Others may be excluded from running due to the partisan nature of the election. Federal employees typically can’t run in partisan elections under the Hatch Act.

How much money does it cost to run for a school board seat?

There is no filing fee for school board candidates. The costs of running might include campaign materials like yard signs and pamphlets, said Terry Spradlin of the Indiana School Boards Association.

But school board races have increasingly attracted large campaign contributions, especially in high-profile races where issues like school choice spur donations from political action committees.

Candidates who do raise or spend more than $500 have some additional requirements. They must file a Statement of Organization to establish a candidate’s committee that will make expenditures and take contributions for their campaign. More information about forming these committees and filing campaign finance reports can be found in this manual from the secretary of state.

What do I need to do during the campaign season?

Most candidates can rely on their county political parties for help with the traditional hallmarks of campaign season, like going door-knocking, or even finding a part-time campaign manager, Russo said.

But it’s important for the candidate themselves to knock on doors and meet voters in person, she said.

“That’s where your votes are,” she said.

In a guide for candidates, the Indiana School Boards Association suggests that a candidate use this time to share the “background and the skills you have that make you a good school board member.”

However, candidates will need to be careful about campaigning on school grounds, which most districts prohibit.

What should I do if I win? Will I be paid?

First, bask in your victory. Then, look for an orientation session for new school board members put on by the district, or by the Indiana School Boards Association.

Each school board member’s primary duty is to vote on important matters like hiring a superintendent, and requests to ask voters for a tax increase. It’s important to note that no school board member can make decisions for the district on their own.

Boards also approve policies for the school district that affect students, staff, property, and technology. The Indiana General Assembly has given school boards more direct power over what’s taught in classrooms in recent years, like through a law specifying that all sex ed textbooks and curriculum must be approved by a district’s board.

School board members are typically paid a small stipend for their service, up to 10% of the lowest starting salary of a district teacher.

How can I learn more about running for school board?

For more information, the Indiana School Boards Association holds free webinars throughout May and June ahead of the candidate filing deadline.

This story has been updated with the time of the filing deadline on June 18.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Education Corporation announces date and location for first meeting

2026-04-10T20:54:35+00:00

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A new governing body for Indianapolis schools will meet for the first time on April 14.

The Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, or IPEC, will govern key aspects of public schools in the city. It will oversee buildings and transportation for charter schools and Indianapolis Public Schools. The corporation will also have power to ask voters for funding for schools through a referendum, and will create an accountability system that could be used to decide which schools close.

IPEC will meet at 4 p.m. April 14 in Room 221 of the City-County Building, 200 E. Washington Street, Mayor Joe Hogsett’s office announced. An agenda was not available on Friday.

The nine members of the board, appointed by Hogsett, were announced by him late last month and include three IPS board members, three representatives of charter schools, and three experts in areas relevant to the corporation’s work as required by state law.

One of the appointed experts is also a charter school leader. Additionally, David Harris is the board chair. Harris was the charter schools director under former mayor Bart Peterson, and the duo co-founded the Mind Trust, an influential nonprofit that helps launch charter schools.

IPEC’s creation by state lawmakers means less power for school boards in the city, including the elected IPS board. However, school boards will still have power over day-to-day tasks including setting budgets, curriculums, and hiring and firing the superintendent or school leaders for charter schools.

IPEC was formed following the December 2025 recommendations of the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, which was a state-created task force. The corporation’s powers will phase in with key powers over finances and referendums starting this year and powers over buildings and transportation in 2028.

The April 14 meeting will also be livestreamed on Channel 16.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

What does a school board do, anyway? The answer is changing for IPS and charters — here’s your guide.

2026-04-01T14:54:39+00:00

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Big changes are coming to Indianapolis Public Schools and the power of its elected board.

The Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, or IPEC, is a new public entity with a nine-member board announced on Tuesday. The corporation will have the power to determine property tax rates on behalf of both IPS and charter schools. It will also eventually be responsible for running transportation and managing IPS buildings for both school types.

But the IPS school board — and the school boards of more than 50 charters within district borders — will still retain some powers over the day-to-day operations of schools.

While the IPS school board manages traditional district schools, charter school boards oversee one school or multiple schools that are part of the same charter network. Charter schools that are part of the district’s Innovation Network are run by their charter school board and not the IPS school board.

Lawmakers created IPEC to manage key aspects of both school types.

State law dictates the roles and responsibilities of the IPS and charter school boards. Below is a breakdown of their major responsibilities, how board members are selected, and what rules may change with the creation of the new corporation.

Who can serve on school boards and IPEC?

The IPS board is a seven-member board elected by residents who live within IPS borders, with two at-large members and five members who each represent a district.

Charter school boards — including those in the IPS Innovation Network — are not elected. Charter schools typically list their founding proposed board members in the application they submit to the authorizer, which must include a governance plan. Each charter school may have its own rules on board composition, including the number of board members, their term length, and the process for filling a vacant board seat. (The five Innovation schools that are not charters also have their own unelected boards.)

Charter school boards are ultimately accountable to charter school authorizers, which approve new charter schools and have the power to revoke or not renew the contracts that allow charter schools to operate.

Beginning in April, the only entities that can authorize charter schools within IPS boundaries are the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, the Indiana Charter School Board, and the IPS school board, which has expressed interest in becoming an authorizer.

An Indiana law adopted last year also requires charter schools receiving property taxes — nearly every charter in the city, excluding virtual schools and adult high schools that do not qualify for such funding — to have one member appointed by the mayor.

Mayor Joe Hogsett’s Office of Education Innovation told Chalkbeat last year that Hogsett tapped existing members of the city’s charter school boards for those appointments.

State lawmakers created IPEC earlier this year. It has a nine-member board appointed by the mayor. Three members come from the IPS school board, three come from the charter sector, and three are experts in areas related to the corporation’s work, such as facilities, transportation, or working with vulnerable students.

What are the financial responsibilities of school boards and IPEC?

The IPS board sets and approves an annual budget, and is required by state law to approve contracts above $75,000.

But the new IPEC board will assume control of key financial powers previously held by the IPS school board.

Most notably, the IPEC board will set the tax rates for residents living in IPS boundaries beginning in 2027, taking into account funding needed for charter schools as well.

That means that future district budgets will need to be crafted based on the funding that it receives through IPEC’s formula — a funding source that IPS had historically exclusively controlled.

And beginning this year, the IPS school board loses the authority to put a referendum for additional property taxes on the ballot. Instead, the IPEC board assumes that authority.

The county auditor will then distribute property taxes to both district and charter schools through formulas that are both dictated in state law and created by IPEC.

IPEC will also assume the responsibility of issuing debt to fix school buildings throughout the district, a power previously reserved for the IPS school board.

Although charter boards are also responsible for their school’s finances, they are less affected by the creation of IPEC than the IPS board. Charter boards approve and oversee the school’s annual budget, and control the state and federal funds the charter school receives. The charter school board can also apply for public or private grants, and also must submit an annual audit to the state.

But because charter schools have historically not received property tax funds, charter school boards do not control property tax rates.

What else are school boards and IPEC responsible for?

The IPS board selects a superintendent to run the day-to-day operations of the district. The superintendent, in turn, makes employment recommendations to the board, which approves the hiring or firing of employees.

The IPS board also sets policies that help guide the district, the superintendent, and IPS employees in their daily operations. These policies can include rules on transportation, homework, field trips, and athletics, for example.

Similarly, charter boards can hire or dismiss school leaders and approve policies that help the school function on a daily basis — such as a hiring policy or a policy on electronic student devices.

IPEC, meanwhile, will assume responsibility for transportation and buildings for district and charter schools in the 2028-29 school year. Charter schools can choose not to cede control of their buildings to IPEC, although they would forfeit a portion of property taxes by doing so.

What powers will the IPS board keep, even with IPEC?

The IPS board will still retain authority over many day-to-day district operations.

For example, the IPS board will still set an annual budget for the district based on its state and local property tax funding. The board will also still retain control over the superintendent, oversee hiring and firing of employees, and set the policies that establish how schools run on a daily basis.

When and where do school boards meet?

Both the IPS board and charters are subject to the state’s Open Door Law, which requires the posting of every meeting at least 48 hours in advance at the district’s main office.

The IPS board typically meets at district headquarters at 120 E. Walnut St., and has a calendar of upcoming meetings on its website. Many charter schools also post their upcoming board meetings on their website.

The IPEC board is also subject to the Open Door Law, although information on its meeting schedule and location has not yet been made public.

Correction: This story was corrected to reflect that the county auditor distributes property taxes.

This story was also updated to reflect that IPEC will set property tax rates for IPS and charter schools, and that both state law and IPEC will determine how property taxes are distributed by the county auditor.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Education Corporation members announced by Mayor Hogsett

2026-03-31T21:48:42+00:00

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Mayor Joe Hogsett announced the members of the new Indianapolis Public Education Corporation on Tuesday.

The nine-member board represents a significant change to education in Indianapolis. The corporation will oversee buildings and transportation for district and charter schools, while also assuming the power to collect property taxes. The board will also create a system of accountability that officials could use to decide which schools close.

These changes diminish the power of school boards including the elected Indianapolis Public Schools board. School boards will still have power over day-to-day policy decisions like setting their budgets and curriculums, and they’ll maintain the power to hire and fire the superintendent or school leaders for charter schools.

The corporation’s members are:

Hope Star, IPS board president.
Ashley Thomas, IPS board member.
Deandra Thompson, IPS board member.
David Harris, president and CEO of Christel House International.
Janet McNeal, president of Herron Classical Schools charter network.
Dexter Taylor, director of Paramount Brookside charter school.
Patricia Castañeda, vice president of Key Bank.
John Hammond, partner at the Taft Stettinius & Hollister law firm.
Edward Rangel, founding CEO of Adelante Schools charter network.

Harris, who served as charter schools director under former mayor Bart Peterson and later helped found the Mind Trust nonprofit that helps launch charter schools, will serve as the IPEC board chair.

The board was created by state lawmakers in this year’s legislative session following recommendations issued by the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, or ILEA, which met in the second half of 2025. The state law establishing the corporation says that three of its nine members must be charter school leaders, three must be IPS school board members, and three must be experts in areas related to the corporation’s work, such as capital planning or transportation.

The board would assume key powers over finances and referendums beginning this year, and would begin managing school property and transportation in 2028.

“These dedicated leaders possess the expertise necessary to ensure our schools are able to operate efficiently and serve our students equitably,” Hogsett said in a statement. “I believe in their combined ability to make the difficult – but important – decisions that will create a sustainable public school system in Indianapolis for years to come.”

The city also extended its contract with Michael O’Connor of Bose Public Affairs, who led the ILEA through its brainstorming sessions last year. The original contract, paid for by the city with a maximum cost of $340,000, allowed the city to renew its agreement with O’Connor to help implement the ILEA’s recommendations. The extension runs through May and allows for an additional maximum of $200,000.

The date of the corporation’s first meeting has not been announced.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools board taps Hasaan Rashid to fill vacant seat

2026-03-27T02:11:19+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools board members tapped Hasaan Rashid to fill the vacant District 2 seat on the board in a 4-2 vote on Thursday.

Rashid, who founded a music festival on the northeast side to benefit high school students, will serve on the board until the November election. Rashid has expressed interest in running for the seat at that time.

Rashid and education professor Bryan Duarte were the only two applicants for the District 2 seat previously held by Gayle Cosby, who stepped down earlier this month. They represent two sides of a major divide in the Indianapolis education landscape. Rashid drew support from school choice advocates, while Duarte was backed by traditional public school supporters.

In interviews this week, both applicants said they would prioritize student outcomes over school type.

Board members Angelia Moore, Ashley Thomas, Deandra Thompson, and Hope Duke Star voted for Rashid, while Allissa Impink and Nicole Carey voted for Duarte.

Rashid ran for the seat in 2024, receiving support from groups supportive of school choice. Cosby won.

In his interview with the board on Tuesday, Rashid stressed his relationship with the community as an asset.

“People know me. When I go to the grocery store, they know who I am,” he said. “I still get questions about, ‘Hey are you going to throw your hat back in the ring?’”

In his interview on Tuesday, Duarte noted his interactions with the IPS Parent Council. The group formed in support of traditional IPS schools during a heated legislative session last year in which lawmakers required the district to share more funding with charters. In public meetings over the last year he questioned the creation of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, which is taking significant power away from the elected school board.

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IPS school board interviews applicants for vacant District 2 seat

2026-03-25T00:29:12+00:00

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An assistant professor and a community advocate have applied to fill the vacant District 2 seat on the Indianapolis Public Schools board.

The board interviewed Bryan Duarte and Hasaan Rashid at a meeting on Tuesday ahead of its vote on Thursday to fill the seat. Former board member Gayle Cosby announced her resignation from the seat earlier this month, citing health challenges.

The board is expected to select the new member at its action session on Thursday.

The new board member will serve until the next general election in November, when the seat will be on the ballot along with three others.

Duarte is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at Purdue University. In public meetings held over the last year, Duarte has advocated for a fully elected school board to maintain control over public schools and has questioned the creation of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, which lawmakers established earlier this year to oversee certain aspects of public schools’ operations. (Duarte has stated that his comments or desire to apply for the seat are not reflective of the university).

Rashid is the founder of the annual Brendon Park Live Music Festival, which offers scholarships to graduating seniors. He also ran against Cosby for the District 2 seat in 2024. In that election, he won the endorsement of Stand for Children Indiana — a parent advocacy group that has supported expanding high-performing charter schools — and RISE Indy, which runs education-focused programs for district and charter schools and has connections to prominent school choice advocates.

The newest commissioner will join the board at a particularly fraught time for the district. IPS, which already projects ending the year with a $40 million cash deficit, will run out of money without an additional property tax increase that voters must approve on the November ballot.

Meanwhile, the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, whose members will be appointed by the mayor, will assume control over buildings and transportation for district and charter schools. It will also assume many powers historically reserved for the elected school board — including the ability to collect and levy property taxes and control school buildings.

Both applicants said they would consider running for the District 2 seat in November.

At the interview Tuesday, Duarte stressed his experience as a former teacher and his educational research background. Rashid, meanwhile, emphasized his connection with District 2 as a community leader.

Both said they would set aside differences between school types — a divisive topic as relations between advocates for traditional and charter schools have soured in recent years — and focus on student outcomes.

Asked about the district’s current financial challenges, Rashid said property tax caps that lawmakers implemented in 2010 have limited the district’s revenue.

“Some things are going to have to be cut and we have to be clear and concise on what is best for the students,” he said.

Duarte said IPS has been good stewards of taxpayer dollars, and also said state legislation has adversely impacted the district. The district needs to ensure it does not exacerbate inequalities in any potential budget cuts, he said.

“I’m unwilling to compromise on meeting the needs of the people who have historically been left out of choice,” he said.

The school board will vote at 6 p.m. on Thursday at 120 E. Walnut St.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools board seeks applicant for vacant District 2 seat

2026-03-13T17:56:19+00:00

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The Indianapolis Public Schools board is accepting applications for people interested in filling the vacant role of District 2 commissioner on the IPS school board.

The effort to fill the vacant seat follows the resignation of Gayle Cosby, who said this week that she would step down on Friday due to ongoing health concerns.

The board said on Friday that it is accepting applications, which are available online, until 5 p.m. on March 20.

The appointee selected by the IPS board will serve in the seat until the next election on Nov. 3, when state law dictates voters must choose a new District 2 commissioner to serve until the term ends in 2028.

Three other seats will also be up for election in November: Hope Duke Star’s District 3 seat, Nicole Carey’s District 5 seat, and the at-large seat currently held by Angelia Moore. Those terms will end in 2030.

The election will be the first since lawmakers passed a law to allow partisan school board elections and since the creation of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation.

The corporation will oversee buildings and transportation for district and charter schools while also assuming the power to collect property taxes — changes that significantly diminish the elected school board’s power. The IPS board, however, would still retain the power to hire and fire the superintendent and oversee other day-to-day policy decisions, such as selecting curriculum or crafting its own budget.

Candidates for the appointed seat must have lived in District 2 — which encompasses parts of the Near Eastside and the Far Eastside — for at least one year, the district said in an announcement. They must also not have any felony convictions unless those convictions were pardoned, reversed, vacated, or set aside.

The board will select three finalists in a closed-door session on March 23 and will interview finalists in a public session at 6 p.m. on March 24.

The board will vote on the appointee on March 26.

Interested applicants can contact board administrator Leslie-Ann James with questions at boardofcommissioners@myips.org or 317-226-2056.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Local Education Alliance backs plan to create new education authority to oversee IPS, charter schools

2025-12-18T01:24:32+00:00

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In a move with potentially profound consequences for Indianapolis education, a state-backed task force has told lawmakers they should establish a new agency to oversee both the city school district and charter schools.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance voted 8-1 on Wednesday to recommend the creation of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation that could set and enforce standards for both district and charter schools. The new agency would consist of nine members appointed by the mayor: three IPS board members, three charter leaders, and three at-large members, all of whom would have to live within IPS boundaries.

The new corporation would have the power to impose property taxes for both charter and IPS schools. It would also manage the district’s buildings and transportation services through its own staff, establish a framework for school accountability, and manage a unified enrollment system.

If state lawmakers agree to turn the ILEA’s recommendations into law, the vote would mark a monumental shift in the city’s educational landscape. It would represent a significant loss of power for IPS and a qualified victory for charter supporters, after years of rising conflict between the two sectors. The GOP-run state legislature has become increasingly skeptical of IPS while passing legislation favorable to charters when it comes to issues like property taxes.

In addition, the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance voted to restrict the number of charter school authorizers to the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, the Indiana Charter School Board, and the IPS school board, which this week said it will seek to become a charter authorizer. The recommendations also require all schools to offer transportation to students living within the IPS boundary, and exempt IPS buildings from a state law that requires districts to make unused buildings available to charter schools for the sale or lease price of $1.

Under the recommendations, school boards would retain the power to set certain policies, hire leaders — including the superintendent — and approve budgets and contracts. The recommendations, which will be in a final report, were outlined to the public in a presentation.

ILEA member Tina Ahlgren, an IPS parent and teacher, was the sole no vote.

The ILEA’s recommendations come amid struggles by both IPS and charters to address structural challenges.

The district has been losing students for years. IPS also has significant long-term financial problems as well as underutilized buildings. Charters, meanwhile, have struggled to acquire buildings and provide transportation services as their enrollments have grown, and roughly 1 in 3 Indianapolis charters closed from 2001 to 2023.

The ILEA’s recommendation to reduce the power of the IPS board matches the desire among many charter supporters for less power to rest with the elected school board.

But supporters of traditional IPS schools have not only opposed efforts to diminish the elected school board; they’ve also pushed for the board to exercise power over charters as well as district-run schools. They’ve criticized the growth of charters, calling for more accountability in that sector, and said that the elected school board should serve as the only charter authorizer.

In a statement before the vote, Superintendent Aleesia Johnson — who is an ILEA member and voted yes — said she championed many of the recommendations.

But not all the details of what the ILEA has recommended are clear yet, she noted. She urged the public to keep pressure on state lawmakers to ensure any new authority is transparent and values community input.

“In my most pessimistic moments, I can assume that those details will be filled in ways that intentionally bring harm to families, staff and students in IPS,” Johnson said. “However, because the details aren’t filled in, I actually do — naively or not — hold some level of optimism.”

The Mind Trust, a nonprofit that’s supported many Indianapolis charter schools, celebrated the “bold, structural changes” in the ILEA recommendations.

“Separating the education of students from the management of real estate and transportation is a nationally unique innovation that The Mind Trust has long supported,” Brandon Brown, the group’s CEO, said in a statement Wednesday. “This approach will expand access to transportation for thousands of students, ensure that facility access is tied to school quality, and create a path to full funding parity by ensuring capital funds are available to charter schools that opt in.”

Some speakers say elected board should maintain power

Several people expressed hostility to the ILEA’s plans on Wednesday, and some didn’t wait until the task force’s meeting began to do so.

Roughly 60 people supportive of traditional IPS schools gathered outside of the City-County Building ahead of the vote to urge the ILEA to consider a Central Indiana Democratic Socialists of America proposal that would expand the power of the elected IPS board. They also attacked how charter schools operate and the private interests that support them.

“We’re told, ‘This is for the kids,’ but if that was true, the money and political will behind privatization could have fully supported public schools serving mostly Black and brown students decades ago,” said Brianna Dines of the Central Indiana DSA.

In a public comment period at the meeting before the ILEA voted, many speakers chastised the task force for diluting the school board’s power. Pastor Clyde Posley Jr. said the ILEA’s process amounted to political overreach.

“To remove the voices of elected board officials and replace them with other overt or private agendas — which do not benefit our children in the short or long term, but only invite scavengers and investors to pillage off the plight of a broken school system — is not only wrong, it is vicious toward the well being of our children and their future,” Posley Jr. said.

Meanwhile, organizations that back charter schools celebrated the recommendations minutes after the vote.

“While the ILEA’s final plan differs somewhat from advocates’ ideas, parents celebrated the focus on stronger school accountability, a growing transportation system and a more unified and coherent approach to school facilities,” Stand for Children Indiana, a parent advocacy group that has pushed to expand certain charter models, said in a statement.

Universal ratings could guide school closure decisions

Under the recommendations, the new corporation would create an advisory board that would collaborate with charter authorizers and IPS to develop unified accountability standards. Those would be based on measures such as test scores and student discipline practices.

Both charter and district schools would need to commit to use the standards to make decisions about closing chronically low-performing schools — provided that struggling schools are given time to make improvements.

The task force also recommended that the legislature fund the full cost of educating students with disabilities. The ILEA noted that IPS spends millions more to educate students with disabilities than what the state provides.

It’s unclear whether the new authority would assume control of both IPS school buildings and those owned by charters.

The task force also noted that details on how exactly to collect and distribute property taxes would need to be ironed out with fiscal experts at the statehouse. Other topics, the group noted, also require further legal review.

Ahlgren highlighted the lack of details in the recommendations as a key reason why she could not support them.

“I find these recommendations falling into this bizarre zone of simultaneously feeling both too much and not enough, bold in some areas, but overly timid in others, with vague promises that the ecosystem will sort itself out,” she said. “I’ve done enough policy work … to understand the dangers of leaving important elements up to chance — or worse, a legislature which historically has not aligned with the values of this community.”

Before his vote of support, ILEA member Andrew Neal acknowledged to the crowd that “this is an imperfect plan.” But he said he was proud the group recommended mandating transportation, and called on the legislature to adequately fund students with disabilities.

Lawmakers will return to the statehouse on Jan. 5 to resume the legislative session.

This story has been updated to include additional details about the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance’s recommendations and comments from officials and members of the public.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Here are 5 things the mayor and IPS superintendent want in the ILEA recommendations

2025-12-16T16:01:40+00:00

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The day before a scheduled vote on recommendations that could impact who oversees Indianapolis schools, Mayor Joe Hogsett and Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Aleesia Johnson announced their preferred outcomes.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is scheduled to vote Wednesday on final recommendations about the future of the city’s district and charter schools. The ILEA will then send those recommendations to state lawmakers.

The task force is considering two proposals that would limit the power of the elected IPS school board.

One would give oversight of charter and IPS schools to a collaborative board consisting of IPS, mayoral, and charter school appointees. Another would give oversight to an independent Indianapolis Education Authority within the mayor’s office, and create a new secretary of education position.

But notably, Hogsett, the chair of the alliance, and Johnson, a member, didn’t express a preference for either proposal or any other plan for who would run schools.

Instead, their five priorities, which they announced via a Tuesday press release, focus on transportation and buildings, as well as limiting charter authorizers and ensuring schools have funding to serve all students, such as those with disabilities.

Hogsett and Johnson’s five priorities are:

Exempting IPS from the so-called $1 law, which allows charter schools to purchase or lease district buildings no longer used as schools from the district for $1.
Requiring all public schools — including district-run and charter schools as well as Innovation Network schools — to offer transportation or forfeit their share of property taxes. (Legislation passed earlier this year allows all charter schools to receive property tax funds starting in 2028.)
Limiting charter authorizers to two who can approve schools within the boundaries of the IPS school district: the Office of Education Innovation and the Indiana Charter School Board. (Currently, charter schools in Indianapolis use one of three authorizers.)
Have a shared framework for making decisions about buildings to give the community a clear understanding of how decisions about school buildings are made. The press release notes there are more than 103 school buildings for 41,000 students within IPS boundaries.
Make sure all public schools, regardless of type, have resources and funding to serve and be accessible to all students, including students with disabilities, students facing homelessness, and English language learners.

The ILEA was created by state lawmakers and tasked with making recommendations about how the district and area charter schools might share buildings and buses. But lawmakers also gave the task force the ability to make recommendations on other topics, including school governance.

Last month, the alliance said addressing who oversees schools would be key to its recommendations. Hogsett and Johnson said they drew up their priorities for the ILEA’s recommendations after listening to community input.

The ILEA, which has nine members, has met since the summer and most recently had two public comment sessions ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

At one of those sessions on Monday, members of the Indianapolis community raised concerns about the potential impact of the ILEA’s recommendations on the elected school board. Another speaker asked whether the ILEA would recommend repealing the $1 law about building acquisitions — an idea that appears to have growing bipartisan support among Indiana lawmakers.

Members of the public have also sparred over whether the ILEA should recommend limiting the number of authorizers for Indianapolis, and requiring all public schools to provide transportation. Charter advocates in particular have criticized these ideas as an infringement on charter autonomy.

The ILEA will meet to vote on its final recommendations at 6 p.m. on Dec. 17 at the City-County Building at 200 E. Washington St.

Chalkbeat Indiana reporter Aleksandra Appleton contributed reporting.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

ILEA proposals to change who runs Indianapolis schools in spotlight again at public hearing

2025-12-15T20:54:12+00:00

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Is this thing even on?

That’s what people at a public hearing on the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance wondered after the mic briefly stopped working — a technical glitch that underscored their real question: whether the group had not only heard but truly understood concerns about their work so far.

Those comments from some of the roughly two dozen attendees at the Madam Walker Legacy Center on Monday took place two days before the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance’s vote on its final recommendations Wednesday.

The alliance is considering two proposals that would both reduce the power of the elected IPS school board. One would give oversight of charter and IPS schools to a collaborative board consisting of IPS, mayoral, and charter school appointees. Another would give oversight to an independent Indianapolis Education Authority within the mayor’s office, and create a new secretary of education position.

But would an appointed board listen and be responsive to the public’s views about schools? Several people in the audience on Monday were skeptical. They pointed out that the ILEA — which consists of appointed members — was advancing proposals to create appointed boards, despite public support for elected ones.

“The thing I see here is consolidation of executive authority to individuals who do not have direct accountability to the public,” said Madison Whitcomb, a community member. “I don’t want people appointing anybody. I want them elected. When I elect someone, I have a voice in that.”

ILEA member and former mayor Bart Peterson rejected the idea that public feedback had reached any kind of consensus. Ultimately, the ILEA’s recommendations will likely leave some people disappointed, he said.

“It’s not about pleasing any individual,” he said. “It’s about trying to figure out the best thing to do for our city, for our students, and our families.”

It’s unclear whether state lawmakers will adopt the task force’s recommendations or mandate their own changes.

The alliance was created by state lawmakers to make recommendations on how charters and Indianapolis Public Schools could share transportation and facility resources. But to address those challenges, the group is also tackling the question of who in the city should have oversight of public schools.

Groups supporting IPS have criticized the two proposals to change how schools are run, and instead have called for an elected school board to oversee both district and charter schools. On Monday, they also raised concerns about how the city would fund a new secretary of education position and other staff necessary to maintain the proposed Indianapolis Education Authority.

But IPS has financial concerns, too, including a precipitous funding cliff that could lead to schools closing, said Chris Bultman executive director of external affairs at Indiana Math and Science Academy, an independent charter school.

“That would be bad, that would reduce choice,” he said.

IPS currently operates at a deficit that’s reached tens of millions of dollars, said Andrew Strope, IPS deputy superintendent, who spoke at the public comment session. And the effects of a new law that both caps property tax revenue and requires school districts to share that revenue with charter schools will further impact the district’s operations fund by up to $50 million.

Some charter school supporters have praised some aspects of the two proposals the ILEA will consider Wednesday, but have also warned the group not to recommend infringing on charters’ independence.

Bultman said he liked the ILEA’s proposed governance models because they retained his school’s elected board to make decisions for the school. But the ILEA should avoid limiting the number of charter authorizers, or placing a moratorium on new schools, he said.

Stand for Children Indiana, an advocacy group that’s backed the expansion of charter school models, has proposed a board that’s partly elected and partly appointed by the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation.

Stand for Children has also called for an end to district-run schools, calling for all schools to be autonomous — either as an Innovation Network school or a charter school — with their own boards. The head of the Indiana Charter Innovation Center has also called for all schools to become autonomous.

The task force is also considering two sets of proposals for how IPS and charters could share transportation and facilities. In one model, schools would participate in and pay into a collaborative that manages transportation and building services. In another model, an independent authority would collect property taxes and oversee those services.

The ILEA will meet at 6 p.m. on Dec. 17 at the City-County Building at 200 E. Washington St. and will take another hour of public comment before discussing and then voting on final recommendations.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

As the ILEA mulls changing how Indianapolis schools are run, here are 5 key unanswered questions

2025-12-11T00:25:43+00:00

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A state-mandated task force is one step away from proposing major changes to who oversees public schools in Indianapolis. But even at this late stage, significant questions remain.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is weighing two options that would leave the elected Indianapolis Public Schools board in place but significantly weaken its power. The task force is mulling two possibilities. One model would create a “collaborative compact advisory board” that would oversee both traditional public schools and charter schools. The other would establish a separate authority and create a new position for Indianapolis schools: a secretary of education.

Such a loss of power by the elected IPS board could have profound effects on the city’s schools and change their relationships with students, families, state officials, and others. But beyond that, it’s not clear how much detail for each option the ILEA will include in its final recommendations.

It’s also uncertain whether state lawmakers will adopt the ILEA’s recommendations, or whether they will flesh out the task force’s proposals through new laws or other means.

The ILEA is also weighing recommendations to change how transportation and buildings are managed. One model would create a collaborative advisory board in which schools would voluntarily work together and pay for services. The other would create an independent authority that would manage and possibly dictate services to schools.

The task force is considering both models for each of the two issues; it could recommend a collaborative board for transportation but an independent authority for buildings, for example.

The ILEA will vote to adopt final recommendations on Dec. 17.

Here are a few major unanswered questions that the alliance could address in its final recommendations — and what we know right now.

Who exactly would be in charge of schools?

The proposed collaborative compact advisory board would be made up of an unknown number of appointees from IPS, the mayor’s office, and charter schools. But how those appointees would be chosen is unclear.

Then there’s the other option, which would create the Indianapolis Education Authority. In an initial draft, that authority would have a nine-member board appointed by the mayor. The mayor would have to appoint four of the nine members from the elected IPS board.

But the draft advanced by the ILEA last week removed the requirement to have four IPS board members on the Indianapolis Education Authority, and didn’t specify who would appoint the authority’s members.

It’s also unclear how much either of those options would overlap with the ILEA’s separate recommendations for transportation and buildings.

How much power would these new authorities have?

In both governance models, the IPS board and charter school boards would still exist and report up to a new authority.

But how much power the new authority would have is unclear. It could have the power to impose and collect property taxes and authorize new charter schools. It could also set policies for all schools to ensure charter and IPS schools are held to the same standards — such as guidelines for students with disabilities or discipline.

In theory, the IPS school board and individual charter school boards could still be in charge of day-to-day school operations, including hiring and firing school leaders and superintendents or approving yearly budgets — the most important functions elected boards have.

Collaborative advisory boards for transportation and facilities could allow participating schools to agree on decisions such as transportation zones or opening or closing schools. In contrast, independent transportation or facility authorities that receive property tax dollars directly could dictate some of these decisions to the schools.

Would all students have school transportation?

It’s unclear whether all students would receive transportation to school under the ILEA’s recommendations.

There seems to be some consensus among ILEA members that to bus all students to any school they want to attend — regardless of distance — would be too costly.

But the larger unanswered question is whether all schools would be required to offer transportation to students living within a certain distance of the school.

About half of the 25 charter schools in the IPS Innovation Network use the district’s bus services. Less than half of the 29 independent charter schools provide bus service, according to a September report from the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, which authorizes charters.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who has objected to stripping the district of its authority over transportation, said at an ILEA meeting last month that schools should be required to participate in a transportation service. She said this would address the problem that the alliance is trying to solve, which is how to ensure every school offers transportation.

If schools decline to do so, she said, then they should not receive property tax dollars earmarked for transportation.

Four other ILEA members have told Chalkbeat they would support a requirement for schools to offer transportation: Tina Ahlgren, Barato Britt, Andrew Neal, and Angela Smith-Jones.

But former mayor Bart Peterson, who’s also an ILEA member, said there would need to be limits on how far students could live from their school and still receive transportation.

Will new charter schools be allowed to open?

It’s unclear whether the ILEA will address the issue of opening new schools.

In the proposals, there’s no mention of stopping new public schools from opening in Indianapolis. But in an ILEA meeting last month, Ahlgren and Smith-Jones voiced support for a moratorium on new schools.

“We have to have a pause, because you cannot continue to have just a rolling wheel of change,” Smith-Jones said last month. “To me that feels unstable.”

In practice, such a moratorium would likely disproportionately impact charters, which have grown in number in recent years as the number of IPS-run schools have shrunk, although roughly one-third of charters have closed since 2001.

In a related matter, IPS supporters are also calling for just one charter authorizer instead of the three currently overseeing schools in Indianapolis. Charter school leaders and advocates have opposed limiting the number of authorizers and any moratorium on new schools.

Would charter schools need to give up their buildings?

Few charter schools own vehicles that transport students. But over 20 charter schools own their buildings and a little over a dozen leased them in the 2023-24 school year, according to a report from the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Those arrangements include millions in remaining financial obligations.

It’s unclear whether the alliance will recommend that charter schools give up authority over those assets.

“How are property rights exercised by an independent authority over buildings that are owned in lots of different ways by lots of different entities?” Peterson said at the ILEA’s meeting in November.

It’s also unclear whether the ILEA will recommend the state repeal a law that allows charter schools to buy unused school buildings from IPS for $1 under certain conditions. The law has sparked conflict between IPS and charters for years.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Groups backing IPS slam proposals advanced by task force that would reduce elected board’s power

2025-12-04T23:55:45+00:00

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A coalition supporting Indianapolis Public Schools is blasting a task force’s proposals to dilute the power of the elected school board, and is also calling for IPS to have the power to authorize charter schools.

The coalition’s response on Thursday comes on the heels of recommendations advanced by the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance on Wednesday that would dramatically alter how district and charter schools in the city are governed. The groups in the coalition — the Central Indiana Democratic Socialists of America, the Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Education Association, and the IPS Parent Council — have been critical of the growth of charters.

The coalition also shared an alternative proposal, authored by the Central Indiana DSA, for changing how schools are run that would provide the elected IPS school board more power, not less.

Kristen Phair of the IPS Parent Council said at a press conference that the alliance’s proposals ignored the wishes of more than 1,000 families who signed a letter calling for an elected school board to serve as the sole authorizer of charter schools.

“Parents have consistent serious concerns: the weakening of democratic oversight, the creation of new authorities with unclear accountability over transportation, facilities, and public funds, and a rushed timeline that has allowed only limited and shallow engagement,” Phair said. “There is no evidence that these changes will benefit our kids.”

The charter school community, meanwhile, welcomed some aspects of the ILEA’s preferred recommendations while cautioning the alliance not to restrict charter schools’ autonomy. The Mind Trust, an influential Indianapolis nonprofit that has helped start many local charters, applauded the alliance’s work, saying it has recognized “the need for multiple quality charter school authorizers.”

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance advanced two proposals for changing oversight of public schools for further public input on Wednesday. One would create an advisory board made up of appointees from the mayor’s office, IPS, and charters. It would collect and levy taxes, and both charters’ boards and the elected IPS board would report to this board. The other would concentrate more power in the hands of the mayor, who would appoint a new secretary of education and make appointments to a nine-member board. Both models leave open the possibility for more than one charter authorizer.

Public pressure is mounting on members of the alliance as they consider recommendations for how to address falling IPS enrollment, long-term fiscal concerns for traditional public schools, and the growth of charters in the city. After gathering more public input, the alliance will vote Dec. 17 on final recommendations to send to state lawmakers. Many Republican legislators have sought to divert money and other resources away from IPS in recent years.

Voice and a Choice plan emphasizes IPS authority

The Voice and a Choice plan supported by the pro-IPS coalition would keep authority under an elected school board, which would also gain the sole power to open and close charter schools.

IPS would continue operating buildings and transportation services for charter and district schools, and an elected school board would set policy that would hold both district and charter schools to the same standard.

The coalition’s model differs sharply from the transportation and facilities proposals advanced by the task force, which would strip the district’s authority over those services and instead move it to either an advisory board or an independent authority.

“The ILEA’s other proposed options add needless complexity and create further opportunities for wealthy, private actors to personally profit rather than address the real issues: underfunding, systemic racism, and a lack of public accountability,” said Adrea McCloud, an IPS teacher and co-chair of a campaign run by the Central Indiana DSA in support of traditional public schools.

In general, shifting control of transportation and buildings away from IPS is something pro-charter advocates have supported.

“Even with the best intentions, we can play favorites,” said Sashah Fletcher, a parent affiliated with EmpowerED Families, said at the alliance meeting on Wednesday. “When we talk about sharing assets specific to school transportation, I believe the best path is a transportation and authority that is not housed in any school system.”

The proposals the ILEA advanced represent wins for charters in other respects, although the ILEA could change them before putting them to a final vote.

The ILEA has discussed a moratorium on new public schools in the city while it undergoes structural changes, but it did not include that in the proposals it advanced this week. Charter leaders have opposed such a moratorium. They also argued against restrictions on the number of charter authorizers, and the ILEA did not move forward with such proposals.

“Eliminating independent authorizers concentrates authority in ways that increase political risk,” said Tommy Reddicks, the CEO of Paramount Schools of Excellence, a network of charters. “A ban on charter expansion denies families access to proven models.”

Mind Trust CEO Brandon Brown also cautioned the task force against concentrating too much power in a small group of officials.

“As the ILEA continues its deliberations, we encourage members to guard against creating a new overarching governance structure that could unintentionally infringe upon school autonomy,” Brown said.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Local Education Alliance advances proposals diluting power of elected IPS school board

2025-12-04T01:49:59+00:00

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A state-mandated education task force has advanced two proposals that would both significantly dilute the power of the elected board governing Indianapolis Public Schools.

In a 7-2 vote on Wednesday, members of the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance moved ahead with two potential recommendations to change how local schools are run, but did not indicate a preference for one of them.

The first model would increase the influence of the mayor and charters through a new three-way power-sharing arrangement.

The model’s proposed “collaborative compact advisory board” would consist of appointees from IPS, the mayor’s office, and charter schools. The IPS school board and charter schools’ boards would report to this advisory board, which would collect and levy property taxes and serve as a charter authorizer. The mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, however, which currently serves as a charter authorizer, could also continue in that role.

The second model would concentrate more power in the mayor’s hands by establishing an Indianapolis Education Authority consisting of a mayor-appointed secretary of education. In the version of this model presented last month, the mayor would also appoint a nine-member policy-making board. Four of those nine members would be selected from the elected IPS school board, which along with charter school boards would also report to the policy-making board.

The model would allow the Office of Education Innovation, or OEI, to remain as a charter authorizer. The Indiana Charter School Board would either be another authorizer, or would serve as an appeals board for charter schools seeking to challenge a decision made by the OEI.

Either plan would bring monumental changes to Indianapolis Public Schools and the 54 charters within district borders. The ILEA’s work is taking place against the backdrop of declining enrollment and significant long-term financial issues for IPS, while charter school enrollment in the area has grown. Tensions between traditional public and charters over funding and other resources have also escalated. And in recent years, state GOP lawmakers have sought to take power and funding away from IPS in different ways.

The Republican supermajority that approved the creation of the ILEA is also considering redrawing Indiana’s congressional map to potentially eliminate two Democratic seats statewide and dilute the electoral power of the urban core of Indianapolis.

The alliance was created by state lawmakers to recommend changing how IPS and charter schools could share resources. The ILEA’s members also agreed to advance two options for the management of IPS and charter facilities and transportation that would put power over bus services and school buildings under either a separate authority or advisory board.

The ILEA will collect public input on its three preferred models in two meetings later this month. One will be held on Dec. 10 at KIPP Legacy High School from 6 to 8 p.m., and another will be held on Dec. 15 at the Madam Walker Legacy Center from 12 to 2 p.m.

The group will pick its final recommendations to state lawmakers in a vote at a Dec. 17 meeting, although legislators could also disregard the ILEA’s preferences.

IPS superintendent critical of plans to reduce board’s power

The vote on the three models came after heated public comment Wednesday from both district and charter supporters.

While charter leaders opposed any moves to reduce the number of charter authorizers, parents supportive of IPS urged the alliance to give authority over both district and charter schools to a fully elected IPS school board.

“If charters have concerns about answering to the IPS board, they can campaign to elect members that are favorable to their kids,” said IPS parent Josiah Harris-Adam, referencing previous school board election cycles that have garnered financial support from charter-friendly organizations.

The IPS Parent Council, which supports traditional IPS schools, called on the ILEA to pause Wednesday’s vote to hear more public testimony on the options. The council also decried the 4 p.m. meeting time that they said was inconvenient for many students and families.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson and IPS teacher and parent Tina Ahlgren were the two votes against the proposals to dilute the power of the current IPS board.

“The elected school board oversees the administration of transportation and facilities for 70% of public school students in our boundary, charter and district,” Johnson said. “It would seem to me that the least disruptive way to proceed would be to leverage that publicly elected board to provide service or set policy for 100% of the public schools within our boundary, charter and district, while still respecting the autonomy and flexibility that many of our charter schools enjoy today.”

But Angela Smith-Jones, who was appointed to the ILEA by Mayor Joe Hogsett, noted that the alliance must consider how state lawmakers will respond to the task force’s recommendations.

Fellow ILEA member and former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson agreed, and said the alliance will still be doing a lot of work to address unanswered questions. He also said the task force will take more public input before its final meeting in two weeks.

“I believe we can reach a proposal that we can be proud to put forward,” he said.

ILEA advances options for independent transportation, facilities oversight

Meanwhile, the proposals advanced by the ILEA to change oversight of transportation and facilities have some key similarities.

One option for facilities would be to create another “collaborative compact advisory board” to manage buildings. The board could set accountability and performance standards that could determine which schools receive buildings.

The other recommendation for changing facilities management would create an independent building authority that consists of facilities experts and professional staff.

The transportation options advanced by the task force are similar. One would create an advisory board that would set transportation zones. In this model, schools opting in to the service would pay for transportation services that continue to be run by IPS.

Another model would create an independent transportation authority that would collect property tax dollars and hire transportation contractors.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s when the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance will meet next

2025-11-26T17:38:55+00:00

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The Indianapolis Education Alliance will meet Dec. 3 to narrow down possible recommendations for changing who oversees schools and how school buildings and buses are managed.

The meeting is from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the public assembly room of the City County Building, said Shaina Cavazos, director of the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation.

ILEA members acknowledged at their last meeting that in order to recommend changes to building and transportation management — the main task assigned to them by state lawmakers — they need to address school oversight. The group heard four options for doing so, including ones that would drastically limit the power of the elected board for Indianapolis Public Schools.

On Dec. 3, the ILEA is expected to go over the options for how to change the management of facilities, transportation, and school oversight, and narrow them down. The alliance could decide to not pick one of the presented options, and instead combine elements to create a new option, or choose something entirely different, ILEA consultant Michael O’Connor previously told Chalkbeat.

A majority of alliance members told Chalkbeat that they don’t yet have a preferred option for how to change school oversight. However, multiple members said they are considering appointed board members for schools, as well as reducing the number of charter authorizers. Other members, however, support elected school boards.

After the meeting, the ILEA will host public input sessions on the transportation, facilities, and governance models that the group likes best, before voting on its final recommendations to city and state leaders on Dec. 17.

The time and location of that meeting has not yet been announced.

Give the ILEA your feedback on the options for governance, transportation, and facilities from the November meeting here. You can also send general feedback to the ILEA by emailing ILEA@indy.gov.

Chalkbeat reporter Amelia Pak-Harvey contributed to this article.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

How much power should the school board have? Indianapolis Local Education Alliance members respond.

2025-11-26T11:00:01+00:00

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Authority over schools in Indianapolis could change in the near future. And while some members of a state-mandated task force want to maintain an elected Indianapolis Public Schools board, others see value in having an appointed authority.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance could soon suggest a change to who’s in charge of charter and IPS schools. At the group’s meeting last week, ILEA members said changes to the local education power structure may be necessary in order to help the group address its primary assignment from state lawmakers: suggesting changes to how schools share facilities and transportation resources.

Two of the potential options unveiled by ILEA consultant Michael O’Connor at last week’s meeting would dilute the power of the elected IPS school board — and one would eliminate IPS school board elections entirely.

The four options include maintaining an elected IPS board; creating an advisory board of mayoral, IPS, and charter school appointees; creating an Indianapolis Education Authority appointed by the mayor; and replacing the elected IPS school board with mayoral appointees.

A majority of alliance members have yet to say which option they like the most. But some have shared their preferences for how specific facets of school governance should change. When it comes to charter authorizers, for example, some want fewer of them for Indianapolis.

The ILEA will meet in the first week of December to select from one of these governance models, although the alliance could decide to combine elements of certain options or choose a different model altogether. It will also select from options presented last week for how charters and district-run schools can share transportation and facilities. Alliance members could also tweak the transportation and facilities options as they decide on a final model for both services.

The ILEA will then host public input sessions on the selected transportation, facilities, and governance models before voting on the final recommendations to city and state leaders on Dec. 17. The time and location of that meeting has not yet been announced.

Below, members of the ILEA weigh in on different options for changing who oversees Indianapolis schools, including whether the IPS board should be elected or appointed and how many charter school authorizers there should be.

Tina Ahlgren, superintendent appointee

Tina Ahlgren, an IPS parent, teacher, and union member, said she hasn’t had the chance to delve further into each governance option.

But she said she is hesitant about giving control of schools to mayoral appointees, given the unique city-county arrangement commonly known as Unigov. In Indianapolis, the mayor represents a county that consists of 11 school districts. More mayoral control would give the mayor authority over just one of the 11.

Voters in IPS boundaries would be only a fraction of the voters electing a mayor, Ahlgren said.

“We’re never going to have a critical mass of voters in the IPS boundaries,” she said.

Ahlgren also said she supports having fewer charter authorizers, but that she is also listening to suggestions from charter advocates.

“What I would prefer is probably different than I think what they would prefer,” she said. “But I also have zero experience in that world.”

Barato Britt, IPS board president appointee

Barato Britt said he is exploring the options and sees value in having appointed board members. He noted that appointees could bring expertise that may not be guaranteed in elected board members.

Britt said he is not in favor of limiting charter authorization to one entity.

Mayor Joe Hogsett, chair

In a statement, a spokesperson for Hogsett did not indicate which governance model he would prefer and instead stressed his desire to get more perspectives from the public.

“Over the coming weeks, there will be more opportunities for public input on the options that were detailed last Wednesday night, including through in-person listening sessions and by submitting digital comments,” the statement said. “Mayor Hogsett will consider this feedback from families, residents, and stakeholders as he continues to evaluate which option would be the best step forward for students.”

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson made clear at last week’s meeting that she supports an elected IPS school board. She reiterated that sentiment in a video released by the district last Friday.

“Why would we remove decision-making power from leaders elected by our community, especially in a city where communities of color have fought hard to make their voices heard?” she said in the video. “Any option that eliminates elected board members risks doing exactly that.”

She said IPS should continue to own its schools’ buildings. And she opposed creating an independent transportation authority — which she said would be “disruptive, complex, and even more costly.”

Maggie Lewis, mayoral appointee

City-County Councilor Maggie Lewis did not respond to a request for comment through a spokesperson by deadline.

Tobin McClamroch, mayoral appointee

In an email, Tobin McClamroch said he prefers the Indianapolis Education Authority option.

“The best model would be an independent authority that would own and manage and deliver facilities and transportation services,” he said. “An independent authority will best incentivize participation among all public schools and thereby create economies of scale.”

Andrew Neal, superintendent appointee

Andrew Neal said he has not yet decided on his preferred model.

But he said he is in favor of an option that incorporates appointees to the board, noting that democratic representation has limits.

“Children can’t vote, undocumented families can’t vote, many low incomes families vote at disproportionately lower rates,” he said, echoing sentiments he shared at the ILEA meeting last week. “I think appointed members have an opportunity to represent some of those populations if the appointees are done well.”

He said he is in favor of one charter authorizer, with an option for charter schools to appeal that authorizer’s decision.

Bart Peterson, mayoral appointee

Former mayor Bart Peterson declined to say what his preferred outcome is but told Chalkbeat last week that he is “still in the learning mode.”

“I realize we only have a month left,” he said, “but I think we have a long way to go.”

He said he’s interested in hearing what other people have to say.

But he said he does not think the ILEA would be bound by any one option presented last week.

“They also have elements that could be mixed and matched,” he said. “The final result doesn’t have to be one of those four things in my opinion.”

Peterson said he’s not prepared to say whether there is a specific number of charter authorizers the ILEA should propose. But he highlighted his previously stated concerns about the number of charter authorizers growing too large.

Angela Smith-Jones, mayoral appointee

Angela Smith-Jones said she does not have a preferred model yet, but said she is considering what is best for students and families and also what state lawmakers would support.

She said she has also not determined whether she would be in favor of a governing body that is elected or appointed.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Officials could soon recommend changing how Indianapolis schools are run. Here are the 4 options.

2025-11-25T18:11:38+00:00

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Indianapolis schools could be on the verge of a seismic shift.

An advisory panel is weighing recommendations that would drastically alter who runs local schools. Several of the options presented at the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance’s meeting last week would dilute or eliminate the power of the elected Indianapolis Public Schools board. More broadly, they would mean big changes for district-run schools as well as charters.

While an elected seven-member board oversees district schools, charter schools have their own nonprofit boards. Indianapolis charter schools are overseen and authorized by one of three authorizers — the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, Education One at Trine University, and the Indiana Charter School Board. But state law places no limit on the number of charter authorizers, which can also include school boards.

In each of the four models floated by ILEA task forces last week, one authority would oversee both district and charter schools of all types.

The ILEA will meet in the first week of December to narrow down the options for changing school governance. The ILEA will then host public input sessions before voting on the final recommendations to city and state leaders on Dec. 17. The time and location of that meeting has not yet been announced.

Alliance members could change or combine each one as they settle on a final governance model, ILEA consultant Michael O’Connor told Chalkbeat. Members could decide to add more charter authorizers to certain models, for instance.

Each model would also likely have an appeals process for charter schools that seek to open or challenge a decision made by the charter authorizer, O’Connor said.

Separately, the ILEA will also consider suggestions for changing how district schools and charters share transportation resources and facilities.

Of the 54 charters within IPS borders that the ILEA is studying, 25 are part of the IPS Innovation Network of autonomous schools. Fifteen of the Innovation Network charter schools operate in IPS buildings, 12 of them use IPS transportation, and 11 do both. Another 29 charters are independent.

Here is an overview of each of the four governance models the ILEA could consider.

Maintain IPS as an elected board, add charter oversight

In this option, the IPS board would oversee both district and charter schools. While independent and Innovation charters would maintain their own individual school boards, all charters within IPS borders would report up to the school board.

Only the IPS board would have the power to authorize charter schools in district boundaries. Charter schools whose applications are denied by the IPS board — or those that have their charters revoked or not renewed — could appeal to the Office of Education Innovation.

The IPS school board would have the power to levy and collect property taxes. It would also set rules for all schools regarding transportation access and which schools would have access to buildings.

Create an appointed advisory board

Another option would create a “collaborative compact advisory board” to oversee district and charter schools. The board would have the power to levy and collect property taxes for schools, and also serve as the charter authorizer. The Office of Education Innovation could also serve as a second authorizer.

The board would consist of appointees from IPS, the mayor, and charter schools, and would set policy. Exact details on appointees — whether IPS appointees would be chosen by the school board or superintendent or would be school board members themselves, for example — could be determined by state lawmakers. The IPS and charter school boards would report up to the advisory board.

Create an Indianapolis Education Authority

The third option would create an Indianapolis Education Authority overseen by a nine-member policymaking board and led by a secretary of education appointed by the mayor.

The board would be appointed by the mayor, with four members selected from the seven-member elected IPS board. This policymaking board would work with the secretary of education within the authority, which would serve as charter authorizer.

The authority would hire building and transportation staff.

IPS and charter school boards would report to the policymaking board, which would levy and receive tax dollars.

Replace an elected IPS board with an appointed one

Out of all four options, this one would give the mayor the most control over schools. The mayor would appoint all members of the IPS school board, which would oversee district schools. The mayor’s Office of Education Innovation would serve as charter authorizer, while the Indiana Charter School Board would serve as an appealing body for charter schools. Both independent and Innovation charter school boards would report to the IPS school board.

The board would levy and receive property taxes and would set policy on transportation and facilities.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Cities are in a new cycle of changing who runs schools. Are they just running in place?

2025-11-24T10:54:00+00:00

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The election of a progressive mayor who has said he wants to end mayoral control of New York City schools might seem like a bellwether.

The next largest school systems, Los Angeles and Miami-Dade County, have been run by elected boards for years. Chicago is transitioning to a fully elected board after decades under mayoral control.

But don’t bury mayoral control just yet.

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani hasn’t laid out clear plans, and his references to “co-governance” could mean a lot of things, including an ongoing role for the mayor.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, another progressive, supported a “majority-elected” school board when she ran in 2021, but vetoed legislation to create an elected board once she was in office.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, has continued to exert his influence over the city’s schools in support of union priorities.

And in Indianapolis, some community groups are calling for the mayor, who already authorizes charter schools, to take on a larger role in an increasingly fractured school system.

Many large cities have repeatedly overhauled their school governance to try to address perceived shortcomings and real failures of the previous model. Now a new set of existential threats — declining enrollment, looming school closures and layoffs, persistent academic challenges, and threats from the Trump administration — are reviving conversations about who can claim to exercise legitimate power over schools.

Who gets to make decisions on behalf of students and families feels particularly high stakes in this moment.

Yet there is little evidence that voters consistently prioritize student outcomes at the ballot box, whether they’re voting for mayors or school board members. Nor is there strong evidence that any particular system consistently delivers better results for students, better financial management, or more responsive leadership.

“It’s like getting dirty and changing clothes and expecting to smell good without taking a bath,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “That’s what you’re doing when you change your governance structure.”

School closures put focus on who makes decisions

Education reform policies such as expanding school choice, closing low-performing schools, and welcoming charter schools have been supported by both mayors and elected school boards, sometimes under threat of state takeover. Those changes have reshaped communities in complicated ways.

New schools proliferated, and students got more opportunities. At the same time, the connections between neighborhoods and schools have frayed, competition for students and funding is fiercer, and multiple entities are now responsible for school oversight. These new realities are testing old ways of running schools.

In Indianapolis, the mayor already authorizes charter schools independently from Indianapolis Public Schools, which is run by an elected board. More students now attend charter schools than district-run schools. Legislation from earlier this year that would have dissolved the district failed, but a state-created advisory group, chaired by Mayor Joe Hogsett, is charged with figuring out how city schools should share buildings and transportation services.

Mayoral control over Indianapolis schools could untangle big knots — or create new headaches

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is also considering proposals that would give the mayor a much larger role in school governance, including appointing most or all of the board.

Historically, groups associated with education reform have supported mayoral control. Yet the Mind Trust, an influential pro-charter nonprofit that supported an appointed board in the past, hasn’t taken a position yet. Several potential Indianapolis mayoral candidates for 2027 are charter skeptics and supporters of an elected board.

Cleveland, where mayoral control has been firmly entrenched for nearly three decades, is grappling with similar challenges.

As in Indianapolis, a large share of the district’s school-age children attend charter or private schools after decades under the Cleveland Plan, and enrollment in district schools has plummeted. Supporters of mayoral control sometimes hold up Cleveland as an exemplar, but Mayor Justin Bibb’s aggressive school closure plan is causing some community members to demand a greater voice.

Ideastream Public Media reported an exchange at a recent community meeting between Bibb and teacher Sarah Hodge.

“Are you gonna go with us on the plan to make sure that the voters are re-enfranchised to vote for their school board?” Hodge said. Bibb responded that voters can seek a new system if they wish, but he has full confidence in his appointed board and in schools CEO Warren Morgan.

The ability to push ahead with a school closure plan is one of the benefits of mayoral control, said Aaron Churchill, Ohio research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right think tank. He contrasted Cleveland with Columbus, where the elected school board has moved more slowly in response to many of the same pressures.

“They’re controversial, they’re hard to do, and it does take leadership,” Churchill said. And there is still a democratic check on the process. People vote for the mayor, he said, and most people know who their mayor is — unlike their school board members.

Hodge has a very different view. “It’s not bold to upset the entire city,” she said in an interview.

She believes an elected school board would listen to parents and ultimately come up with a better plan for what she agrees are necessary closures.

Hodge is working with a small group of other teachers and activists to explore options for restoring the elected board. But Ohio’s Republican trifecta state government is unlikely to go along willingly.

Hodge and other Cleveland activists have watched conservative groups like Moms for Liberty exert their influence on school boards. She wonders why people in Cleveland have fewer rights.

“If the people of Cleveland want to make an idiotic decision, that’s our right,” she said. “Since when do legislatures get to tell people, ‘You don’t get to vote. You’re too terrible to make decisions for yourself?’”

Voters often don’t care much about test scores

If mayoral control of schools is undemocratic, elected school boards raise their own questions about representation.

Most school board members are elected by small numbers of voters who don’t have children themselves and who aren’t representative of the families served in the schools. Once in office, they spend very little time talking about how to improve schools, surveys show.

Vladimir Kogan, a political science professor at Ohio State University, said that’s because voters don’t give them any incentive to do so.

Voters in school board elections might care about home values, taxes, jobs, or “symbolic virtue signaling that they are [on] team red and team blue,” Kogan said, before they care about how well schools are serving students.

School board elections are one of the few places parents can pull on the levers of power, said Keri Rodrigues, a Boston parent and president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy group. But they can turn out to be “democracy in name only.”

It doesn’t have to be that way, said Scott Levy, author of “Why School Boards Matter.” Many school board members would benefit from more training, including on how to understand academic data and budgets.

“If you look at education reform efforts, you can find every permutation except investing in school boards,” he said.

But if school boards don’t spend enough time on schooling, it’s not clear that mayors who do reap big benefits.

Kogan points to former District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty. Public opinion polls at the time showed voters believed the D.C. schools had improved under his controversial appointed chancellor, Michelle Rhee. But he lost the next election anyway: Voters didn’t like the disruptions and job losses that accompanied the overhaul of D.C. schools.

“Reformers have a wrong theory of change about mayoral control,” Kogan said. “The idea is that mayors are more visible, and it’s easier to hold them accountable. That assumes that voters care about academics.”

Progressive mayors want a role in schools

Fights over who gets to control schools often reflect racial and political divisions. Predominantly white business interests, Black- and Latino-led community groups, and teachers unions wrestle for influence. Republican legislatures try to control Democrat-led cities.

Mayoral control spread in the 1990s and 2000s as white flight and shrinking tax bases undermined school systems. Mayors, the thinking went, could elevate the importance of education, marshal resources, and insulate governance from the influence of teachers unions.

Some of these political assumptions have eroded as voters choose more left-leaning mayors.

In last year’s Chicago school board elections — held amid a leadership and budget crisis that pitted Johnson against the superintendent — the mayor’s union-backed allies picked up only four of the 10 elected seats. But with 11 appointees on the 21-member board until 2027, Johnson still controls the school board.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks outside of Austin College and Career Academy on the first day of school in August. Johnson has played an active role in Chicago schools as the district transitions to an elected board.

During recent union contract negotiations, Johnson pressed the district to hire more staff and cover a larger share of pension costs, which district leaders feared would be financially unsustainable. The teachers union also wants Johnson, not the board, to pick the next superintendent.

Wu, Boston’s progressive mayor, became a firm believer in mayoral control once she was in office. During a 2023 WGBH call-in show, a caller reminded Wu that the idea of an elected school board “got more votes than you.”

Wu pointed to frequent superintendent turnover and the recent threat of state takeover to argue against the idea.

“We need to have a focus on stabilizing and getting our school facilities up to date and mental health supports and some of the academic changes that we’re making,” Wu said.

Voters haven’t penalized Wu — she ran unopposed this year and handily won re-election.

New York parents, community groups want more say

Mayoral control in New York City is up for renewal in 2026. If Mamdani goes to Albany and advocates for less authority, he’ll be the first New York mayor to do so.

When Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, successfully lobbied for mayoral control in 2002, people were concerned not just about student achievement but basic safety. Some of the city’s local community boards, which ran 32 regional school districts, were corrupt or dysfunctional.

Zohran Mamdani wants to end mayor control of NYC schools. It has eroded under Eric Adams.

Bloomberg gained the sole ability to appoint the chancellor and the majority of the city’s school board. He adopted a suite of reforms that included charter school expansion and greater school accountability. Test scores and other metrics improved. New York City represented a “victory lap for mayoral control,” said Collins, the Columbia professor.

But Bloomberg also introduced Lucy Calkins’ now-discredited “Units of Study” reading curriculum into city schools. Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who was elected on a public safety platform, overhauled the reading curriculum — initial results are promising but the rollout frustrated teachers. Now Mamdani, who ran on affordability, may give schools and teachers more autonomy.

“That whiplash is a real problem,” said Jonathan Greenberg, a Queens parent and member of the Education Council Consortium, a coalition of parent leaders. “So much of the really deep-seated changes we think need to happen take more than two years or more than four years.”

Mayoral control already has weakened under Adams, with the school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, expanding and exerting more independence.

Finding the right balance for an exceptionally large and complex school system may not be easy. The coalition is proposing a short extension of mayoral control — but with the mayor no longer appointing the majority of school panel members.

Greenberg hopes that policy experts can help the city design a system that allows for community control and a healthy central system that can do things at scale.

Low voter turnout in both mayoral and school board elections should be treated like a crisis, Collins said. A better system would allow for more meaningful participation, and not just at the ballot box.

Unless more people are engaged, Collins said, “there’s going to be a small fraction of people who decide who serves, and the people who are serving are going to be disconnected from the true needs of the folks who are sending their kids to school.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Wayne Township Schools has found its next superintendent

2025-10-07T19:13:29+00:00

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This story was originally published by Mirror Indy.

Shenia Suggs will be the next superintendent of Wayne Township schools.

The Wayne Township school board voted unanimously Monday on a contract making Suggs the westside district’s next top administrator.

Suggs currently serves as assistant superintendent of human resources. She will be the sixth superintendent in Wayne Township’s history. The assistant superintendent will succeed longtime Superintendent Jeff Butts, who’s led Wayne Township schools for 15 years.

Outgoing Wayne Township superintendent reflects on 15 years of leadership

In June, Butts announced his plans to retire from the district and take on a new role as executive director of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents. Suggs is expected to start in her new role in January.

“I’m feeling a little overwhelmed right now,” Suggs said as board members introduced her as the next superintendent. “But mostly grateful.”

As the district’s top administrator for human resources, Suggs oversees more than 2,300 employees in one of the state’s largest school districts. Ben Davis High School is the second largest brick-and-mortar school in Indiana, behind only Carmel High School. The district overall enrolls more than 16,000 students.

And, Suggs is someone who knows the large district “from every single angle,” Board President Brandon Bowman said.

Faculty, staff, and friends congratulate Shenia Suggs (center) after she was named the next Wayne Township Schools superintendent on Monday.

She first joined the district in 1992 as an English teacher at Ben Davis. She’s since had roles as a school administrator at South Wayne Junior High School and as a district-level leader in student services and human relations.

Her selection comes following a nearly three-month search.

“She’s certainly got a heart for public education,” Bowman said. “The board exhausted every effort to find the best candidate, and we couldn’t be happier that she was right here in our own house.”

The Wayne Township board approved an initial superintendent’s contract of 2.5 years, with extensions allowed for up to five years.

Suggs will make $221,780 in the new contract. That’s more than her predecessor’s initial base salary of $185,000 — offered to Butts when he first stepped into the role in 2011 — but in line with what other Marion County superintendents make today.

Washington Township’s new superintendent, for example, was offered a $220,000 base salary last October for the position he began this summer.

The Wayne Township compensation package also includes an $11,250 annual auto allowance stipend and a $4,000 technology stipend. Suggs will be eligible for an annual salary increase beginning July 1. The increase would depend on the results of the superintendent’s evaluation and increases offered to other Wayne Township administrators.

Current Wayne Superintendent Jeff Butts congratulates his successor, Shenia Suggs, on Monday.

Suggs took time to thank her family — she and her husband have raised three Ben Davis graduates — as well as her longtime colleagues in the township. Many joined her on Oct. 6 to celebrate her hiring.

“I’ve grown up here,” she said to a full Wayne Township board meeting room. “I have become the educator and leader (I am) because of you.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct that Shenia Suggs is a parent to three Ben Davis High School graduates.

Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.

Indiana’s K-12 schools leader poised to also lead higher education system pending a vote

2025-08-20T20:18:25+00:00

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Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner will likely take on a dual role overseeing the state’s college and university system along with its K-12 schools following a Friday vote.

The Indiana Commission on Higher Education will hold a special meeting on Friday to vote on whether Jenner will become the next Commissioner for Higher Education, according to a news release from the Commission on Higher Education sent Wednesday. Jenner would retain her current role as the head of the Department of Education in charge of the state’s K-12 schools.

The move is part of an ongoing effort by GOP Gov. Mike Braun to streamline state government, giving cabinet heads like Jenner more responsibilities. In a December announcement reappointing Jenner to the top K-12 job, Braun said her role would include “establishing a unified, student-centered vision across the full spectrum of education, from Pre-K and K-12 to college.”

“As we continue to identify ways to better serve Hoosier taxpayers, having a proven, consistent leader directly overseeing both K-12 and higher education is the logical next step and will ensure that the best interest of our students remains top of mind every step of their educational journey,” Braun said in Wednesday’s announcement.

Current Commissioner of Higher Education Chris Lowery announced in July that he would leave the role in October.

“The logical next step of Secretary Jenner assuming the role of Commissioner will offer clarity and consistency for the Commission, while continuing to drive our mission and deliver better results for Indiana students, employers, and our state,” Lowery said in the announcement.

Neither the Department of Education nor the Commission on Higher Education immediately responded to a request for comment from Jenner. If the commission votes for her, she will begin her new role on Oct. 11.

Jenner will not receive a pay raise for the new role, according to Department of Education spokesperson Courtney Bearsch. Any future structural changes to the higher education commission would require legislative action, Bearsch said.

As the head of both the K-12 and higher education systems, Jenner would focus on higher education accessibility and affordability, the successful implementation of the state’s new high school diploma requirements, and teacher preparation programs, among other initiatives, according to the announcement.

Jenner is the state’s first appointed secretary of education, assuming the role in 2021.

The commission will meet on Friday at 1 p.m. at its Indianapolis office. The meeting will also be livestreamed.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Education politics in Indianapolis hit a new low. Will IPS and charter schools overcome it?

2025-05-27T11:00:00+00:00

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An Indianapolis Public Schools board member, elected with the backing of charter-supportive groups, found a sticky note slapped on her windshield that read “F--- you.”

An anonymous text message sent to Indianapolis residents featured one pointed remark: “Did you know that IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson makes nearly $300,000 a year?”

And one charter school leader said he was even accused on Facebook of stealing milk from the school’s goat.

The backdrop for these and other attacks in the Indianapolis education community was a legislative session that included a proposal by state lawmakers to dissolve the district completely and replace it with charters. Legislators ultimately rejected that idea, but they did decide to redirect some property tax revenue from IPS to charters and to create an advisory board focused on school resource sharing.

Disagreements between charter supporters and those who favor traditional public schools are far from new. But the session generated perhaps the nastiest atmosphere in the city’s education community since Indiana allowed charters to open nearly 25 years ago.

The bad vibes began before the session even started. Last September, a group launched a website that highlighted the “hypocrisy” of certain traditional public school advocates who sent their children to charters. In March, a person at a school board meeting held up a photo of a prominent charter school supporter — Mind Trust CEO Brandon Brown — and ripped it in two. In April, a school board member was criticized for “liking” a Facebook comment that had a suggestion for external groups forcing changes to IPS: “We should put these people in holes, not roles.”

This political environment often seemed not to be focused on those who’d be most affected: students.

“I feel like the adults aren’t fighting for the kids at this point,” said Dale Edwin Potter, a senior at Shortridge High School. “They’re fighting for themselves.”

All of that adds pressure to the new Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, the members of which were announced on Friday. Their daunting task: to brainstorm a future for Indianapolis education in which IPS will have to share building and transportation resources with charters — a potentially dramatic power shift.

The venomous political climate highlights big questions for the panel that also apply to Indianapolis as a whole: Will the group help officials and community leaders collaborate to find solutions that provide what students need? Or will the panel, which can meet behind closed doors, only exacerbate the split?

Some charter advocates say they are hoping the future brings cooperation.

“I’m always hopeful and willing to extend the olive branch to the other side, to listen to what they want to hear, to listen to their perspective, to respect their position,” said LaToya Tahirou, a parent active in the Stand for Children Indiana organization that has pushed the district to partner with more charters. “I’m not so close-minded that I don’t want to hear anything that they want to say.”

But some IPS supporters see such calls for unity as disingenuous, given the gains charter schools made this session. And they’re also worried about a different issue: a future with increased funding for universal private school vouchers. That shift could create an even fiercer scrum for money and students than the one today.

“Competing for the same limited amount of money is not exactly conducive to building partnership,” IPS school board member Gayle Cosby said.

Legislative session highlights Indianapolis school choice debate

The city’s long and complex relationship with school choice is at the heart of how both sides of the debate will move forward.

The charter sector has grown since the creation of the charter law in 2001, and now includes over 50 schools within Indianapolis borders alone that educate over 22,000 students. IPS, meanwhile, has lost students yearly while undergoing multiple rounds of school closures and currently serves about 21,000 students in its traditional schools.

Charter critics have long argued that the goal of influential pro-charter organizations is to destroy IPS. They also say that these organizations — often grouped together as the Mind Trust, Stand for Children Indiana, and RISE Indy — get major help from wealthy donors, which unfairly tilts the playing field. And they argue that the white male leadership of some of those groups is exploiting students of color as they undermine traditional public schools.

Charter supporters argue that charter schools operate with little to no property tax dollars while showing better academic results — particularly among students of color whom IPS has historically failed to serve. And parents affiliated with Stand for Children say that implications from charter critics that other people tell them what to say is insulting.

The school board, meanwhile, sits in the crosshairs of these and other arguments.

Campaign donations to board members from charter-friendly groups fuel a belief among charter critics that the board is controlled by these groups. But charter groups don’t necessarily act in public like they run the board: Parents affiliated with Stand for Children, for example, have tried to get the board to partner with charters.

During the legislative session, the decisions prominent officials and advocates have made about where to send their own children to school did not escape scrutiny.

One website launched months before the session took aim at charter critics who sent their children to charter schools such as Christina Smith of the Indianapolis Education Justice Coalition and Cosby. The site, which says their choices “reveal that they know charters provide opportunities IPS can’t,” does not publicly say who created or supports it.

Such arguments are similar to claims from supporters of private school vouchers that those who oppose vouchers yet send their own kids to private schools are hypocrites.

Cosby and Smith acknowledged that they have sent their children to charter schools. But they said there is still a need for charter accountability, and that school choice should not come at the expense of traditional district schools. Cosby, who was criticized for “liking” a Facebook comment insinuating violence, later told Chalkbeat she did not read the comment in its entirety and removed her “like.”

Brown, the Mind Trust CEO, said he expects, to some extent, to be the punching bag when working to change system-level policy.

“We also can’t respond to relentless attacks all the time, because it’d literally be all that we do,” Brown said. “And I think that there’s a big difference between advocating forcefully for policy and relentlessly attacking, personally, your opponents.”

RISE Indy, meanwhile, has rejected claims that its intent is to destroy IPS. The nonprofit also has given college scholarships to students in both traditional public and charter schools and has a leadership training program that several IPS board members have completed

Some hope IPS and charter schools can regroup

What’s not in much dispute is that the new laws from this session created winners and losers.

Property tax reform estimated to cost districts millions spurred teachers from IPS and across the state to rally at the statehouse in April.

Charter schools will likely receive thousands of dollars more per pupil in new property tax revenues. IPS is projecting the closure of schools and the loss of millions in funding, due to charters’ new share of revenue and other state tax reforms.

Some are hoping that the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance led by Mayor Joe Hogsett will promote collaboration and reduce inefficiencies. Hogsett’s office did not respond to requests for interviews about the organization, but the mayor has said there will be opportunities for community input and for public meetings.

The group includes appointees from the mayor and the superintendent, including one parent from a traditional school and one parent from a charter school.

But others worry about the competition district-run schools and charters may see in coming years from private schools. While a vast majority of Hoosier families could already use vouchers before this year, lawmakers this session changed state law to allow any family, regardless of income, to receive taxpayer money to help cover private school tuition.

As Potter, the 18-year-old Shortridge High student, prepared to graduate this month, he wondered about the uncertainty of his younger brother’s future in IPS.

“I do think both sides need money,” Dale said. “And I still don’t think it was right to just take money from charter schools or take money from public schools.”

At the same time, Joel Gilesealle wants more students like him to be able to participate in the dual-credit classes he’s taken as a student at the Believe Circle City charter high school.

“I see what the school does for me and I see what the teachers do for me and I’m like, imagine what they could do if they had more money,” said Gilesealle, who testified at the statehouse this year to support more funding for charter schools.

But Potter believes the charter sector and IPS can still salvage their relationship.

“I still think there’s hope for IPS,” he said. “And there’s hope for what we can still do and become.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis school’s future in doubt after mayor’s office decides to revoke its charter

2025-01-24T15:08:30+00:00

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This article was originally published by Mirror Indy.

Bethel Park Elementary could close next year. Or, it could be merged with another nearby charter school. Or, its current leadership could continue running the Indianapolis school under the oversight of a new charter operator.

It’s unclear exactly what the school’s operation will look like next year. What is certain is that the southeast side school will no longer operate under the oversight of the city’s Office of Education Innovation (OEI) after June 30.

School leaders received a letter from the city office last week that it is revoking the school’s charter. The city office cited longstanding concerns over the school’s finances.

Bethel Park leadership discussed their charter’s revocation in a public school board meeting Jan. 22, but declined to answer questions about what comes next. They said they still needed time to process the news.

“This is all fresh right now,” Principal Jade Welch told Mirror Indy after the meeting. “I want to help you as much as possible, but right now is not the best time.”

The revocation letter was issued a day after Chalkbeat Indiana reported on the school’s uncertain future as its authorizer contemplated pulling its support.

Meanwhile, another southeast side school, Victory College Prep, says it’s weeks away from closing on an offer to purchase the building Bethel Park uses in hopes of turning it into a high school.

Bethel Park’s charter revoked

Bethel Park leadership discussed their charter’s revocation letter for the first time publicly in a board meeting Jan. 22. Bethel Park Board President Lakisha Crawford said she was delivered a letter on Jan. 17 informing Bethel Park leadership that the city office planned to pull its support for the school.

The revocation letter comes after Bethel Park had been put on notice in late November over concerns of the school’s financial stability. It also aligns with the June 30 date Bethel Park’s current charter was due to end.

The school was going through a charter renewal process that would have included a public hearing and a chance for Bethel Park to defend its case for a continued relationship with the city office — until the November revocation notice put a pause in that.

Bethel Park leaders expressed other frustrations during their Jan. 22 meeting, saying they’d been contacted by the city office with concerns in the past and had attempted to address them through its plans to hire an outside financial consultant. They also said other concerns raised in the revocation letter, such as a midyear change in the school’s principal, had been communicated to the city office months ago.

“The timelines were lined up to make it not possible for us to respond appropriately and the benchmarks for what we needed to give them kept changing,” board member Samantha Bruton said during the meeting. “I don’t think the process was handled in a way that gave us a chance.”

Former Bethel Park Principal Jennica Adkins told Chalkbeat in a story published last week that she felt decisions had already been made for the school, including pressure to merge with Victory College Prep.

The city office also authorizes Victory College Prep and acknowledged in the Chalkbeat story that the office previously approached Victory College Prep to ask about its capacity to support another school.

OEI Director Shaina Cavazos told Mirror Indy this week that her concerns for Bethel Park’s finances go back years and any question about the revocation letter’s timing was purely incidental.

She said she explained in writing that Bethel Park leadership could request a public revocation meeting but that no one did.

“Our intention is that this decision does not disrupt learning,” Cavazos said. “As long as the school is able to operate, we want to ensure that they can finish out the year in as stable a way as possible for students and families.”

Victory College Prep could step in

State law allows schools to seek other authorizers after a charter has been revoked. Chalkbeat reported in its Jan. 16 story that Bethel Park was pursuing other authorizers.

When asked after the Jan. 22 board meeting if Bethel Park would consider that option, Crawford said the school had not yet put plans in place for next steps.

Welch declined a follow-up request the next day to discuss the matter further.

Any attempt Bethel Park takes to maintain leadership of its school could be complicated by building ownership.

Bethel Park leaders lease their building from the Charter Schools Development Corporation, an organization that finances property purchases for charter schools.

However, Victory College Prep made the organization an offer in late October to buy the building. A Victory College Prep spokesperson said the owner alerted them on Jan. 17 of the revocation letter and that they now appear poised to close on the building by Feb. 1.

Victory College Prep said it will act as a supportive landlord should Bethel Park secure another authorizer. Bethel Park would also need approvals from the Indiana State Board of Education to continue operating with a new authorizer.

Meanwhile, Victory College Prep is refining plans of its own for the building should Bethel Park choose to close the school.

High schoolers could take Bethel Park students’ place

Victory College Prep’s leadership envisions offering seats to Bethel Park’s K-5 students on the Sloan Avenue campus and moving high schoolers into the current Bethel Park site.

Bethel Park enrolls about 225 students compared to Victory College Prep’s more than 1,000 students in grades K-12.

The plans were detailed in a PowerPoint sent to Bethel Park leadership on Jan. 22 — the day of its board meeting.

A Victory College Prep spokesperson said its school prepared the presentation following a meeting between both schools that was called at Bethel Park Elementary’s request. Bethel Park leadership did not discuss the slides during their board meeting this week.

The Victory College Prep plans indicate the school would like to make a decision on its future use of the school building — should its sale close — by mid-February.

“Time is of the essence to make a determination on a potential partnership so we can best serve families and students in southeast Indianapolis,” Victory College Prep Chief Development Officer Andrew Hayenga said. “We need to give families and students as much time as possible to make their enrollment decisions.”

What the change means for students and families

Welch said during the school board meeting that she’s working on a plan to inform families of next steps. She said she plans to meet with staff Monday and to communicate with families by the end of next week.

News of the revocation letter is coming at a bad time for any parents who want to choose another school.

Enroll Indy, which manages the OneMatch enrollment lottery system for public schools across the city, allows parents to submit their interest in school seats during two enrollment windows.

The first of those windows closes Jan. 24.

The second enrollment window opens Jan. 25, and extends through April 18.

It is unclear what will happen for families who have already selected Bethel Park as their preferred enrollment option.

For more information on school enrollment, see Mirror Indy’s guide to the Indianapolis lottery here.

Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.

Elections 2024: Voting results for school boards in Marion County

2024-11-06T04:17:24+00:00

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Incumbent school board candidates in Marion County are largely poised to return to their roles, per unofficial results on Tuesday.

This election, there were 40 school board candidates on ballots throughout the county for 33 seats on 10 district boards. Overall, roughly half the school board candidates in Marion County are incumbents, and a majority face at least one opponent.

Only two incumbent candidates, Kenneth Allen, current Indianapolis Public Schools board member, and Matthew Hopp, current school board member for Metropolitan School District of Pike Township, were poised to lose their seats, per unofficial results.

Elsewhere in Marion County, the difference between joining the school board for Metropolitan School District of Warren Township or not was roughly 200 votes. And in Perry Township, only two candidates were on the ballot for four open seats, but there were roughly 500 write-in votes that could impact who joins the board.

In Lawrence Township, where board disagreements about administrator pay and academic achievement spilled into the election, incumbent Crystal Puckett had the lead with 65% of the vote in the school district’s only contested race.

Voter guides: 2024 school board elections in Marion County

The role of the school board is not day-to-day operations but rather district oversight, creating and enforcing policy such as the student handbook, making sure bills are paid, approving the budget, and hiring a superintendent. School board elections are non-partisan.

The number of board members in total and up for election, as well as whether members are at-large or represent a specific district, varies by school district.

Winning candidates will start four-year terms in January.

With 100% of vote centers reporting, here are the unofficial results: (Results are not final until provisional and military ballots are counted by Nov. 15.) See IPS school board unofficial results here.

Speedway Schools is not included because the school board is appointed by the town board, not elected.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Washington Township school board names next superintendent

2024-10-17T19:29:02+00:00

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This article was originally published by WFYI.

The Board of Education of the Metropolitan School District of Washington Township unanimously approved Sean Taylor as the superintendent of schools beginning July 1, 2025. Taylor currently serves as the associate superintendent for Washington Township Schools.

Earlier this year, the district’s longtime superintendent Nikki Woodson announced she would retire at the end of the 2024-2025 school year. In her 13 years as superintendent, Woodson oversaw multiple construction projects, including a new middle school and athletic upgrades.

Taylor will be paid a base salary of $220,000 with the opportunity for board approved raises every year. He will also receive an additional car and cell phone allowance of $1,250 per month. Woodson’s 2023 salary was $225,348 and her total compensation was $390,457, according to state data.

Taylor has been with the district for the past 16 years. He was hired as associate superintendent in 2020 after serving as principal of middle and elementary schools in the district.

“I am so excited to continue the team based approach that we’ve had in Washington Township,” Taylor said at the Wednesday night board meeting. “The job is way too big to do individually, and the stakes are too high, and our kids matter too much. And so that team based approach will sustain into this transition.”

Board member Tracey Horth Krueger said during the meeting that Taylor’s vision for the future of the district was the “most exciting thing that we had heard.”

“We were very pleased, and all of a sudden, there was no concern anymore. We feel like we have been in good hands. We feel like we will continue to be in good hands,” Krueger said.

Taylor earned a doctorate in executive educational leadership from Indiana University.

Washington Township Schools has an enrollment of around 10,500 students, and more than half qualify for free or reduced lunch. About 40 percent of students are Black, and 22 percent are Hispanic. In recent years, the district has struggled with racial disparities in test scores. Last school year, 97 percent of white students in the district passed the IREAD exam compared to 81.5 percent of Black students.

These disparities raised concerns about the district’s ability to teach Black and Brown students. In response, charter school network Paramount Schools of Excellence earlier this year opened a K-8 all-girls school in the district, Girls IN STEM Academy. Many district officials and community members pushed back on the need for another school in the district.

The district is holding a reception for Taylor on Nov. 4. The district’s last day of classes for this school year is May 23.

Contact WFYI Marion County education reporter Sydney Dauphinais at sdauphinais@wfyi.org.

Election 2024: What candidates for IPS school board said about charter schools, literacy, and more

2024-10-09T17:27:43+00:00

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The district’s sweeping reorganization plan and the influence of outside groups loomed large over Tuesday night’s forum featuring candidates for the Indianapolis Public Schools board.

All eight candidates for four seats on the IPS Board of School Commissioners, attended the forum at the Indianapolis Public Library’s Central Library. The event was co-hosted by Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI. Races for District 1, District 2, and an at-large seat are contested. The candidate for District 4, Allissa Impink, is unopposed.

At-large board member Kenneth Allen is the only candidate seeking reelection. He is being challenged by Carrie Harris and Deandra Thompson. The race for District 1 is between Alan Schoff and Ashley Thomas. Former board member Gayle Cosby is in the District 2 race against Hasaan Rashid.

This election season comes as IPS continues the rollout of Rebuilding Stronger that’s designed to overhaul the district in response to enrollment pressures and an increasingly competitive school choice landscape. The district is also trying to improve student academic performance following the pandemic.

Asked to assign a letter grade to Rebuilding Stronger so far, several candidates said it was too soon to tell. The candidates did seem to agree that while the plan was a good idea, its implementation has been rocky.

Candidates were also asked to list their endorsements, which ranged from labor unions to education advocacy organizations. Financial contributions from outside groups that favor IPS collaboration with charter schools and other reforms have played a key role in board elections for more than a decade.

In the election four years ago nearly $600,000 was raised by 10 candidates seeking the same seats as in this election. One of those candidates was Allen, the only incumbent running for reelection, who wore a “not for sale” T-shirt to the forum.

Other candidates also stressed they couldn’t be bought by outside interests, and criticized the role groups like Stand for Children and Rise Indy play in the board elections. Both groups use political action committees to pay for ads, mailers, and other campaign support.

But Thomas defended Stand for Children’s advocacy with parents and her own previous work with the organization.

Chalkbeat and WFYI reporters also asked the candidates about topics including charter school partnerships, literacy, building community relationships, student mental health, and chronic absenteeism.

Watch the full forum below. Spanish subtitles are available in video settings.

Read our full voter guide for the IPS school board election here.

Early voting is underway at the Indianapolis City-County Building at 200 E. Market St. Additional early voting sites open on Oct. 26 and can be found online. On Election Day on Nov. 5, Marion County residents can vote at any of the county’s voting centers, which can be found online.

This article was updated on Oct. 15 to include how to find the Spanish subtitles on the forum video.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Weddle is the WFYI education team editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org.

IPS opens streamlined application process for potential Innovation Network schools

2024-08-30T18:57:44+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools is now accepting letters of interest from potential partners as part of a streamlined application process for in-boundary schools to join the Innovation Network.

The updated process is the result of a charter school collaboration resolution passed by the school board in June that affirmed the district’s commitment to collaborating with schools of all types, including charters. The district hopes that by making it easier for in-boundary schools to become Innovation partners, the new process will increase educational opportunities and allow traditional IPS and Innovation schools to learn from each other.

The finalized process was presented to the school board by Brian Dickey, the IPS executive director of portfolio strategy, on Thursday during its regular action meeting.

“Hopefully this is an opportunity for district-managed and Innovation Network schools to come together and collaborate for greater school-level and educator-level problem solving,” Dickey said at the board’s summer retreat on Aug. 20.

Innovation Network schools have autonomy over their operations but use school buildings within IPS boundaries and can access some district services. The district can claim Innovation students for their enrollment and academic performance data. Not all Innovation schools are charter schools, although many are.

The window for submitting letters of interest is open through Sept. 30. IPS is asking potential partners for the 2025-26 school year to explain the best practices they have in place for students, and to show evidence for how their school model is successful.

At their retreat, school board commissioners agreed to look for mental health support for students and cultural responsiveness in the classroom when considering potential partners.

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson noted that the district must take into account the school’s socioeconomic factors, as well as how long it has been open, since the district asks for evidence-based practices in the application.

“I would not suggest a level of rigidity that does not give us the opportunity to consider the context of who’s being served in schools,” Johnson said at the board retreat.

In November, schools with promising letters of interest will be asked to submit a formal application, due in December. From January to June, the school board and IPS administrators will interview applicants, and a proposed agreement will be presented to the board.

Before the updated process, schools had five pathways to join the Innovation Network. Two of those options — Jumpstart, for existing underperforming IPS schools, and Restart, for existing underperforming non-IPS schools — will no longer be available. The new application offers three remaining pathways: a new school can join the network, an existing charter can join, or there can be a conversion.

The new school designation is meant for schools that have not existed before that plan to open within the district as part of the Innovation Network.

Existing charters already operate in the district’s boundaries but wish to collaborate with IPS via an Innovation agreement.

The conversion option refers to a high-performing IPS school that seeks greater autonomy by becoming an Innovation school.

More information about applying, including the letters of interest template, can be found here.

Contact Chalkbeat Indiana at in.tips@chalkbeat.org.

What’s next for the proposed new Indiana high school diplomas that focus on workplace readiness

2024-07-17T19:41:49+00:00

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Hoosiers still have time to weigh in on the state’s proposals for new high school diploma requirements as the Indiana State Board of Education will likely vote on changes slightly later than expected.

The diploma proposals by the state board of education in March would take the emphasis off college-going as the pinnacle of education, and instead prioritize students’ workplace readiness. In June, the state board added three readiness seals – enrollment, employment, and enlistment – to the proposal.

Currently, the first round of public feedback is open, with online comments accepted through July 30 and a public hearing the same day. As of this week, the state has received more than 6,300 online feedback submissions.

Per state law, the state must adopt new diploma requirements by December.

The original plan was for the state board to vote on the new diplomas in September. But Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said at a board meeting Wednesday that part of the feedback so far was to slow down.

Jenner said the board will hear a revised draft proposal at the August meeting and follow that with a second round of feedback, including a public hearing. The board will then release a final proposal.

Schools could choose to opt in and start offering the new diplomas early (in addition to the current diplomas) beginning in the 2025-26 school year. The new diplomas will take effect for all students beginning with the Class of 2029 who are starting eighth grade this coming school year.

The proposed diplomas have drawn skepticism from educators and others who are concerned about courses that would no longer be required under the proposed diploma rules. They’re also worried about plans to eliminate the current Academic Honors diploma, which is linked to college-going.

Public comment at Wednesday’s state board of education meeting echoed many of those concerns including those about history and fine arts requirements as well as academic honors.

However, supporters stressed the proposal would give students flexibility in terms of how they earn high school degrees, and that it would give students “a recipe for success” in achieving their dreams, as Jenner put it.

Partner groups help develop enrollment, employment, enlistment seals

In the proposed diplomas, students would earn either the standard Graduates Prepared to Succeed (GPS) diploma, or the workplace-focused GPS Diploma Plus. A trio of transcript seals would allow students to show they are ready for enrollment, employment, or enlistment to add to their diplomas.

The seals would focus on readiness, not eligibility, and each would have required courses, said Ron Sandlin, the state education department’s senior director of school performance and transformation, at Wednesday’s state board of education meeting. He added that students could earn multiple seals and apply seals to both diploma types.

On Wednesday, state board members heard from leaders of organizations — Indiana Commission for Higher Education, Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and Indiana National Guard — that are helping develop the seals.

All three stressed the importance of ensuring students are prepared for life after high school and have the greatest opportunities possible within each path that the seals represent. The next step for each is a draft of required courses and experiences.

How to give feedback on Indiana’s proposed diplomas

To offer online feedback, go here.

To give in-person feedback, there will be a public hearing at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 30, in Conference Rooms Four and Five of the Indiana Government Center South.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. She also covers access to higher education and Warren Township Schools. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

IPS announces new principal at School 87 after fallout from abuse allegations against teacher

2024-07-08T20:49:06+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools has hired a new principal at George Washington Carver School 87 following an outcry over the school’s culture and administrators’ handling of allegations that a former teacher encouraged abuse of a student with a disability.

Elizabeth Krutz, former principal of La Porte Middle School and coordinator of special programs at the La Porte Community School Corporation, will start after her hiring is confirmed by the IPS board at the end of July, per an IPS news release.

“Elizabeth brings an amazing skill set that includes celebrated relationship-building expertise and a proven ability to close achievement gaps through strategic planning and data-driven practices,” IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in the Monday press release. “We look forward to the positive impact she will have on our students and the community.”

School 87 came under fire earlier this year, when a widely circulated video showed one student beating another. A lawsuit filed on April 16 by the mother of a 7-year-old student says the video includes audio of the child’s teacher at the time, Julious Johnican, encouraging the physical attack. (Johnican resigned from his position last year and no longer works for IPS.)

After extensive media coverage of the video, parents raised concerns about the school’s overall climate and lack of transparency. The mother’s lawsuit said Johnican used a “fight club” style of discipline, and alleges school administrators dismissed claims of physical assault related to the incident. The lawsuit is ongoing and is in federal court.

In the wake of the video and the criticism from parents, IPS announced in April that it would create a Mental Health and School Culture Task Force, as well as a task force dedicated to student safety.

The hiring announcement did not reference the incident or parents’ complaints. After an investigation into the video, IPS announced in May that it would hire a new School 87 principal and assistant principal, who would replace Principal Mary Kapcoe and Assistant Principal Finae Rent.

IPS emphasized Krutz’s support for Montessori practices, which prioritize student independence and self-directed learning.

In its statement, IPS said she is enrolled in a course for Montessori fundamentals for school leaders, and that Krutz will be mentored by Christine Rembert, principal of IPS Montessori James Russell Lowell School 51.

Krutz received her bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and also received a license in Educational Leadership and Administration from Indiana State University, according to her LinkedIn profile. She said her four children attend Montessori schools, and that she is a “firm believer in the Montessori philosophy.”

“I am committed to ensuring that George Washington Carver offers the best Montessori program for all students,” Krutz said in the release.

Haley Miller is a summer reporting intern covering education in the Indianapolis area. Contact Haley at hmiller@chalkbeat.org.

Perry’s school board has just 2 candidates for 4 seats. Here’s what could happen next.

2024-07-03T20:05:04+00:00

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This election, there are more open seats than candidates for Perry Township school board.

The only two people running are incumbents Emily Hartman and Jim Hernandez. Indiana law says the other two incumbents — Steve Johnson and Ken Mertz — could choose to hold onto their seats, even if they aren’t officially running for reelection.

But if Johnson and Mertz leave, then it’s up to board members to appoint two new members of the seven-member body by a majority vote.

Johnson said in an email to Chalkbeat that he would make a decision next week on whether he intends to stay in his seat. Mertz did not reply to a request for comment. Both of their terms expire in December 2024. Johnson has been on the board since 2017, while Mertz has served on it since 2008.

With at-large seats, as is the case in Perry Township, it’s up to the board to determine which members were eligible for the hold-over provision, according to the Indiana School Boards Association. If the incumbent members choose to leave, the board may appoint a replacement by a majority vote.

It’s not the first time the Perry board has faced a dearth of interested candidates. In 2020, for example, there were just three incumbents running for three seats. Things got more competitive in the next cycle in 2022, when seven candidates sought out four seats.

Observers attribute tepid interest to a lack of awareness about school boards, and to the socioeconomic barriers to serving in a seat.

The absence of contested elections is one reason Indiana may have low voter participation overall, according to one report.

In turn, that makes it easier for outside groups to sway election results, said David Roof, director of the Center for Economic and Civic Learning at Ball State University.

“People pay more attention to national politics today than local politics,” Roof said. “Potentially people are uninformed about the impact a school board could have.”

Barriers to running for school board include awareness

Often, people begin paying attention to the school board when there’s a problem, said Leslie Wells, a Perry parent, via email. In her case, she said she got involved after the district’s 2022 redistricting plan significantly affected her family.

“That experience drove home to me just how impactful school boards are to the futures of our kids, families, and communities,” Wells said. “Now, I pay closer attention to what’s going on.”

Still, the time commitment required to serve on the board may not be feasible for many working families in Perry schools, Wells said. The lengthy terms of many school board members also contribute to apathy, she said, as people become used to seeing the same faces in the boardroom.

Perry schools is also home to a large number of immigrant families who may face a language barrier to civic engagement.

Even those who communicate fluently in English may not feel comfortable doing so as public representatives, said Julie Zing, executive director of the Chin Community of Indiana, a nonprofit.

Still, Chin Community undertakes voter registration efforts ahead of every election, and sends people reminders about deadlines for registering and voting. Ahead of this year’s primary, the group registered around 30 people to vote within two months, Zing said.

In 2022, one of its leaders, Hre Mang, was elected to the Perry school board.

Zing said she would like to see more representatives from the community — particularly young people — serve in offices and as liaisons across the city.

“He’ll be our first,” Zing said, referring to Mang, “but we want more people to get involved in community engagement, not just in the Chin community, but in the whole Indianapolis community.”

Wells said one solution could be a public awareness campaign about the election process, filing deadlines, and the role of a school board.

“Whether the barriers are real or perceived, commitments like this often cause people to think they aren’t able, aren’t needed, or aren’t qualified to serve,” Wells said. “Addressing those perceptions and barriers could help spur new interest in our school board.”

How to get involved with school boards

For those who are interested in running for school board, the Indiana School Boards Association hosts a series of School Board Candidate 101 webinars, which are also recorded.

The organization offers nonpartisan resources including a candidate guide, FAQ, and an overview of the responsibilities of school boards and superintendents.

Around 200 people registered for the 2024 webinars, according to Executive Director Terry Spradlin.

Perry schools also runs a Leadership Academy, a seven-month program for parents and community members to learn about how the district functions. It features officials from different departments.

Applications for the Leadership Academy’s 2024-25 cohort open in August.

The next meeting of the Perry school board is Monday, July 8.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Washington Township’s longtime superintendent Nikki Woodson to retire in 2025

2024-05-06T18:51:31+00:00

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This article was originally published by WFYI.

Nikki Woodson, the longtime superintendent of Washington Township Schools, announced she will retire from the district at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year.

Woodson has led the district for 13 years, a period of increased racial diversity in the student body and also enrollment fluctuations. Last year’s graduation rate was nearly 85 percent for students who did not receive a waiver from a requirement, and 91 percent for all students who earned a diploma.

Woodson also oversaw more than a dozen construction projects to improve and rebuild facilities for students. This was possible due to the passage of two capital referendums, including the largest in state history, which paid for a new middle school, early learning center, athletic upgrades and more.

“During this time, the district has transformed by overcoming complexities and challenges, embracing increased diversity of our students, raising achievement resulting in a double-digit increase in graduation rate, successfully passing two major referendum campaigns and the deployment of their plans, as well as guiding the school community through a global pandemic,” Woodson said in a statement Friday.

Woodson joined the district in 2009. In 2011 she was the assistant superintendent when the school board appointed her as the district leader, making her the first Black woman superintendent in Marion County.

Woodson’s 2023 salary was $225,348 and her total compensation was $390,457, according to state data. Her last day at the district is June 30, 2025.

The school board will start a search process to pick the next superintendent and announce the finalist this fall, according to a district statement.

When Woodson became superintendent, enrollment was at 11,155 students. This year, the northside district enrolls around 10,700 students. According to state data: 40 percent of students are Black, 28 percent are White, 22 percent are Hispanic, and 51 percent identify as low-income.

The district faces ongoing concern over the academic achievement of students of color. Only 9.8 percent of Black students and 10.4 percent of Hispanic students in grades 3-8 passed both the math and English Language Arts portion of the 2023 state exam — compared to nearly 57 percent of their White classmates.

These inequities became a focus in the fight over an all-girls charter school opening in the township. The charter operators argued they could offer a higher quality education than what is available in Washington Township for economically disadvantaged and Black students. District leaders sought to block the school but final approval was given by the City-County Council.

Woodson plans to focus on “equitable achievement,” among other issues, during her final year, the district statement said.

Woodson also led two referendum campaigns that won strong support from local voters.

In 2020, voters approved a $285 million construction referendum and an eight-year $128 million operating referendum. In 2016, voters also supported two district referendums. The local property tax increase supported teacher pay and the cost of major facilities, such as the new Northview Middle School, a fieldhouse at North Central High School, and an Early Learning Center.

“The board understands that this is a critical position that will shape the future vision of WTS,” Deirdre George Davis, school board president, said in a statement. “Equally important to the selection process will be a transition between Dr. Woodson and her successor. We will develop a strategic timeline so that district operations and focus on equitable achievement remain uninterrupted.”

The district’s last day for students to attend class this academic year is May 23.

Eric Weddle is the WFYI education editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org

Perry Township teachers will receive performance stipends through new grant funding

2023-10-27T16:07:59+00:00

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Perry Township schools will receive over $6 million in federal grant funding over three years to help hire and retain teachers, and to support efforts to improve literacy.

It’s the only district in Indiana and one of 29 nationwide to receive a Teacher and School Leader (TSL) grant from the U.S. Department of Education this year. The funds are aimed at increasing teacher compensation, retention, and diversity, according to the department, in part by helping districts create performance-based compensation models.

The bulk of the total funding — over $5 million — will go to performance-based pay and stipends for Perry teachers, while the remainder will fund two more literacy coaches at the district. The district will receive $2.5 million from the TSL grant in fiscal 2023.

Under the grant, the district will develop a formula to award teachers these bonuses. For every teacher, $1,000 will go into a fund, which will then be distributed according to teacher effectiveness, officials said. The district hopes to retain its master teachers, who model teaching and lead professional development, with the bonuses.

While the district already employs a literacy coach for elementary school students, one of the new coaches will focus on training teachers on reading skills for older students, officials said. Perry, which has a large population of English learner and immigrant students, has recently seen more new immigrant students enroll who can’t read fluently in English or another language, Southport High School principal Amy Boone said at a Thursday press conference.

As Indiana pushes to implement new literacy strategies tied to the science of reading, Perry officials said they hope to adapt some of those strategies to older students as well. In its grant application, the district said it hopes to grow overall student achievement in math and literacy by three percentage points per year, and narrow achievement gaps among Black and Hispanic students by 10%.

Another new coach will focus on literacy data for all students.

“It’s difficult for them to be successful if they lack the foundational ability to interact with the text,” said Jeff Spencer, the district’s assistant superintendent for K-12 services.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Students’ mental health needs are growing. Here’s how one district is asking taxpayers to help.

2023-10-17T11:00:00+00:00

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After nine guns were found at Fort Wayne schools during the 2022-23 school year, a group of community members approached district leadership with an urgent request: Make schools safer.

Together with the district, a new safety committee made up of law enforcement, mental health professionals, and teachers compiled a list of recommendations to do so. Campuses needed technology updates and more school resource officers. But the group also recommended hiring additional staff to support students’ well-being.

Now, they’re asking voters to support the efforts by approving a property tax increase earmarked for school safety in the November election. At a rate of $0.10 per $100 of assessed value, the safety referendum would generate up to $12 million annually for eight years toward mental health staff and school resource officers, security improvements, and a program that teaches students nonviolence.

If passed, the referendum would create dozens of new positions at Fort Wayne schools working in tandem to address two major safety concerns schools are facing nationwide: An increase in gun violence and the number of weapons found at schools, as well ongoing strains on students’ mental health as a result of the pandemic.

Indiana schools have long relied on property tax increases to fund operations and construction. But in 2019, lawmakers also made it possible for districts to improve safety and security using tax dollars.

Only two districts have asked voters to approve safety referendums since 2019, and just one — Carmel schools — has been successful. Schools generally asked voters for fewer tax increases in the immediate aftermath of COVID, but the number has slowly risen since.

A tax referendum was a logical avenue to secure the funding needed for the committee’s recommendations, said Matt Schiebel, the district’s executive director of safety and community partnerships.

“Technology and security measures are important, but the well-being of students is as much or even more important to improving safety,” Schiebel said.

Referendum funding focuses on mental health staff

Fort Wayne schools, along with Bluffton Harrison schools in Wells County, are seeking to pass safety referendums this year in Indiana.

Bluffton Harrison schools intends to spend just over half of its estimated $445,000 in annual revenue from its referendum on additional school resource officers, and another one-quarter on student mental health supports.

Fort Wayne plans to use two-thirds of its total proposed funding for student mental health supports, like therapists, third-party counseling services, and positions known as student advocates, according to its spending plan.

Another one-quarter of the funding is planned for technology, including over $1 million next year for a weapons detection system. And the remainder is earmarked for more security personnel, including 12 additional school resource officers.

The average Fort Wayne taxpayer would pay a maximum of $76 more annually, though the bill would be less next year as the district intends to use only around $7 million of the available funds, Schiebel said.

Schiebel said the district has already leveraged other funding sources for safety, like its facilities referendum for building improvements, emergency funding for student mental health positions, as well as $100,000 from the state-funded Indiana Secured School Safety grant for a school resource officer. It also partners with the Fort Wayne Police Department and the Allen County Sheriff’s Office to place school resource officers in its middle schools.

But a safety referendum would offer more.

“Safety has always been a priority and we have always used any means necessary to do all we can,” Schiebel said.

The largest proposed expenditure — over $4 million — would go to hiring student advocates, adults who monitor hallways, parking lots, and bathrooms. They also may be responsible for de-escalating situations, but not disciplining students.

Their most important task is building positive relationships with students by serving as another adult to turn to when conflict arises, Schiebel said.

The district has already piloted the role at South Side High School through the use of federal emergency funding, which is now coming to an end, Schiebel said. Through referendum funds, the district hopes to sustainably expand the program and place two student advocates in each of its high schools, as well as one in each elementary and middle school, or 56 total.

They would join other new staff, including 18 new mental health therapists slated to serve middle and high schools.

Data indicates that students need these mental health supports more than ever, with nearly half of all Indiana students reporting feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021.

“Being in-person gives students the opportunity to learn social skills, to cope with people with varying viewpoints,” Schiebel said. “Our kids were isolated for 18 months. When students came back, we had to re-learn those skills.”

Expanding a student-led nonviolence program

The advocates and therapists would also work alongside students through a program known as the Peacemaker Academy, which trains high schoolers in the principles of nonviolence espoused by Martin Luther King Jr.

The district hopes to use a share of the referendum funds to expand the program, which is operated by the faith-based nonprofit Alive Fort Wayne. The pilot program has focused on South Side High School students, but the additional funding would allow the nonprofit to place coordinators in each of the five schools as well as hire a director.

Angelo Mante, executive director of Alive Fort Wayne, said the goal of the program is to teach students King’s principles of nonviolence to help them identify and address issues at their schools.

One project involved students beautifying the campus to improve school culture. Another student initiative keeps a “Peace Count” — tallying the number of days that the school has gone without seeing a fight between students. For every 10 days without a fight, students earn an extra minute for their passing period between classes.

Mante said that the combined efforts at South Side High School — of the Peacemakers, student advocates, and other security measures — have already led to a 40% reduction in violent incidents compared to this time last year, as well as more collective awareness of violence.

Students have earned their extra passing period minute twice this year compared to just once by October of last year.

“It’s highly beneficial to have all of these pieces working together,” Mante said.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Vanguard Collegiate of Indianapolis to close next month amid declining enrollment

2023-09-19T22:49:51+00:00

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Vanguard Collegiate of Indianapolis will close roughly two months into the school year, citing declining enrollment.

In a letter to parents last week, the charter school’s executive director said its last day will be Oct. 6. The school, which opened in 2018 in the Hawthorne neighborhood on the city’s west side, serves students in grades 5-8 and had an enrollment of 71 as of last school year, according to state records. It recently moved into the Hawthorne Community Center.

“Please know that we fought hard for you, our beloved school community. And in that fight, we realize that the right thing to do is to close,” executive director Robert Marshall said in the letter. “Now, our number one priority is to ensure that your child gets enrolled in a new suitable school of your choice.”

It’s the second charter school in less than a year that has announced a closure during the school year, a practice that charter school accountability experts say causes disruptions for families who then scramble to find new schools. Since the state created the charter school law in 2001, 29 brick-and-mortar and blended learning charter schools in Marion County have closed, or roughly 30% of the 94 that have opened, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Marshall did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The school is authorized by the Indiana Charter School Board, which approved a five-year renewal of its charter last fall.

The school’s initial charter application had ambitious enrollment projections, with plans to grow from 120 students in 2018 to 480 by its fifth year.

After Vanguard moved to the Hawthorne facility, it reduced enrollment to operate as a micro-school, said James Betley, executive director of ICSB. The school was aiming for 90 students this year but had 40 students as of a few weeks ago, Betley said.

“That was one of those renewals where we probably could have leaned the other way,” Betley said of last year’s decision to renew the school. “But there was enough evidence that they could keep going.”

The school is directing families to the city’s unified enrollment system, Enroll Indy, to find a new school and is also hosting an enrollment fair later this month.

“Today, our hearts are heavy. We are grateful for the opportunity to educate and build relationships with your child and family,” Marshall said in the letter. “We hope that we have lived up to the promises we made to each family.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the number of charter schools that have opened and closed since 2001.

Former Edison CEO files complaints against school alleging defamation, wrongful termination

2023-05-31T14:34:21+00:00

The former head of an Indianapolis school alleges the school board let him be defamed in a termination proceeding that violated state law and essentially canceled him, according to a tort claim and a federal discrimination complaint filed in March and April, respectively.

Nathan Tuttle, the former CEO and executive director of the Edison School of the Arts, is seeking at least $300,000 in damages from the school in a tort claim, which individuals must file in Indiana and have denied in whole or in part before suing a government entity. He also filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), often the first step before filing a federal discrimination lawsuit.

Edison’s board terminated Tuttle in March after allegations from parents and staff that he used a racial slur when speaking to Black students; Tuttle countered in the claim and EEOC complaint that he repeated the slur while disciplining a student who had used it, but did not direct the slur at a student. He also alleges staff at the school let students chant homophobic insults about him during an on-campus protest.

The allegations against Edison mark an escalation in hostilities between the school’s former CEO and the Edison community at large. A public meeting in March to address the incident boiled over when parents, students, and staff publicly criticized what they called a toxic working and learning environment under Tuttle’s administration. The school board fired Tuttle a week later.

Tuttle’s allegations also come as Edison wraps up a challenging school year and tries, under new leadership, to change the school’s climate. After the public fallout following Tuttle’s dismissal, the board halted its plans to expand its programming into James Whitcomb Riley School 43.

Tuttle alleges he was also deprived of his due process rights under the 14th Amendment, which would allow him an opportunity to clear his name at a pre-termination hearing.

“He has, in effect, been cancelled,” the documents state. “The mob mentality that was allowed to pervade the Edison Board meeting on March 7th, carried over to their decision to terminate Tuttle.”

In a statement from the school’s executive committee of the board of directors, the school denied all allegations made in the complaints — noting that as an Innovation school in Indianapolis Public Schools, Edison is not required to comply with termination proceedings outlined in state law for traditional public schools.

The school also argued that its investigation into the incident gave Tuttle the opportunity to weigh in and respond to the public allegations at length.

“The Board appreciates the service that Mr. Tuttle made to the School, but will be clear that Mr. Tuttle was terminated in compliance with Indiana state statute and pursuant to the requirements to release an at-will employee,” the committee said.

A spokesperson for IPS did not provide comment.

Tuttle: Traditional public school labor protections should apply

In both complaints, Tuttle is seeking two years worth of his $150,000 annual salary at Edison, plus bonuses and benefits. They also seek unspecified compensation for damage to his reputation.

A key dispute between Tuttle and Edison is the interpretation of state law governing Innovation Network schools, which have more autonomy in staffing and operations than traditional public schools. Innovation schools do not have to follow a collective bargaining agreement with a union, for example.

Tuttle’s attorney, Chip Clark, said the school breached his three-year contract that began in 2022. Both the tort claim and EEOC complaint cite state law that governs “regular teacher contracts” for traditional public schools and notes that Tuttle was also a choir teacher at the school. The board’s policy also requires the CEO to be employed in the form of a regular teacher’s contract, argued Clark.

The complaints also cite due process rights for school superintendents outlined in state law, which states that a superintendent can only be terminated for cause and can request a hearing before the school’s governing body when the board decides not to renew a superintendent contract.

But Edison argued that those statutes do not apply to Tuttle, and that he was an at-will employee of the nonprofit that operates Edison.

State law gives operational autonomy to Innovation schools, and says other statutes applicable to school corporations do not apply to them. While most IPS Innovation schools are run by charter operators, Edison is one of the few that is run by a nonprofit with its own board instead.

The school argued that Tuttle’s assertions are “further evidence that Mr. Tuttle did not understand his role as an Innovation School Leader.”

“Mr. Tuttle was terminated by the Board for his failure to comply with employee policies and procedures, lack of leadership and management of the school, significant concerns raised by numerous employees as part of the Board’s employment investigation, among other reasons,” the committee said in its statement.

If the school deemed Tuttle’s work unsatisfactory, the board’s policy requires it to give Tuttle opportunity to correct the conditions, which the board did not do, the complaints argue. But the school through its attorney argued that this policy only applies to the renewal or non-renewal of the CEO’s contract, and that the policy also states the board may terminate the CEO’s contract during its term in accordance with the law.

Both complaints also allege the school discriminated against him based on race and sexual orientation, noting that Tuttle is a gay white male who is the father of a Black child.

The complaints also claim that in a protest during lunch on March 3 that appeared on social media, Edison students called Tuttle homophobic slurs while he was on leave.

“The teachers and administrators in charge of Edison during Tuttle’s administrative leave allowed this to happen,” Tuttle’s complaints state.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

IPS chief academics officer one of two finalists for Cleveland schools CEO

2023-04-20T21:01:42+00:00

The chief academics officer for Indianapolis Public Schools is one of two finalists in the search for the next chief executive officer of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

Warren Morgan, who joined IPS in May 2020, oversees curriculum and instruction for the district as a member of the executive leadership team. He previously worked in Cleveland as an academic superintendent supervising the city’s turnaround schools.

“There’s just an amazing opportunity to return home and to be able to connect and work with so many great people that have invested in me, and we’ve invested in each other,” Morgan said in a video introduction on the Cleveland school district’s website.

Rocky Torres, the assistant superintendent of student support services for Seattle Public Schools, is the other finalist. Morgan directed questions to a spokesperson for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

Morgan was also a finalist in the superintendent search for New Haven Public Schools in Connecticut last month. The district finalized the selection of its new superintendent, Madeline Negrón, this week.

The Cleveland school district, with about 36,000 students, plans to have a new superintendent announced by this month, according to a timeline on its website.

Morgan has overseen academics for IPS as it recovers from pandemic learning loss — the district’s gain in statewide ILEARN testing scores for 2022 has brought students back roughly to pre-pandemic proficiency levels.

Before landing in Indianapolis, Morgan served as a high school principal in Chicago Public Schools and as the executive director for Teach for America in St. Louis. He also was selected as a White House Fellow and previously taught science in St. Louis through TFA.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Washington Township schools terminates North Central principal after student discipline probe

2023-04-13T13:59:33+00:00

The Metropolitan School District of Washington Township has terminated the employment of North Central High School Principal Evans Branigan III, following an investigation into allegations of verbal misconduct and a failure to follow district protocols in a student discipline matter.

The announcement, which the district sent to families on Wednesday, ends an investigation that began last month. Branigan had announced his retirement earlier this school year before being placed on leave.

The school district did not offer additional details about the allegations or the investigation. Branigan could not be reached for comment.

“Washington Township Schools is firmly committed to maintaining a learning and work environment with no tolerance for harassment and discrimination on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, and other protected classifications,” the district said in the statement to families. “We continue to encourage staff and students to report any misconduct they witness.”

The decision is part of a difficult year for North Central. Last month, the school board approved a $245,000 settlement for a federal lawsuit involving alleged sexual harassment and predatory behavior by a former staff member.

In its statement, the district said Branigan had the opportunity under state law to challenge the decision but declined to do so.

The school board on Wednesday approved the hiring of a new permanent principal for North Central, a school of roughly 3,600 students and the district’s only high school.

Daniel Mendez, principal of Seymour Middle School, will lead the school beginning in the summer. Eugene White, the former superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools and Washington Township schools, is leading the school on an interim basis through mid-June.

Mendez has earned the statewide Middle School Principal of the Year recognition for Indiana, making him a contender for the National Principal of the Year honor.

“Dr. Mendez brings not only exceptional Principal leadership experiences but proven success with raising achievement for diverse populations of students in urban public schools,” Superintendent Nikki Woodson said in a statement released Thursday.

In a statement, Mendez said he has always had great respect for the district.

“It is an honor to join the North Central High School and Washington Township Schools family,” he said. “I can’t wait to get started.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

New Indianapolis school board could mark unprecedented era for charter supporters

2023-01-11T19:22:47+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools is starting 2023 with seven school board commissioners who, for the first time since 2012, have all garnered support in recent elections from groups promoting charter schools and other policies associated with education reform.

The shift in the board’s makeup comes at a critical moment, right as the district implements its Rebuilding Stronger revitalization plan adopted unanimously by the board last year. One of the goals of that blueprint: competing with charter schools supported by those same groups, and which have been siphoning off the district’s students for years.

New board members Nicole Carey, Hope Hampton, and Angelia Moore took office on Monday, replacing outgoing members Evan Hawkins and the board’s last two union-backed candidates, Taria Slack and Susan Collins.

They join members Kenneth Allen, Diane Arnold, Venita Moore, and Will Pritchard, who collectively raised over $280,000 in in-kind and direct donations from political action committees for RISE Indy and Stand for Children Indiana in the 2020 election alone. Both groups also endorsed Carey, Hampton, and Moore.

To some, the new board makeup is inevitable, the result of the hundreds of thousands of dollars from PACs that first entered Indianapolis school board campaigns in 2012.

Those PACs are typically linked to groups that support policies often associated with education reform, such as principal autonomy and school choice, including charter schools.

The new board could mark the start of a regrettable era, said Jim Scheurich, president of the IPS Community Coalition, which is a strong critic of groups such as RISE and Stand for Children. Just one of the three board races was contested last year, which he attributes to the amount of money pumped into school board races, making a run for office less attractive.

“They’ve got all the money,” Scheurich said. “They have way too much money.”

But current and former board members say the reality is much different, and that decisions on the board’s decisions don’t boil down to simple pro-charter or anti-charter opinions.

“When you’re running for office and when you’re campaigning for candidates, these issues can seem a lot more cut and dry, a lot more simple, than when you’re on the board,” said board member Will Pritchard, who received more than $72,000 in direct and in-kind 2020 campaign support from Stand for Children’s PAC.

Members of the new board say their decisions will be based on what’s best for students, not ideology.

New board member Nicole Carey, elected without opposition to represent District 5, said that there has not yet been a school system that has served students of color really well since the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision.

“I don’t believe that charter schools are the answer, and I don’t believe that the traditional way that we’ve served kids is the answer,” Carey said. “I think we still have to continue to look to do better for our kids.”

The limits of campaign cash

Campaign support from PACs may appear to influence school board members. But decisions made once candidates are on the board tell a more intricate story.

Board members are looking at the real world situation and not just arguing over ideas and ideology, said Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at the Teachers College at Columbia University and co-author of the book “Outside Money in School Board Elections.”

“Ideas and ideology can be important, and in these national debates what’s driving a lot of the funding is these big war battles, Republican versus Democrat, red versus blue, reform versus non-reform,” Henig said. “But at the local level, especially in communities that built up charters and innovation schools of one kind or another over time, there’s a range of variation.”

Susan Collins, for instance, had a firm anti-charter platform when she ran for school board in 2018. She also opposed the concept of closing traditional district-run schools, following strong backlash to the IPS decision to close schools in 2017.

“My concern was the closing of schools and the encroachment of charter schools in the district that was pulling enrollment away from the district,” said Collins, who served one term on the board from 2019 to 2022.

But once elected to the board – with the help of $15,000 from the PAC linked with the Indiana State Teachers Association — her views shifted.

“In a way, I was a little more iconoclastic than I became over time,” she said. “I realized that the reality is that schools have to sometimes be closed — we’re top-heavy. And also the reality is that the charters are here, and you can’t kick them out, so that’s not going to happen.”

Collins has also served on a board that, even though most of its members have been backed by charter-friendly groups, has not always seen eye to eye with those groups.

Perhaps the most significant of those disagreements has been about the board’s biggest initiative, Rebuilding Stronger. While the Mind Trust, RISE Indy, and Stand for Children all voiced concerns about the sweeping IPS overhaul, the board still approved it.

And in recent months, dozens of charter school parents and students have packed school board meetings to argue that charters should get a greater share of a proposed $413.6 million operating referendum. But so far, board members haven’t publicly supported them.

Candidates endorsed by Stand for Children Indiana are not always going to agree with the organization, said Justin Ohlemiller, the organization’s executive director.

“We expect commissioners to listen and to ask good questions and to authentically engage with parents and make sure that there’s a respectful dialogue, back-and-forth. I think to that extent, that’s happened,” Ohlemiller said. “But to say that we expect commissioners to go along with every request parents are making — I don’t think anybody expects this.”

Black women now school board majority

In one important respect, the new school board has already made its mark: Four of the seven members are Black women, and five of the seven are people of color. In IPS, 80% of the students are nonwhite or multiracial.

That’s something Jasmin Shaheed-Young, the founder of RISE Indy, is quite proud of.

The group funds candidates who agree with its policy priorities, including increased school autonomy and school choice.

The nonprofit also runs a Circle City Leaders program that trains people interested in bettering the city’s education by running for office. Four of the seven members of the board have been through the program.

“So much of this is demystifying the political process,” Shaheed-Young said. “It has been something that has been reserved for really white men.”

The new board members have nuanced hopes of their own for the future. And while they have expressed concerns about Rebuilding Stronger — after initially opposing the first draft of the plan — they are still tasked with ushering in the overhaul.

Carey sees herself as a bridge-builder, and wants to help create a vision of what IPS will look like in 10 years that has community support. She understands the charter school community’s push for more funding from the operating referendum, noting that it seems unfair for charter school parents to pay a property tax increase that won’t go to their child’s school.

She also thinks the two ballot measures voters could consider this year, which seek a total of $823.6 million over several years for IPS capital and operating expenses, aren’t big enough. At the same time, she understands inflation is a growing concern for families.

“We have to find that middle ground of how do we properly fund an equitable education and what’s too much?” she said. (New board member Hope Hampton could not be reached for comment.)

Angelia Moore, meanwhile, said she will always prioritize equity and communication with her constituents.

Being supported by certain groups does not mean a board member will always agree with those groups, Moore noted.

“We’re still individuals,” she said. “We still each have one vote.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Perry Township Schools superintendent announces retirement

2022-12-13T16:09:02+00:00

Perry Township Schools Superintendent Patrick Mapes announced plans to retire in June after leading the southside school district for six years.

The announcement early Tuesday came a day after the school board adopted his recommendation to end elementary school choice in a controversial vote that spurred parent opposition.

Mapes led the district as it successfully passed a $154 million operating referendum in May 2022 to help fund teachers and STEM programming and increase bus driver salaries.

“I have great pride in the work we have been able to accomplish as a team. I am grateful for the hardworking staff who have made the great successes of Perry Township Schools possible,” Mapes said in a statement. “I’m also thankful for the community for prioritizing education and supporting the district.”

Mapes, who accepted the position in July 2016, oversaw the district as it completed $153 million in construction projects, increased base salaries for teachers and secured over $32 million in teacher incentives, according to a district press release. The district also launched its own police force during his tenure.

Mapes’ compensation was $294,145 for 2021, according to state records.

The district will begin its search for a new superintendent on Dec. 21. Hiring a superintendent is one of the top jobs of the school board, and three new members will join the Perry board in January as it oversees that process.

The district said it prefers a candidate with superintendent or central office leadership experience, as well as at least three years of successful public school teaching experience, according to an announcement the district posted online about the search.

“Perry Township Schools is in great shape and ready for a new leader to come in and continue the work of serving students,” Mapes said in the statement.

Perry Township is home to a substantial population of people from Myanmar — the country formerly known as Burma — with a student demographic that is 30% Asian and 17% Hispanic, according to 2021-22 state statistics. Roughly 29% are English language learners, and 75% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

IPS wants Rebuilding Stronger to address inequities, but some worry its approach is unfair

2022-11-14T12:00:00+00:00

Liliana Ortuno turned to SUPER School 19 as her last hope.

She had shuffled from school to school trying to find appropriate language services for her two daughters, who didn’t speak English. After her oldest daughter’s stints at William Penn 49 and SENSE charter school, a friend finally directed Ortuno to the innovation school within Indianapolis Public Schools — a frequent recommendation among Latino families on the southeast side.

After the switch, Ortuno’s eldest daughter’s reading ability improved. When her youngest daughter was diagnosed with anxiety, she took advantage of the school’s mental health services, which offered therapy twice a week. Now, her sessions are shorter because of her improvement.

But all of that may soon be gone.

Under the district’s proposed revitalization plan known as Rebuilding Stronger, IPS would end its innovation agreement with SUPER School 19. Nearby Paul Miller School 114, which is being closed at the end of this school year, would merge with School 19 as the district resumes control of the school. Those two big changes could alter, curtail, or end the programs that Ortuno values.

At its core, the district’s Rebuilding Stronger plan seeks to create an equitable education for all students. Some see the blueprint as a significant and obvious step forward for academics and other programs. But to others, Rebuilding Stronger aims for equity in an inequitable way.

Some parents of color, for example, worry the plan’s replication of things like International Baccalaureate programming won’t serve their students as well as other models. Other families fear losing a school that has served a Black neighborhood for generations.

The plan, which the IPS school board is slated to consider for a vote Nov. 17, would close underutilized schools and reconfigure grades, with the aim of boosting resources at all the remaining schools. It would expand academic programs such as Montessori and IB into schools with more students of color. And in a boon for school choice, Rebuilding Stronger would allow students to attend any one of a variety of schools within one of four zones.

Two miles away from SUPER School 19, Garfield Elementary School 31 sits half empty.

A former second grade classroom at Garfield Elementary School in Indianapolis sits vacant due to a decline in student enrollment.

The school has lost nearly half of its students since she came in 2016-17, and that has affected its operations. Fewer students means fewer per-pupil dollars, fewer staff, and fewer academic opportunities for students.

“I have probably two kids upstairs who are ready for algebra,” said Principal Adrienne Kuchik, “and I can’t offer it to them.”

To staff like Kuchik, Rebuilding Stronger would fix many inequities she’s seen in her neighborhood school. She’s hoping that enrollment at her school, and therefore resources, would rebound. But more broadly, she’s excited by the idea that under Rebuilding Stronger, students in her school’s neighborhood would have more options like Center for Inquiry and Montessori schools.

“With this proposed idea of enrollment zones, not only will every family have access to all these different types of programming, they also have transportation to all of these different types of programming,” Kuchik said.

Losing a school that helps English learners

Spanish flows at the front office of SUPER School 19 as quickly and easily as English.

The school began as an innovation school in 2018-19 and was given more autonomy than traditional district schools.

Ortuno and fellow mother Jaquelinne Vazquez Rodriguez don’t speak English, but they’re well known in the building as active parents.

This community taught their children English. It also helped Vazquez Rodriguez when her husband faced deportation. Staff wrote letters to a judge that supported keeping her family together, Vazquez Rodriguez explained.

The district wants to end its innovation partnership with SUPER School due to its poor academic performance. The school had an IRead passing rate of roughly 84% the year before its transformation, a rate that has dropped to about 30%. ILearn scores have also dropped, from roughly 8% of students proficient in English and math in 2018-19 to just 3% in 2021-22.

Parents Jaquelinne Vazquez Rodriguez, left, and Liliana Ortuno say SUPER School helped their children learn English after other schools did not. They worry about the impact of merging the school with Paul Miller Elementary School 114.

They feel uncertainty about whether losing the school principal will stay, and whether the services such as the mental health therapy Ortuno’s daughter received would remain.

“I’m an adult. A change like this causes anxiety,” she said. “I can’t imagine what it’s going to do to someone who is still small.”

But Ortuno and Vasquez Rodriguez feel their concerns — which had to be translated — weren’t heard at the school’s recent meeting about the plan. Both feel, too, that the school is uniquely positioned to serve their children’s mental health and language needs.

There’s another side to the situation. The merger would provide a better facility for School 114 students currently stuck in a building rated in poor condition. Combining both schools would solve the problem of dwindling enrollment at School 114, which has dropped by more than half since the 2015-16 school year. And moves like this would also help alleviate the district’s budget woes.

“We know that our long-term financial sustainability just will not exist if we don’t do something different than what we are currently doing,” Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said when unveiling the plan to the media in September, adding “that “the current mix of data and programming that we have are not sustainable.”

Families fear end of neighborhood school

Steps away from the front door of School 56, a yard sign with a petition to save the school sits in Barbara Brooks’ front yard.

School 56 sits tucked away in Hillside, within range of the gentrification moving east from the popular Monon Trail. The school is a fixture in the community, an area that has been home to Black residents since the neighborhood’s industrialization at the turn of the 20th century, according to Indy Encyclopedia.

Brooks, 67, went to the school with her siblings — as did her children, grandchildren and now her great-grandchildren.

But today the school is underutilized, operating at just 59% of capacity last school year. The building, erected in 1931, is in poor condition. Under Rebuilding Stronger, the district recommends merging the students at School 56 with nearby School 51, which will adopt Montessori programming.

The district walked back its initial proposal to tear down School 56 and built a new school for Sidener Academy for High Ability Students after community pushback of gentrification fears.

But the changes to the initial Rebuilding Stronger plan — unveiled by the district last month — don’t alleviate all concerns. Parents hope to still keep School 56 open as a neighborhood school and seek funding for renovations, so that the Martindale part of Martindale-Brightwood won’t lose its last traditional public school.

“At one time there were three schools in that neighborhood,” said DeShawn Jorman, a parent who started the petition to save School 56. “Now there’s only one left — 56. And now we’re not going to have a school there, period?”

DeShawn Jorman, left, stands surrounded by her children in front of Francis Parker Montessori School 56 (from left to right): Nation Tate, Jehu Jorman, Mesgana Waiss, and Zola Jorman.

Parents wonder why the district can’t just renovate the school, like it has in more affluent, white areas.

District officials say compromises in such situations have been necessary.

“As Dr. Johnson has said throughout this journey, we can do a lot of things but we can’t do everything,” school board President Evan Hawkins said last month. “I think that resonates in a plan like this.”

Tension simmers over two school models

The replication of certain academic models is also a point of contention.

Organizations that have embraced charter schools such as Stand for Children Indiana and Empowered Families have objected to the plan’s expansion of Center for Inquiry and Montessori models.

Parents of color affiliated with such groups have criticized the gap in proficiency levels between Black and white students or Hispanic and white students — particularly at CFI schools, where the IB curriculum is taught. They have also expressed reservations about the ability of these schools, where the students are mostly white, to teach students of color.

Many parents have instead pushed for the replication of Paramount charter school, where Black students’ proficiency rates in English and math on 2022 state tests range from 29.6% to 66.7% across three brick-and-mortar campuses — well above the district’s 5.1%.

Angelia Moore, the incoming at-large school board member who won election on Tuesday, has also expressed reservations about expanding such programs.

When her youngest son needed extra academic attention as a CFI student, she felt that he was not offered enough support and fell through the cracks, she said.

“As a mother of Black boys, catching up is not really okay,” Moore said.

She ultimately decided to home-school her son after noticing the limited number of staff who were people of color.

The plan replicates Montesorri, CFI, Butler Lab, performing arts, dual-language and high-ability programming currently at 14 schools.

Of those schools, seven have a measurable Black-white achievement gap that’s greater than the district-wide average — as measured by proficiency in English and math on the 2022 state ILEARN exam. Six have a measurable Hispanic-white achievement gap greater than the district average.

Yet students of color at some of these schools perform better than their peers districtwide: Black students in nine schools and Hispanic students in eight schools have proficiency rates higher than the district-wide average.

Paramount’s four campuses still had better proficiency rates for Black and Hispanic students than the majority of these schools.

District leaders’ concerns about expanding Paramount in particular extend beyond test scores. Johnson also noted the suspension rates at Paramount schools are higher than the district’s CFI schools.

“We can both acknowledge that on the whole, Black and Latino students are performing better [at CFI and Montessori schools] and therefore having that program be accessible to more students is important,” Johnson said, “and address, acknowledge, and know we have to continue to work incredibly hard to address that gap that exists.”

Expanding access for south side students

When Emma Wulf started band at George Washington High School she was in a new school trying to learn something new — her previous K-8 school did not offer band programming. Fortunately she conquered her fears, she told the school board last month.

“If we were able to start band programs in middle schools, this could help high school experiences be less scary and more of a safe place when in a new community,” Wulf said.

Currently, neighborhood schools like the one Wulf attended have just one-third the number of enrichments — such as arts and world language — as choice schools, according to the district.

And on average, IPS middle schools offer nine athletic programs, while neighboring townships offer 13, the district has noted.

But closing schools and reconfiguring grades would allow the district to concentrate its resources in remaining schools, offering more academic and extracurricular programming for students like Wulf.

Under the plan, Garfield Elementary would shift from a K-8 to a pre-K-5 school.

Dropping the middle grades will be sad, Kuchik notes — but that means filling up the partly empty building with elementary students from nearby schools such as Raymond Brandes School 65, which is proposed for closure. And the middle-schoolers she’s losing will have more opportunities elsewhere, she believes.

“Where my babies are going, they’re going to have the option of foreign language. They’re going to have the option of band. They’re going to have the option of — I would assume — choir or chorale, things that I can’t (offer) like pre-algebra and algebra by eighth grade,” Kuchik said.

And adding prekindergarten at her school will bring a program that families have been asking for, she said.

Although she ultimately supports the plan, Johnson has acknowledged that it would require different sacrifices from different school communities that may be difficult.

“While we can all recognize that change presents opportunities, change is also hard,” she told the community in September. “Both of those things are true.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Interest in running for Indianapolis school board drops to new low

2022-11-04T19:53:45+00:00

This article was co-published by Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI as part of a collaboration ahead of the 2022 school board elections. Miss Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI’s IPS school board candidate forum? Read the recap here and watch the event here.

Vying for a seat on the Indianapolis Public Schools board of commissioners is usually a heated battle.

In 2012, 10 people raised more than $200,000 combined to win one of four open seats on the IPS board of commissioners — elected officials who have the power to vote on the district’s budget, set strategic goals, and oversee other priorities.

In 2018, eight other candidates collected more than $192,000 competing for three seats. And in 2020, nearly $600,000 was raised by 10 candidates seeking four open seats.

But this year, interest in leading IPS has dropped to the lowest level in at least the past decade — just four candidates have filed for three open seats. Only the race for District 3, which encompasses parts of midtown Indianapolis, is contested. The three incumbents are not seeking reelection.

Why are fewer people stepping up to govern the state’s largest school district? The answers people give range from polarizing politics to the daunting task of raising big campaign donations.

The waning interest comes right as the district embarks on its Rebuilding Stronger plan, a major overhaul to address declining enrollment and an impending fiscal cliff. The superintendent is proposing the closure of seven schools and the creation of standalone middle schools, among other things.

VOTER GUIDE: Meet the four candidates seeking three seats on IPS school board

IPS board members, including the three who chose not to seek reelection, are expected to vote on the plan in November.

“The district’s going through some huge changes right now, and it’s interesting to me that the people who are on the board now are going to vote on those changes and then go off,” said Jim Grim, Director of University and Community School Partnerships at IUPUI who lost a bid for school board in 2016. “So the people who come on are going to have to deal with those changes.”

Why are potential IPS school board candidates walking away?

But the decline also comes after years of school board races in which certain candidates received tens of thousands of dollars from political action committees. These PACs and other out-of-state donors have strong ties to the charter school movement, and support education policies that traditional public school advocates say are harming IPS.

That money has ultimately deterred people from running a race they won’t win, argued Jim Scheurich of the IPS Community Coalition, a nonprofit group consistently critical of the district’s partnerships with charter schools.

ELECTION FORUM: Candidates for IPS school board would vote no on Rebuilding Stronger

“To me, they basically ended local democracy,” Scheurich said of PACs associated with local nonprofits Stand for Children Indiana and RISE Indy. “The amount of money they have is so huge.”

Both organizations say their campaign support and community engagement efforts push education issues to the forefront of what’s at stake on the ballot.

Since 2012, large-scale campaign donations have also come from groups like the Indy Chamber’s Business Advocacy Committee and the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors PAC.

The PAC of the state’s largest teachers union has also boosted candidates with more cash than some opponents.

The race to raise big donations may certainly be deterring potential candidates from running, said Rebecca Jacobsen, co-author of the book “Outside Money in School Board Elections,” which studied the influence of campaign contributions in Indianapolis and four other cities.

“Some of the candidates that we spoke to when we were doing this research actually joked that it would have been cheaper, would have required less money, to run for state legislature,” said Jacobsen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. “Because the elections were getting so focused on [the fact that] you really had to raise quite a bit of money in order to be a viable candidate.”

But campaign finance may not be the only reason for the low turnout.

School board officials in Indiana and across the country have faced increased scrutiny, anger, and even threats over a range of issues, from COVID-19 protocols to curriculum during the pandemic. And the highly charged atmosphere has made some question if they would remain on their board.

Even though IPS has largely escaped such problems, that overall political environment might still be depressing interest from possible candidates.

“The current climate and the rhetoric that we’ve seen, and the coverage that we’ve seen of school boards, I think is probably making many people pause when they think, ‘Well, A) Do I really want to do this?’ and then ‘B) Do I have the means to do this?’” Jacobsen said. “And the combination of those two might mean a lot more people are saying no.”

The growing cost of school board campaigns

Elizabeth Gore remembers running her first election for Indianapolis school board in 2008 with just a few hundred dollars.

But things started to change in 2012, the year money from PACs and outside donors began to flow to Indiana.

Stand for Children Indiana, a branch of the national K-12 parent advocacy nonprofit based in Oregon, spent an unknown amount from its national parent. Its status as a social welfare organization allowed the group to avoid disclosing detailed expenses on individual candidates.

But some of Stand’s spending was visible in the form of things like glossy mailers targeting voters. Stand now discloses its spending through a political action committee.

Voters cast their ballots at the Indianapolis City-County Building in the 2020 election. Advocacy groups such as RISE Indy say they have helped increase voter turnout by increasing community engagement.

In the coming years, Gore won and lost against candidates financed with direct and in-kind support from Stand and later RISE Indy. RISE, a nonprofit formed in 2019, describes itself as drawing attention to issues around student achievement and equity in local schools. Some of its board members are high-profile charter school advocates.

Gore pulled off a major upset in 2016 against one such candidate, Sam Odle, who raised $40,011 in comparison to her roughly $1,000.

But in 2020, multiple PACs and individual donors flexed their financial muscle and provided a combined $266,052 for Kenneth Allen, Gore’s opponent. Hoosiers for Great Public Schools, a Carmel-based committee that supports “educational opportunities for all students,” donated $80,000 of that amount to Allen.

The PAC is run by Bart Peterson, who is a RISE board member, president of the educational non-profit Christel House International, and a former Indianapolis mayor. In 2020, it was funded by two donors outside Indiana: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings contributed $700,000 and Texas philanthropist John Arnold gave $200,000.

During the election, Stand for Children Indiana and RISE Indy also contributed more than a combined $100,000 to Allen in direct cash and in-kind support, like telemarketing.

Yet Gore, who raised around $22,000, lost by just two percentage points.

“There are a lot of things that go on that you need money for,” Gore said of running a campaign. “And if people have more than you, it might make a difference.”

Within IPS circles, Gore’s story is used both to support and refute the argument that money can buy school board races.

And organizations like Stand and RISE aren’t the only entities that have shelled out big dollars in recent years. The Indiana Political Action Committee for Education, or I-PACE, the political arm of the Indiana State Teachers Association, has financed candidates to serve as formidable opponents to the reform movement.

State campaign finance filings show that in 2018, I-PACE gave a total of $68,400 for three races, including $28,500 to Taria Slack to unseat Dorene Rodriguez Hoops, who was backed by the Indy Chamber and raised a total of $40,724. Slack won.

Susan Collins also defeated a candidate with more money. I-PACE donated $15,000 to her campaign.

In 2020, I-PACE supported Gore with $18,200 and Brandon Randall with $11,000 in their failed races.

But is money deterring people from running at all?

“It takes a lot of time if you are going to run a campaign properly,” said Deborah Heath, a former member of I-PACE, which makes decisions on endorsements and contributions using recommendations of local association members like the Indianapolis Education Association. “And there’s the potential overhaul of the district. If that passes the board, the incoming people in January that are going to be part of the implementation. If you read through the district website — that is a really huge overhaul.”

So to Heath, a 24-year IPS teacher and IEA secretary, there are a multiple reasons, including cost.

“I don’t think any amount of money raised through Stand’s committee will prevent them from running,” said Justin Ohlemiller, executive director of Stand for Children Indiana.

Ohlemiller said he hasn’t seen such low candidate filings during his 10 years in this position. But he disputes the notion that specific factors, like more finances, contribute to someone’s ability to win an election.

“It’s hard to say what factors contribute to a candidate winning or losing,” Ohlemiller said. “In fact, there’s really no data that kind of show what those factors are.”

But over the past decade, 14 out of the 17 candidates who raised more money than their opponent ended up winning their race.

Still, these advocacy groups point to positives they’ve had on the political school board landscape — Ohlemiller believes the increase in parent advocates leading text and phone banks has helped increase the number of voters.

“What is a largely sort of down ballot, low-information race for school board has certainly, I think, garnered more attention” over the last several years, Ohlemiller said.

Jasmin Shaheed-Young, founder of RISE Indy, also credits her organization with helping improve voter turnout in the 2020 election.

Successful candidates have strong community ties and have “a history of being focused on issues around educational equity,” Shaheed-Young said.

She also noted that three of the candidates this year for each seat — Hope Hampton, Angelia Moore, and Nicole Carey — are Black women, notably higher than in previous school board races.

“That to me is the evidence of power shifting to community members,” she said. “So regardless of what’s being spent in elections, the fact that we have three Black women that have been steeped in community and prioritizing students is, is an incredible victory for IPS and our city.”

What more money means for IPS school board elections

Scheurich, however, feels differently about the state of the school board.

The leader of the IPS Community Coalition, a grassroots group of parents and other organizers, believes it’s not worth the effort to run.

Unless candidates have major financial backing from groups like Rise and Stand, Scheurich said, they are entering a losing battle: “To me, it makes no sense to run. You can’t run. You have no legitimate chance to win.”

His coalition has thrown support behind various candidates in the past, people who would more likely oppose or at least question the charter school growth.

This year, Scheruich said, the group tried and failed to recruit candidates.

“People are not dumb. They see the amount of money that’s being spent,” he said. “And even if they’re considering it, you’ve got to tell them, ‘Hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent against you. They’ll have as much money as they need. They’ll have more than they need. And the best you’ll get is union support for maybe $20,000.’”

Money in school board elections has played both a positive and negative role, Jacobsen said.

More money brought increased attention to elections, enabling candidates to run more professionalized campaigns that potentially made them more informed of the issues.

But education reform money also shifted policy conversation towards nationalized issues — such as teacher unionization and charter schools — leaving little attention to localized issues uniquely important to the community, Jacobsen said.

“It does narrow, then, the agenda of what issues are being talked about,” she said. “And I think that for many people it becomes out of reach, when you are thinking you have to raise $80,000 to run for a school board when there often is no pay or very little pay.”

2022 is a quiet election year for IPS school board races

This year, at least, IPS school board races will likely be sleepy.

Stand for Children Indiana and RISE Indy endorsed the two unopposed candidates, at-large candidate Angelia Moore and District 5 candidate Nicole Carey.

Both groups also endorsed Hope Hampton for District 3 over Kristen Elizabeth Phair.

Whether that endorsement will come with funding — and if so, how much — is unclear. Pre-election campaign finance reports are due Oct. 21.

Hampton, the mother of IPS students, graduated from RISE Indy’s Circle City Leaders program, which has produced two other school board members elected in 2020, Will Pritchard and Kenneth Allen.

Ultimately, many education advocates said the disputes over politics and campaign strategies aren’t what matter most.

“Students that have been failed by the system really don’t care about what’s going on with IPS school board elections,” Shaheed-Young said. “But [what] they do care about is ensuring that they have folks that are on that board that are in urgency in ensuring that we make changes for a system that has been broken.”

Early voting at the City-County Building opens on Oct. 12. The November midterm election is Nov. 8.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Elizabeth Gabriel covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for WFYI. Contact Elizabeth at egabriel@wfyi.org

Cam Rodriguez is a data and graphics reporter on Chalkbeat’s data visuals team. Get in touch with Cam at crodriguez@chalkbeat.org.

Two IPS parents square off in sole contested Indianapolis school board race

2022-10-17T15:32:18+00:00

The sole contested race in the Indianapolis Public Schools board elections will leave District 3 voters choosing between two IPS parents who have spent time working or volunteering in schools and have significant concerns about the district’s revitalization plan.

Hope Hampton and Kristen Phair will face off in the Nov. 8 election to represent the district, which encompasses rapidly changing neighborhoods in midtown Indianapolis, including Mapleton-Fall Creek, parts of Martindale-Brightwood, Butler-Tarkington, and Broad Ripple.

The winner could help oversee the rollout of the district’s Rebuilding Stronger proposal, a major overhaul unveiled last month that would consolidate some schools, close others, and reconfigure grades throughout the district. The current board could vote on the plan as soon as next month, before the newly constituted board is sworn in. But during an Oct. 5 candidate forum co-hosted by Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI, both Hampton and Phair said they would vote against it.

Incumbent Evan Hawkins, the current board president, is not seeking reelection after serving one term.

District 3 includes a diverse population, from the mostly white area of Meridian-Kessler to the neighboring Fairgrounds area, where nearly half of the residents are people of color, according to 2019 Indy Vitals statistics. Poverty rates vary widely across the district as well.

The district includes about a dozen schools, including two Center for Inquiry schools, the district’s two Butler lab schools, and the Sidener Academy for High Ability Students.

Rebuilding Stronger calls for a number of changes in District 3, including the closure of Floro Torrence School 83, the merger of Francis Parker Montessori School 56 with James Russell Lowell School 51, and the relocation of Sidener Academy to the former site of School 56.

Candidates stress partnerships, teacher appreciation

Phair, a mother of three students who attend George Washington Carver Montessori School 87, is a former deputy state public defender who later began substitute teaching and volunteering at School 87 after the pandemic started.

That’s when her appreciation for teachers grew — a theme she frequently stressed in public candidate forums held in October.

Kristen Phair, whose children attend a Montessori school in IPS, is one of two candidates seeking the District 3 seat.

“We’re in dire straits for qualified teachers, and my fear is if our solution to that is fast-tracking credentialing, it’s going to be a race to the bottom for our kids,” Phair said at the Oct. 5 candidate forum. “So it’s imperative that we retain and recruit qualified teachers and get them in the classrooms and keep them there.”

Hampton, who has a son at Shortridge High School, has a degree in social work and is now a small business owner, but has worked as a counselor at the KIPP Indy charter school network and as a dean at North Central High School in Washington Township.

She also previously worked for the Association for Loan Free Education, a group that helped students attend college — the same organization that helped her receive a higher education as a first-generation college student.

Hope Hampton, an IPS parent, is one of two candidates running for District 3.

Hampton has stressed community partnerships as a potential solution for a number of challenges, from securing philanthropic funding to recruiting more teachers of color.

“There are organizations who do great work in helping to recruit, helping to retain Black and brown teachers, and we need a relationship with them and not assume that the district can do that by themselves,” Hampton said at another candidate forum hosted by KIPP Indy, the Edna Martin Christian Center, and the nonprofit RISE Indy on Oct. 6. “It’s not as simple as saying, ‘We have openings.’”

Why they oppose Rebuilding Stronger

Both Hampton and Phair said the district needs more community input from parents and teachers regarding the Rebuilding Stronger plan.

The plan, which is meant to address issues of equity and the financial troubles associated with declining enrollment, expands access to Center for Inquiry and Montessori schools, among other school models. Those high-demand programs have shown some of the highest academic outcomes, according to the district.

But Hampton has expressed concern about the replication of such programs, arguing that there is “no proof” that those models close learning disparities between white students and students of color.

Phair said she would like the district to study whether the proposed changes are best for each school community.

“I don’t believe it’s a one-size-fits-all approach,” she said of academic models the district could expand. “So a replication must be done with integrity.”

Stance on innovation schools, fixing budget

Phair said she would like to see a pause on the proliferation of innovation charter schools while the district focuses on the Rebuilding Stronger plan.

But Hampton said that making blanket proclamations about any schooling model does a disservice to families.

“Many innovation schools are closing the gap for students and families and increasing the number of students that graduate and pursue a college degree,” Hampton said in an email. “That’s important.”

Hampton and Phair have different solutions for fixing the district’s impending budget crisis.

Phair has pushed for assertive lobbying at the state level so that IPS receives more funding.

“We must also find ways to capitalize on the resources we have,” Phair wrote in a Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI candidate survey. “The state has prevented IPS from selling unused buildings for market value which, in turn, prevents our district from utilizing these assets for the betterment of our schools.”

Hampton has called for more transparency and accountability in district finances.

“In order to address the [predicted] deficit, it is critical that the district closely examines the ways in which it invests its resources and leverages its partners, including philanthropic funding,” Hampton wrote in her survey response.

Advocacy groups’ endorsement draws attention

Stand for Children Indiana and RISE Indy, two groups that have embraced charter schools in IPS, have endorsed Hampton. She noted that those groups work to represent families of color, helping them better understand and advocate for what they need.

In the Oct. 5 forum, she recalled how the Association for Loan Free Education helped her own family and guided her into college.

“If it were not for them mobilizing and supporting my parents and bringing them to the table, teaching them how to get me to college, I wouldn’t be sitting here today,” Hampton said.

Phair, however, has questioned the out-of-state money that helps fund those groups. She said that she is seeking an endorsement from the teachers union, which in the past has funded candidates running against those supported by groups such as RISE and Stand.

“I think the big question is: Why are wealthy, out-of-state donors interested in a local school board race?” she said at the Oct. 5 forum. “People invest in things to see a return, and I’m afraid that wealthy out-of-state donors see our education system as an opportunity for profit.”

Hampton said she has reached out to the teacher’s union to ask about their endorsement process.

The election is Nov. 8. Early voting began Oct. 12 and ends Nov. 7.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Pike Township superintendent replaced after problems with busing and teacher pay

2022-01-14T16:03:21+00:00

Flora Reichanadter is no longer the superintendent of Pike Township Schools following months of parent and teacher criticism over her management of the district and concerns over teacher pay.

Thursday night the school board voted unanimously to appoint an interim superintendent and signaled Reichanadter’s contract would soon be terminated. Reichanadter, who is often referred to as Dr. Flora, was hired as the district leader in January 2017.

“Our board counsel is in discussion with Dr. Flora’s counsel regarding an amicable separation between Dr. Flora and MSD of Pike Township,” said Pike School Board President Terry A. Webster, Sr.

Last month Webster described recent months as the toughest board members faced as they took “lumps and hits” from the public about their commitment to students and the community.

In late November, some parents of the district’s roughly 11,000 students started an online petition to remove Reichanadter as superintendent, partially due to her leadership during the teacher contract bargaining sessions. Later, members of the Pike teachers association approved a vote of no confidence in the superintendent. Following a meditation process, the district and teachers union reached an agreement to raise educator pay.

Pike Township has struggled to offer in-person classes throughout the first part of this school year and this month.

Larry Young, assistant superintendent of operations, was approved by the board at Thursday’s meeting to be interim superintendent for the remainder of the school year. Young said he knows the community is frustrated.

“I hear and really offer no excuses for the concerns that have been brought by parents, by staff, even by the board, and those concerns are justified,” said Young, who is also a Pike graduate. “Getting children to school should not even be a discussion that we’re having. Please, I want to let the community know that the board has the expectation that my staff gets this thing right. We are going to.”

Reichanadter could not immediately be reached for comment. She did not attend Thursday’s public school board meeting, as well the last three public meetings.

The board approved a new three-year contract with her in July which set an annual base salary of $206,907, not including other compensation such as performance pay, fringe benefits and retirement contributions.

According to the contract, the board can terminate the agreement prior to June 2024 if it gives 30 days notice and pays out whatever is greater — a year of compensation or half the compensation due for the remainder of the contract period.

Reichanadter’s total compensation in 2020 was $277,395, according to the listing in the state’s public employees database.

Bus driver absences lead to remote learning

Students were forced into remote learning for most of this month because staff absences prevented transportation to school. Although the district resumed in-person learning Thursday after more than seven days of remote instruction, Pike parent Rhonda Moore said the inconsistent school schedule and bus delays may force her to remove her kindergartener from Pike Township.

“My kids sat for almost two hours waiting on somebody to come and pick him up,” Moore said. “This is ridiculous.”

In response to the transportation problems, the Pike board members unanimously approved a motion to begin paying bus drivers based on their experience, which increases the hourly wage for some “top tier drivers” from roughly $24 to nearly $28 and provides an annual step increase.

“I believe part of our shortage over the last few years has been because we don’t pay drivers for their years of experience,” Young said. “So for drivers next door – and they’re making $25 per hour and they’ve been working as a driver for 10 years — if they came over to Pike they would start at the bottom of our pay – which has been lower – and they’d only make $19 per hour.”

This motion also allows the district to implement bus route changes to ensure in-person learning can continue when some bus drivers are absent.

Contact WFYI education reporter Elizabeth Gabriel at egabriel@wfyi.org. Follow on Twitter: @_elizabethgabs.

Indianapolis principal shifts school mindset ‘from punitive to positive’

2021-10-18T17:54:58+00:00

Shortly after Christy Merchant became the principal at Grassy Creek Elementary School in Indianapolis, her leadership team met to discuss a problem: They had too many students with too many suspensions.

And Black boys were bearing the brunt of the punishments.

That’s when the Warren Township school started an equity team. It launched new staff training and reset its goals to focus on students of color.

“When we started focusing on the amazing things our children can do, our mindset shifted from punitive to positive, too,” Merchant said.

As a result, Grassy Creek has reduced disciplinary referrals by more than 75% over the past five years, Merchant said. The school added Black history lessons into morning announcements and formed an African-American Parents Council.

Grassy Creek was recently named a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education in recognition of its efforts to close racial gaps. Merchant spoke to Chalkbeat about reducing discipline disparities, her rural upbringing and journey into urban education, and learning to let go of white guilt.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What are you doing to close racial disparities in discipline at your school?

As a school staff with majority white team members, we started with learning about the history of race in the United States and the role it plays in public education today. We dug into our school data and had the hard conversation about office referrals. Is a rough day in kindergarten really something that should stick to a child’s school file through their senior year, ultimately winding up part of a college application? Is a suspension as an 8-year-old going to build bridges with their family so we can work as a team to support the child’s improvement and ultimately get them to high school graduation?

Granted, there are times when poor choices lead to tough consequences. But we started looking at how we, the adults, can support children through improved engagement strategies, teaching expectations, setting goals, and following through with positive feedback.

As the adults, we must provide our children with a learning environment that honors their culture and personalities, not aligns with our own personal experiences — because very few of us have similar experiences to our students, a harsh reality of public education.

After nearly a year of upheaval — and in some cases grief and trauma — there’s been a lot of talk about the importance of social-emotional learning. Are you doing anything differently to account for what so many families have been through?

On top of daily lessons on emotional regulation, social skills, and behavior expectations, we had already added a formal curriculum to include positive self-talk, problem-solving, fair ways to play, empathy, and ways to calm down. Our students want to learn but often don’t have the regulation tools yet to do so successfully.

Throughout the pandemic, our social-emotional learning pieces have become part of our daily vocabulary, and many of our families have incorporated them at home, too. The challenges from COVID-19 also pushed us to review our communication practices and focus on attendance. We have an amazing community resource center now that opened last fall. Through the center, we can support families with rent assistance, food and clothing, tutoring or English language classes for parents, therapy services and classes for caregivers, and so much more.

What led you to a career in education?

As a child, my dad pushed me to work harder than everyone else. He worked in a factory during the day and multiple odd jobs at night to make ends meet. He didn’t want me to work as hard as he did every day and made it pretty clear when I was little that I was going to college.

When I started college, I thought I’d study medicine. However, in my sophomore year, I married a future PE teacher, and my eyes quickly turned to what brought him joy: teaching. I wanted that joy, too! I was fortunate to shadow a few elementary teachers, made a swift change to education, and haven’t looked back.

Still, I promised my dad I’d be a doctor. I’m about eight classes and a dissertation away from fulfilling that promise with a doctorate in education.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I grew up in a little town with lots of corn fields and no cable (that was a big deal back then). It was a safe place but pretty limited in experiences. My parents taught me that nothing beats hard work, so that’s what I always did. I took the hardest classes and signed up for all the extracurricular activities offered. I was very fortunate to have positive people around me and found success in the classroom.

Today, I look at my students and we don’t have the same school experiences. I lead an urban school with my country school background. Our district is large in a big city, and my hometown was so small. My school today is diverse, and back home everybody looked like me. I knew everyone in all the grades as a kid, but my students don’t know each other outside of their teams.

Even with all of those differences, I think my childhood helped shape me in a way that affords me to honor our students and families. They work hard. They value their families. They want amazing experiences and people who support them. They want to see their children succeed and dreams fulfilled. Those are the same things my parents wanted for me on our gravel road decades ago.

What’s the best advice you ever received — and how have you put it into action?

“Choose one thing and do it well. Next year, choose something different. Keep doing the previous thing well and add on until you get it all together. But remember, nobody has it all together.”

My mentor teacher my first year out of college, Julie Kelly, told me something like this. That was 20 years ago and every year, I pull that nugget of truth out and pass it on to another newbie. We can’t stretch ourselves so thin that we don’t do anything well. I try to remind myself and my team that we can’t do it all today, but we can start with the first step.

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

When I interviewed for my current position, I was searching for my place in public education. I had worked in suburban districts and rural ones, of various sizes. However, I finally found the sweet spot in urban education.

I quickly realized my lack of experiences were broad and deep despite my years of experience, especially when working with children and families of color. I read the book, “Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race” by Debby Irving that first summer. I desperately wanted to connect and serve my school community and not fall into the white savior trap.

This book taught me how to investigate history from many perspectives, to see how the past has shaped today for different individuals, and to let go of white guilt. Gosh, that guilt and fear of what to say or not to say will eat you up if you don’t move past it and just do something to demonstrate your heart for others. That book definitely put me into a mindset of action, and that’s had an impact on everything since. When I meet a person, especially an educator, starting on their own race journey, this is the first book I recommend.

Indiana will end emergency permits for special education teachers next year

2021-10-04T22:39:31+00:00

Indiana will stop issuing emergency permits for special education teachers after this school year, ending a long-standing practice that helps schools staff hard-to-fill positions.

The change, made to comply with federal regulations, comes as school districts grapple with staffing shortages worsened by COVID-19 and affects around 1,200 educators who will need to take additional steps toward their full licensure in order to stay in the classroom.

State officials informed schools in June about the looming cutoff. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 tightened rules for special education teachers, prohibiting them from having licensure requirements waived on an “emergency, temporary, or provisional basis.”

According to Indiana Department of Education spokesperson Holly Lawson, the department decided to stop issuing the emergency permits beginning in 2022-23 after receiving “feedback from Indiana educators that there may be a gap between our practice and the interpretation of federal regulation.”

“With this yearlong transition, we’re working to provide robust pathways and support to help all special education educators earn full licensure,” Lawson said.

Schools rely heavily on emergency permits for special education. In 2019-20, Indiana issued 1,018 emergency permits and 2,878 full licenses to educate students with learning disabilities or mild developmental disorders — or one emergency permit for every three full licenses.

Such “mild intervention” permits were the most popular emergency permit issued. Emergency permits for teaching students with more severe disabilities represented a higher proportion of licenses issued in 2019-20.

Indiana has issued emergency permits for education to ease teacher shortages since the 1960s, according to the Department of Education memo. They allow someone who holds at least a bachelor’s degree to fill a vacant teaching position for a year — as long as they commit to working toward their full license.

Emergency permits are typically renewable if the teacher holding them demonstrates that they’ve made progress toward their license, usually via additional coursework or testing.

The state is planning to launch programs to enable emergency permit holders to work toward full licensure, including an alternative route to licensure for special education and tuition assistance for teachers seeking a special education license.

The alternative licensing route would require an educator to hold a bachelor’s degree, be employed by a school, and be enrolled in an alternative education program. Valid for three years, it would give a teacher time to complete a full license.

The department is also planning to use emergency federal relief funds to offer scholarships for 300 teachers seeking a special education license, as well as expand the number of transition-to-teaching programs for special education teachers.

In Fort Wayne Community Schools, district officials are working with teachers and their principals to make them aware that they wouldn’t be able to stay in their positions past this year without becoming properly certified, said spokesperson Krista Stockman.

In 2019-20, Fort Wayne schools employed 39 teachers through emergency permits in mild intervention — the third-largest number in the state in that category, behind Indianapolis Public Schools and South Bend.

“Hiring enough special education teachers has been a long-standing issue, and we don’t see an end to that challenge,” Stockman said. “We are heavily recruiting year-round, and encourage teacher candidates to pursue their special education certification right away.”

Schools also face challenges keeping teachers in special education positions, said Joe Kwisz, president-elect of the Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education. Some use the temporary credentials as a foot in the door to other positions instead.

The result is a never-ending onboarding process, Kwisz said.

The organization is behind an additional proposal to help licensed teachers obtain an endorsement for special education. The program, which is currently pending state approval, would be offered through local school districts, with a yearlong practicum and monthly full-day training sessions provided by the council.

It would allow teachers to stay in the classroom while they earn their endorsement and gain field experience, Kwisz said.

“Just about every corporation has a need for a special education teacher,” Kwisz said.

Some IPS police see themselves as educators; students and teachers do not

2021-09-22T23:17:47+00:00

Many officers who patrol Indianapolis Public Schools see themselves as educators and informal counselors, in addition to law enforcement officers. Most students, staff, and parents, however, see them strictly as police.

That divergence in perception is among the findings of an independent review of the district’s security force by Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute.

The report, presented to the school board Tuesday, noted other disparities in outlook: While 88% of the district police officers said they collaborate effectively with school personnel, just 61% of staff agreed.

The report includes recommendations on oversight, training, accountability, and more.

“I think it’s a great study. It provides lots of context,” said board Vice President Evan Hawkins. The district administration and Police Chief Tonia Guynn will review the findings and discuss possible actions, he said.

Board member Taria Slack said she hopes that more collaboration will lead to more trust between officers and students, “so we can de-escalate a lot of situations we have.”

Researchers found ambiguity and, in some cases shortcomings, in police roles, protocols, and training in racial equity and fighting implicit bias. “Combatting systemic racism requires ongoing learning, reflection, and intentional implementation of core concepts in their work,” the report noted.

The report notes a lack of clarity about when officers should and should not use force.

Concerns about campus policing, including racial disparities in discipline and arrests, have prompted the district to analyze how its police operate. The goal is to decrease suspensions and expulsions, improve school culture, and nurture students’ well-being.

But restorative justice — practices touted as alternatives to traditional discipline, citation, and arrest — has fallen short, the report noted.

“We have all but stopped implementing it because it takes a tremendous amount of time and cooperation with students, staff, and families,” one officer told researchers.

From 2017 through 2020, the district’s Black students were seven times more likely to be arrested than were white students.

The report recommended differentiating between student misconduct and criminal offenses, providing guidelines for using force, and involving parents and school staff in hiring officers. It also suggested the district step up training and collect data on policing. And it advised convening an advisory committee to recommend whether officers should wear uniforms and carry guns and tasers on campus.

Indianapolis Public Schools might consider rebranding its law enforcement “to create a shift in department culture and mindset,” the report suggested.

To safely reopen schools, Indiana district leveraged public health relationship

2021-09-08T21:54:47+00:00

In 2015, Austin, Indiana was hit with a deadly epidemic: HIV/AIDS. This city, then over 4,000 people, saw over 200 HIV cases in about a year during its outbreak, which one health reporter called “the worst drug-fueled HIV outbreak ever to hit rural America.”

So when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the small city was prepared to respond. The school district and public health department took advantage of their relationship and community trust to plan for a safe school reopening that stands out as one of the most successful in the state, according to a COVID-19 Data Dispatch analysis.

“The HIV outbreak actually brought a lot of people together,” said Brittany Combs, a Scott County public health nurse who worked with the district. “We all came to the same table and figured out what we needed to do to tackle the HIV outbreak. And so, for the pandemic, we all were already at the table.”

This school district, Scott County School District 1, is the subject of the first profile in the COVID-19 Data Dispatch’s “Opening” series. The district was selected along with four others because the majority of the district’s students returned to in-person learning during the 2020-’21 school year — and under 5% of the student population was identified as COVID-positive, regardless of the source. (According to the CDC, about 5% of school-age children in the U.S. have contracted COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.)

While Austin’s experience with HIV/AIDS is unique, the district offers lessons for other communities. An open line of communication between Austin’s county public health agency, school administrators, and other local leaders fostered an environment of collaboration and trust. Plus, the administrators took advantage of teachers’ and parents’ knowledge of their students to make them an integral part of identifying COVID-19 cases and stopping outbreaks.

Public health collaboration

In planning for reopening the district after spring 2020 closures, the public health department had “constant meetings with the school,” Combs said. The existing relationship between the school and public health experts streamlined these meetings. And, thanks to past outreach efforts around HIV and opioids, the public health department already had relationships with Austin families.

“I like to think that the health department already has a lot of trust because we were in the news a lot, we were in the forefront a lot, so they kinda know who we are,” Combs said.

Families were also likely to collaborate with the school district because they wanted their kids back in classrooms, according to Superintendent Trevor Jones. He said that the majority of students get free breakfast and lunch, a measure of poverty. Combined with the community’s past drug abuse issues, he said, there was ample motivation among parents and teachers alike to protect students from the isolation of remote learning.

“The safest place our kids can be is here at school,” Jones said.

While the schools had some basic safety measures in place, such as 6-foot spacing, masks required everywhere except at spaced-out desks, and regular handwashing, this community trust paid off most in identifying students with COVID-19 symptoms.

Deana Broadus, the district head school nurse, said that teachers and parents acted as a first line of defense in identifying symptoms. At the beginning of the school day, teachers took students’ temperatures and asked them about other symptoms.

“As the school year went on, teachers [get to] know their kids,” Broadus said. “They can kind of tell, oh, she doesn’t look that well today, go see the nurse.”

Broadus and the other school nurses also got to know students by following up on symptom questionnaires and developing medical histories. Some students would erroneously mark every symptom on the checklist, she said: “You get to know who’s trying to go home.” In other cases, the symptom checks inspired the nurses to keep better track of seasonal allergies, recurring stomach aches, and other chronic conditions that were previously reported by parents but not thoroughly documented by the school.

Parents took part in the informal COVID-19 surveillance, too. “Parents would call in and report certain symptoms,” Broadus said. “[Students] either needed a doctor’s note or a negative COVID test to return to school.”

The procedure was similar if a student was sent home. While the district initially quarantined full classes following a positive case, the strategy shifted to close-contact identification: figuring out which students had sat next to an infected child. Broadus said that the chief concern she heard from parents reporting a case was often ensuring that no more children than necessary would need to miss in-person class, though students who missed class could still follow along online.

COVID precaution: keep sick students home

Through collaboration with the public health department — which took charge of contact tracing for parents, staff and other non-students — Broadus found that the vast majority of cases came from outside school.

“Usually what we found was that a parent or someone else that the child lived with was sick, and then subsequently the student got sick,” she said. And, among those students, cases were typically identified quickly so that the virus didn’t spread to others.

One of the Austin district’s major lessons was the importance of telling families to keep their kids home if they were sick. In the past, students and staff alike tended to “push through it” and still come in if they didn’t feel well, Broadus said. Now, the policy is to stay home from school or work if you have any symptoms, not just those matching COVID-19. To reinforce this, Jones said, the district is removing rewards for perfect attendance and similar bonuses for staff. The schools are also continuing to emphasize handwashing and other good hygiene habits.

Still, the district did not avoid cases entirely. A total of 47 students contracted COVID-19 during the school year, including 13 students at Austin Elementary School, 19 at Austin Middle School, and 15 at Austin High School — or about 4% of the district’s enrollment. From November through December, the district identified the most cases, 17, Broadus said. It added safety precautions, such as limiting spectators at sporting events.

Delta poses new challenges to reopening

After relaxing safety measures this school year, the Austin school district last month reinstated them as COVID-19 cases rose. “We made some adjustments to our COVID procedures that have minimized the number of students in quarantine,” Jones wrote in an email.

The district switched to all-virtual classes for two weeks in early August, then returned to in-person class with stricter precautions. Staff continue to monitor symptoms and masks are required whenever students are not at desks. Administrators also used federal grants to improve ventilation.

Austin will continue to rely on its community to identify cases and stay safe in the new school year. “I feel like it wasn’t just one thing that we were doing,” Broadus said. “Everyone was working together.”

Betsy Ladyzhets is founder and editor-in-chief of the COVID-19 Data Dispatch, which explores the state of COVID-19 data in the United States. To read more stories from the Dispatch’s “Opening” series go to https://coviddatadispatch.com/. Contact Betsy Ladyzhets at betsy@coviddatadispatch.com or on Twitter at @betsyladyzhets.

Why police at some Indiana schools may lack training to be on campus

2021-08-04T18:57:19+00:00

Students returning to class this month may be interacting with an unknown number of police officers in Indiana schools that haven’t been specially trained for the job.

Chase Lyday, director of the Indiana School Resource Officers Association, is on a mission to change that.

Lyday wants mandated school resource officer training so that all police who work in school environments understand the basics of the job, including adolescent brain development, working with students with special needs and de-escalation techniques.

But so far, Lyday’s push to get lawmakers to agree with him has been unsuccessful.

The current state statute mandates that any officer claiming to be an SRO must undergo a 40-hour basic SRO training from the National Association of School Resource Officers, the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board, or another program approved by that board.

But there are police officers working in Indiana schools who have not received this training, Lyday said, and they’re not required to, so long as they don’t claim the title of SRO.

Spokespeople for both the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana Department of Homeland Security say the state does not track how many officers schools have or have not received basic SRO training. Lyday said the lack of a training mandate has resulted in a piecemeal approach to school policing.

For example, the Indianapolis Public Schools Police Department provided the 40-hour basic SRO training to half of the agency’s 38 sworn officers in June, according to IPS Police Chief Tonia Guynn. She said, prior to the training in June, about a quarter of the department’s officers had received the training.

Lyday applauded IPS Police for providing the training to its officers, but he said there should be consistency across school corporations.

“Without that mandate, right now, the decision is left to the individual school districts and police departments on whether or not to train their officers,” Lyday said.

The number of police in schools has skyrocketed over the last four decades. In 1975, only 1% of schools nationwide reported having officers in their buildings, and by 2018, about 58% reported having at least one law enforcement officer present. As of 2019, at least 28 states have some statutory training requirement for police or other security personnel in schools, but what is included in the training and who must undergo it varies widely across the country.

In Indiana, it’s unclear how large the police presence in schools is, because the number of officers in schools is collected but not disclosed to the public.

Police in schools have come under scrutiny in recent years for their treatment of students, particularly children of color. An analysis of student arrest data from the Indiana Department of Education shows that Black students in Indiana were arrested at more than twice the rate of white students across the school years 2016-17 through 2019-20.

“School resource officers like me and those I work with get so frustrated to answer questions about data showing disparity, data showing disproportionality, high arrest rates, because many school resource officers in the state who have been trained appropriately are being lumped in with some officers who have not been and have a much different philosophy on school based policing,” Lyday said.

Legislative Efforts

In recent years, Indiana lawmakers have twice tried to pass legislation that would mandate basic SRO training for all police working in schools. A bill authored by Republican Sen. Travis Holdman died in committee earlier this year; and lawmakers rejected a similar bill authored by Republican Sen. Michael Young in 2020, citing concerns about the availability of the training and fears that such a mandate would lead to a drop in the number of cops in schools.

“I’m certainly for more training, it’s just the way things fell. It just didn’t happen,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Raatz, who worked with Lyday on the issue.

Raatz said “it’s been a comedy of unintentional differences of opinion and pieces of legislation that have passed that caused us to get to where we are today.”

In 2012, the Indiana General Assembly established the Secured School Fund, which allowed schools to use grant funding to pay for SROs. And in order to be “certified” as an SRO, law enforcement officers needed to complete the 40-hour basic training.

But during the 2020 legislative session, the Secured School Fund was modified to allow schools access to grant money to pay for a certified SRO or a law enforcement officer.

“This change was designed to help rural schools who want to have a trained law enforcement officer in their school, but don’t have any certified SROs in the area who could serve in that role,” wrote David Hosick, a spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, in an email. IDHS manages the state’s Secured School Safety Grant Program.

Raatz said he’s in favor of the training requirement, but that he also needs to do more research on the subject.

“We need to take a serious look at the different things we are doing today and come to a comprehensive plan for uniformity,” Raatz said.

Why Train Officers To Be SROs?

The NASRO method of school-based policing hinges on training officers in what’s called a “triad model,” said D.J. Schoeff, board president of NASRO, a sergeant with the Carmel Police Department and a SRO for Carmel Clay Schools.

The triad model includes three main job duties of the SRO: acting in a law enforcement capacity to ensure safety of students and staff on campus, serving as a guest speaker in classrooms educating students about safety and the law, and providing informal mentorship and counseling to students.

Schoeff said both school administrators and officers may lack an understanding of this triad model and what his organization views as the correct role of the SRO. It frustrates him when he hears about police officers who “interject themselves in a law enforcement capacity” when they should be serving as mentors for students, or when school administrators call upon school-based cops to intervene in a discipline issue.

“That’s not our role,” Schoeff said. “Our role is not to deal with school discipline. Our role is to try to help our kids make good decisions.”

What Exactly Is SRO Training?

It’s unclear how many law enforcement officers who are in schools have gone through school resource officer training, but some SRO leaders want to change that.

Time commitment: 40 hours, spread out over five days

Who teaches it: An instructor from the National Association of School Resource Officers

Cost: $445 for NASRO members and $495 for non-members, with discounts for agencies that want to train a large number of officers.

Topics covered: Interacting with students with disabilities, ethics, counseling and mentoring, social media, how the teen brain develops, trauma in children, sex trafficking, school-related laws, racial biases, drugs, crime prevention, emergency preparedness.

How it works: The course is taught in a classroom with interactive learning components, PowerPoint presentations, videos and practical scenarios. Students are given a course manual and access to online resources. Students must pass a written exam at the end of the course with a score of 70% or higher to earn a NASRO certificate.

What happens if you don’t pass: Students who score below 70% on their final exam are given two weeks to complete remediation, which consists of reviewing material missed on the test and providing the instructor with a written paragraph on each incorrect response. The instructor will then pass or fail the student and notify NASRO of the determination.

Other details: The course is certified by the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training. More info: For more resources on grants, training and legislation related to SROs, check out the Indiana School Safety Hub at https://www.in.gov/schoolsafety/.

Source: National Association of School Resource Officers

Both Lyday and Schoeff say it’s unreasonable to expect an officer trained to patrol streets to be able to understand the role of an SRO without specialized training. Schoeff said no one would question the need for specific training for SWAT officers or detectives — beyond what’s taught in the police academy.

Lyday said part of the problem in Indiana lies in the different models schools use to get police into their buildings. He said it’s harder to ensure officers are properly trained if they aren’t employed by a school district or if their assignment in the district isn’t covered under a memorandum of understanding with a municipal police department.

The models of school-based policing in Indiana are:

A school corporation employs its own police department. Example: Indianapolis Public Schools Police Department.
A school corporation enters into an memorandum of understanding with a municipal police department to assign officers to work inside school buildings. Example: Carmel Clay Schools and the Carmel Police Department.
Off-duty police officers sign up for shifts inside school buildings on a daily basis.
Reserve police officers, retired police officers, or special deputy officers who work regularly in schools as private contractors.

Models where different officers rotate in and out of school buildings lack consistency and “you also run the risk of having those officers come in who are very good at patrol activities, but don’t have the training, understanding or the desire to be around kids all the time,” Lyday said.

He said models in which reserve or off-duty officers contract directly with school districts can also create problems if schools can’t ensure those officers are trained or how to hold them accountable for their actions while serving the school district.

“There are some police departments who have officers who work every day in the district, but have never been trained [as an SRO],” Lyday said.

Contract With The Indiana Department of Education

The Department of Education has partnered with NASRO to provide the 40-hour basic SRO training in regions of the state that are “underserved with trained SROs (ranging from rural to urban and everywhere in between),” according to Holly Lawson, a spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Education. Lawson said the state will fund training for up to 180 officers over the next two years. She said IDOE is still in the process of determining underserved regions of the state where these trainings will take place.

Schoeff, with NASRO, said the partnership with the IDOE sends the message this kind of training is valuable and important.

Still, he agreed with Lyday that it will take action from state lawmakers to correct the problem.

If officers continue to work in school settings without SRO training, Schoeff said he worries that will lead to increased arrests of students, among other problems.

“Police come in and they respond for the sake of keeping peace. And there’s more physical altercations, if you will, between law enforcement and more injuries, more problems, more litigation. You know, it just goes on and on and on when you’re not trained the right way,” Schoeff said.

Lee V. Gaines is a reporter at WFYI. She may be reached at lgaines@wfyi.org and on Twitter at @LeeVGaines

Tutoring, tech support, therapy: How parents want IPS to spend millions in COVID aid

2021-06-16T21:03:10+00:00

Last year, Ann Brown’s daughter struggled through seventh grade at Indianapolis Public Schools. Dealing with a health impairment, she had trouble adapting to virtual classes and keeping up with schoolwork.

“She’s lost a year in math, and it needs to be recovered,” Brown said.

On Tuesday, Brown attended an IPS town hall to tell leaders how she thinks they should spend the third round of federal COVID relief funding: Provide individualized before- and after-school tutoring to address last year’s gaps in instruction.

Brown is one of many parents and community members who IPS officials hope to hear from this week at virtual and in-person town halls and through an online form. The district was allocated almost $136 million in the latest round of federal aid for schools, and must take public comment before spending it.

IPS officials plan to look for trends from this week’s feedback. The school board will discuss how to use the relief funds at meetings next week. IPS must submit an application to the state outlining its spending plan by June 25.

Fewer than 10 parents and teachers attended Tuesday evening’s town hall at Arlington Middle School, but they generated dozens of ideas.

Attendees pushed for accelerating learning and supporting mental health. Some, including Brown, emphasized the need for tutoring services, and others suggested hiring instructional assistants to provide more one-on-one help in each classroom. Almost universally, participants asked for more funding to support mental health.

“These kids need mental health services,” Brown said. “My daughter had to start therapy.”

Jasmine Burditt, senior director of policy and partnerships at local education advocacy group RISE Indy, agreed.

“I think mental health is really important for students right now, especially after COVID,” Burditt said.

Jasmine Burditt, right, of RISE Indy, an Indianapolis education advocacy group, participates in brainstorming how Indianapolis Public Schools should spend the latest round of federal stimulus funding. Burditt said investing in students now will help them in the future.

After a year of technical difficulties, many people wanted more instruction on how to use the Chromebooks IPS purchased early in the pandemic. Attendees suggested training for parents on how to use the devices and to navigate the software so they could help kids troubleshoot. They also wanted more charging stations in classrooms and extra devices in case a student forgets theirs at home.

Some suggested mentorship programs for students transitioning into new schools. Attendees worried about students who started middle or high school virtually and didn’t have a chance to adapt to the new environment last year.

Many also mentioned relief for overworked teachers. Some suggested the district purchase school supplies that teachers typically buy out of pocket, and that it provide free therapy. Unlike many other districts, IPS didn’t provide teachers bonuses last year — and attendees wanted the district to tap into federal aid to boost teacher pay.

Some suggested awarding bonuses to students for high attendance and to parents who took on teaching responsibilities last school year.

Overall, IPS has received nearly $213 million in federal relief funding for K-12 schools, which comes out to almost $9,300 per student. As a comparison, that’s more than what IPS expects to receive per student in state funding next school year.

But the money comes with a catch: The district must spend each grant by a deadline, so the infusions can’t fix long-term financial problems. IPS must use its most recent award of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds by Sept. 30, 2024.

“ESSER is not the solution to our long-term financial sustainability,” said Weston Young, the district’s chief financial officer.

With this in mind, Young encouraged attendees to brainstorm short-term purchases with long-term impact. He suggested options like providing virtual therapy services to students or purchasing reusable classroom supplies.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson of Indianapolis Public Schools speaks at a Tuesday town hall in the Arlington Middle School cafeteria. Johnson spoke about the latest round of federal COVID relief, which IPS has three years to spend.

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said a portion of the funding will probably go toward purchasing new curriculum and updating buildings to improve air ventilation. The federal government requires that at least 20% of the latest round of aid address learning loss. Johnson said IPS might exceed that proportion.

While she wants to avoid hiring too many people knowing the funding will run out in three years, Johnson said the importance of accelerating learning now could mean IPS will invest in temporary hires or programs.

“We’re trying to think about this in terms of what we do now to improve in the future,” Johnson said.

Registration is still open for the last town hall, planned for 6 p.m. Thursday at George Washington High School.

Push for $40,000 minimum teacher salary in Indiana puts pressure on rural districts

2021-05-26T17:48:09+00:00

After wrapping up the school year last week, kindergarten teacher Nicole Damm was right back in the classroom Monday planning summer school lessons.

She’s working this summer to help her students — but also for the extra cash. As a first-year teacher at Southern Spencer Schools, Damm made $38,000, leaving her driving a 2002 Pontiac Firebird with a leaky roof for most of the year, and unsure when she’ll be able to redo the temporary plywood floors in her fixer-upper house.

Even though she thinks teachers are underpaid, the low salary is worth it to her because this was her dream: to work in the district where she went to school and where her mom still teaches.

“I want to be the reason why kids want to come to school every day,” Damm said.

To improve pay for new teachers like Damm, Indiana lawmakers are requiring schools to try to raise minimum salaries to $40,000 by 2022-23. But that’s a particularly tough ask for rural districts, where first-year teaching salaries average just $38,343.

“We want to pay people — I mean, a happy staff is a productive staff,” said Superintendent Donnie Bowsman of Randolph Southern School Corporation, where the starting salary is $34,500. “$40,000 is great — as long as you have the money to do it.”

Out of 206 rural districts in the state, 181 had minimum salaries below $40,000 last year, with some as low as $32,000, according to data compiled by the IndyStar.

The call to boost minimum teaching salaries to $40,000 was part of a budget deal: State lawmakers will increase K-12 education funding by more than 9% in two years, but they want to see those extra dollars go toward teacher pay.

There’s no legal punishment for not meeting the $40,000 goal — district leaders can just submit a letter to the state with details of funding challenges.

A 2020 state report on teacher compensation had suggested both the minimum salary and the increased funding, among its 37 recommendations. Indiana’s teacher salaries have grown at the slowest rate in the nation since 2000, the report said, leading to problems attracting new teachers and retaining experienced ones.

But several rural district leaders and educators say the $40,000 goal isn’t a quick fix for the teacher shortage.

Bowsman doesn’t think he can reach the goal in two years.

It’s more complicated than just raising salaries for first-year teachers, given that the eastern Indiana district also has 19 teachers making less than $40,000, even after four or five years at Randolph Southern.

“If I go in and I pay a first-year teacher $40,000, what do you think my other folks are going to do? We’re going to have to raise them up, too,” Bowsman said.

But the shrinking district faces a tight budget. With an enrollment of 463 students this year, a loss of just a few can result in a significant drop in state funding, which is doled out based on enrollment.

From 2017-18 to 2018-19, for example, Randolph Southern’s enrollment fell by 27 students. Its state funding dropped by almost $148,000 — but the number of teachers on payroll remained the same, since it’s difficult to cut a teacher when only a few students leave in each grade.

“It’s extremely challenging for all schools, but it is very challenging at a smaller school corporation when you lose kids,” said Bowsman, who also serves as president of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association. “It has a big impact on us.”

Randolph Southern has trouble competing with larger neighboring districts and virtual school options. Populations of rural Indiana counties have also declined in recent years as people seek out better economic opportunities in more urban areas, causing students to move away.

Like many other rural school corporations, Bowsman has taken cost-savings steps like joining a special education cooperative, sharing teachers with other districts, and outsourcing specialty classes like welding. He sees little opportunity to raise local property tax revenues through a referendum, which can be a harder sell in rural areas than urban or suburban ones.

Rather than providing an influx of cash to make raises possible, as state legislators anticipated, Bowsman said the upcoming budget will provide just enough for Randolph Southern to “stay above water.”

At Frontier Schools, Superintendent Dan Sichting said a $40,000 starting salary may not be enough to attract teachers to his 636-student district north of West Lafayette.

It’s difficult to attract new teachers to a small district surrounded by farmland when pay is higher and life more exciting in Indianapolis, he said.

“In 2006, when we had an elementary opening, I might have 30 candidates that were applying for one elementary teaching job,” Sichting said. Today, he said he would be lucky to get three.

Some teachers are concerned the state’s focus on raising the minimum salary will incentivize districts to focus new funds on first-year recruits rather than existing staff, who rarely get significant raises.

In 2011, Monica Myers started her teaching career earning $30,000 a year in a rural district. A decade later, even after switching to an administrative role in 2018, she still makes just $42,900.

Myers, now a Blackford County Schools instructional coach who plans curriculum, attends conferences, gives feedback to teachers, and more, said she’s angry that her school might offer inexperienced new hires a $40,000 paycheck while she makes just $2,900 more than that.

“I can go be a manager at Mike’s Carwash and make more money than I am now,” Myers said. “I can’t believe that teachers, who are the core root of everything, at least in my world, are making less than a McDonald’s worker or a car wash person.”

‘Deceived’: Indianapolis charter school pitch left out lawsuits, touted questionable college degrees

2021-04-23T14:46:04+00:00

To launch a “transformational” middle school in an overlooked eastside neighborhood, Indianapolis charter advocates turned to a man students call Coach T.

For two decades, Tariq Al-Nasir ran his Stemnasium enrichment programs with a mission of helping Black and brown students realize their “superpowers” in science, technology, engineering, and math. With a resume boasting advanced degrees from MIT and Stanford, Al-Nasir put forward a vision of education in which hands-on lessons in coding, flying drones, and tinkering with robots could change children’s lives.

Calling him “brilliant” at working with students, the influential charter incubator The Mind Trust gave Al-Nasir a two-year, $800,000 fellowship last summer to develop Stemnasium Science Math Engineering Middle School.

But a Chalkbeat investigation found that the rosy charter pitch painted over troubling details — lawsuits, financial troubles, questionable academic credentials — that escaped notice by city charter officials and The Mind Trust.

A bankruptcy filed six months before Al-Nasir won the prestigious fellowship showed that he had accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars in debts while running the programs that inspired his charter proposal — including a nearly $500,000 judgment in a lawsuit that alleged Al-Nasir wrote bad checks to cover outstanding Stemnasium bills.

His resume lists a bachelor’s degree from New York University, a master’s from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate from Stanford University — each earned at times when the employment section of his resume placed him at jobs in other cities. All three of those institutions told Chalkbeat they had no records of Al-Nasir’s attendance.

In 2016, Tariq Al-Nasir, left, pitched a winning idea for a new charter school at a Mind Trust competition.

After questions from Chalkbeat, Al-Nasir disclosed his financial challenges to city officials tasked with evaluating charter school applications for approval. Last week, Al-Nasir withdrew his proposal to start a new school.

The Mind Trust had known about the financial mismanagement and still supported Al-Nasir’s charter school bid, saying that he deserved a second chance — until Al-Nasir, when asked about his academic credentials last week, provided information that “raised even more questions about the validity of the degrees,” The Mind Trust CEO Brandon Brown said.

The Mind Trust ended Al-Nasir’s fellowship Monday.

“We as an organization felt like we had been deceived, and at the same time we were heartbroken that there was a clear integrity breach,” Brown said.

Brown pledged to improve the school incubator’s vetting processes, saying, “If we knew what we know now, we would have never made this investment.”

Attorney Harley Means said Al-Nasir had no comment in response to emailed questions about his college degrees and charter application withdrawal. Means previously said that questions over the financial issues led to Al-Nasir withdrawing the application. Al-Nasir also declined to comment on his financial problems, citing pending litigation associated with the bankruptcy case.

The case raises questions of transparency and accountability in the chartering process in Indianapolis, where a robust charter school scene has reshaped education over the past two decades.

Without the inquiries from Chalkbeat, it’s unclear whether Al-Nasir’s money troubles or unsubstantiated educational claims would have come to light. The Indianapolis mayor’s office, which oversees more than 40 charter schools in the city, is often named among the strongest charter authorizers in the nation. But its director acknowledged that officials don’t vet new applicants’ financial histories or even run a simple free search on a public database of court records that would reveal lawsuits.

It’s also unclear how the obvious discrepancies on Al-Nasir’s resume went undetected by so many for so long.

One expert questioned why a charter authorizer wouldn’t take basic steps to catch critical issues when evaluating whether to approve a school for public funding and responsibility for children’s education.

The recent scandal at Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, where a state investigation found leaders misspent more than $85 million in public funds by allegedly inflating enrollment and funneling money to a web of related companies, shows the risks of lax charter oversight, said Brendan Maxcy, an associate dean at the Indiana University School of Education at IUPUI.

Charter school authorizers “need to have their feet held to the fire to make sure they hold applicants to a high standard,” Maxcy said. “The stakes — for families, for students, for the public — are just too high.”

If you ask the people Al-Nasir allegedly shortchanged, some think he genuinely wants to help students succeed. When contacted by Chalkbeat, six people to whom Al-Nasir has owed debts agreed on this: For better or for worse, he has a magnetic personality and big dreams.

Greg Gage was drawn in by Al-Nasir’s compelling backstory of how his troubled teenage years led him to want to connect students from low-income communities with STEM opportunities starting at an early age.

“He wanted to bring his experiences back to other kids,” said Gage, CEO and co-founder of Backyard Brains, a company that sold science experiment kits to Al-Nasir. “We wanted to help him out with that.”

Backyard Brains CEO Greg Gage wanted to help Al-Nasir, who ordered over 200 neuroscience kits from Gage’s company.

Al-Nasir made a splash with Stemnasium when he won a $50,000 prize from The Mind Trust in a 2016 contest to design a new school concept. At the time, Stemnasium was an after-school program in Philadelphia. With the vote of confidence from The Mind Trust, Al-Nasir moved to Indiana.

He left behind a hint of financial instability in Philadelphia: In 2014, a former Stemnasium chief operating officer won a nearly $10,000 claim against Al-Nasir, court records show, for not paying her salary. Al-Nasir did not pay the claim, according to court records.

Court records and bankruptcy documents show that Al-Nasir’s debts soon began to stack up in Indianapolis. Al-Nasir faced two lawsuits over unpaid bills, according to Marion County court records, and after he didn’t formally respond to the complaints, judges issued default judgments against him.

In one case filed in 2018, an instructor said she never received her final paycheck. A court judgment showed the $1,000 in unpaid wages ballooned into a $7,000 judgment.

In another case filed in 2019, a tech company said Al-Nasir failed to settle $83,000 in invoices for cash advances and supplies such as computers and software. On top of the amount owed, a judge ordered Al-Nasir to pay an additional penalty of nearly $500,000 because of allegations that he wrote four bad checks to cover his outstanding bills, court records show.

Reached by phone briefly, Al-Nasir said his financial problems stemmed from losing a contract, then referred other questions to his attorney. They did not respond to additional questions.

Filing for bankruptcy last year discharged most of Al-Nasir’s debts, though Tech Innovation still sought to have its judgments paid. Its case intervening in the bankruptcy is ongoing, and Al-Nasir has disputed the allegations of check deception.

Al-Nasir’s bankruptcy documents describe how nearly $13,000 from Stemnasium’s bank account was seized to pay for the Tech Innovation lawsuit and how he lost $150,000 worth of laptops, robots, and drones when his storage unit was liquidated due to unpaid rent.

The bankruptcy wiped clean debts including $10,000 owed to Kewa Forde, a human resources consultant who said she hired instructors to work for Stemnasium. Al-Nasir kept promising to pay for her work, she said — until he stopped answering her calls.

“He’s playing hide-and-seek with people, and it’s going to come to an end sooner or later,” Forde said.

The bankruptcy also purged the more than $30,000 bill Al-Nasir owed to Backyard Brains. Gage, the company’s leader, said Al-Nasir had ordered more than 200 neuroscience kits. The Backyard Brains team had flown to Indianapolis on their own dime, Gage added, to demonstrate the products.

“We were super excited because it was, at that point, our largest sale ever,” Gage said. “It stung having to write that off and take the loss for that.”

Those financial problems, however, didn’t stand in the way of Al-Nasir winning the charter school fellowship with The Mind Trust last summer.

The fellowship was something of a golden ticket. Founded by former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and his charter school director David Harris, The Mind Trust has been at the center of Indianapolis’ education scene for 15 years. The influential nonprofit has backed the creation of more than three dozen city charter schools and played an instrumental role in remaking Indianapolis Public Schools through charter partnerships.

Out of 16 new charter schools approved by the mayor’s charter school office in the past five years, all but one had ties to The Mind Trust.

Brown, The Mind Trust’s top executive, knew about Al-Nasir’s financial issues but believed the incubator could help Al-Nasir develop budgeting skills. He said he trusted Al-Nasir after having known him for several years and felt the financial concerns were outweighed by Stemnasium’s positive impact on families like Denisha Cole’s.

Cole, an Indianapolis parent, signed up her 7-year-old daughter last fall for Stemnasium’s free virtual Saturday classes. The home-schooled second-grader built a drink dispenser out of a cardboard box and a jump rope pulley to ferry a doll down from the closet.

“She walks around saying she’s an engineer,” Cole said. “My daughter has always been creative, building and putting things together, but the word ‘engineering’ wasn’t played in our household a lot. That’s exactly what my daughter is doing.”

Cole leads a parent group that supports Stemnasium. She also took Al-Nasir’s place as president of his new company Stemnasium Learning Labs; the Stemnasium organizations associated with the lawsuits and debts have been disbanded.

It was also important to The Mind Trust’s commitment to racial equity, Brown said, to invest in Black entrepreneurs, who he feels are held to higher standards but given fewer supports and opportunities.

“We’re not going to hold it against leaders that are mission-aligned, have strong skill sets, [and] share our values, just because they’ve made mistakes or they’ve had challenges in their past,” Brown said.

In his charter application, Al-Nasir sketched out a potential $1 million in state funding in the first-year budget of his proposed middle school, with room to more than triple in size to eventually serve up to 400 students. The Mind Trust had also pledged $300,000 for startup costs.

Despite the public funding at stake, officials at the Indianapolis mayor’s charter school office said they don’t vet whether applicants have a history of financial mismanagement.

In its six-month application cycle, the charter authorizer instead focuses largely on a prospective school leader’s plans, intentions, and goals.

Patrick McAlister, Indianapolis’ charter school director, said officials don’t specifically vet an applicant’s financial history when looking at budget and operations plans.

Patrick McAlister, director of the city charter school office, said “it’s hard to say” whether the authorizer would have found out about Al-Nasir’s lawsuits and debts had he not disclosed them in the face of questions from Chalkbeat.

“We ask a lot of questions that could help us get to that information,” McAlister said. “We do a lot of independent research, we follow up with partner organizations, and get a general sense of what’s going on with any of our applicants.”

He added: “We’re always open to improvement, and we’ll look at all the different ways that we can investigate those who are applying.”

Al-Nasir withdrew before finishing the application process, which would have included an interview with charter officials and two public hearings before a panel voted on whether to approve the new school.

While publishing applications for the press and public to scrutinize and holding open meetings contribute to the review process, experts say authorizers should also use as many tools as they can to evaluate a prospective charter school.

Authorizers “shouldn’t and can’t rely upon an interested third party to do that,” said Maxcy, the associate dean at IUPUI. “It seems like the role that [Chalkbeat] played is the role that should be built into the authorizer’s responsibility.”

The Mind Trust still planned to continue supporting Al-Nasir after he withdrew his charter application.

Brown said that the withdrawal was due to concerns that a middle school with only two grades wouldn’t be sustainable. Only enrolling seventh and eighth graders would limit the amount of per-student funding a school could draw from the state, and a new charter school would have to support its own set of administrative costs on top of educational expenses.

The Mind Trust continues to seek a middle school option for Arlington Woods, but officials will likely look to expand an existing school to minimize the additional administrative overhead.

But The Mind Trust cut ties with Al-Nasir after Chalkbeat raised questions over the educational claims on Al-Nasir’s resume.

Al-Nasir listed earning his Stanford doctorate, for example, from 2015 to 2018 — years when his resume says his work was based in Philadelphia and Indianapolis, not California.

When The Mind Trust pressed Al-Nasir for proof of his college degrees, officials could not verify the information he provided, Brown said, and Al-Nasir stopped responding to the organization’s questions.

“We felt like that crossed the line, relative to the integrity of the relationship, and could no longer support an association with Tariq,” Brown said.

Brown couldn’t say why the overlapping dates on Al-Nasir’s resume didn’t raise red flags, though he noted that academic credentials tend to carry less weight once an educator has decades of experience.

Over less than a year of the fellowship, The Mind Trust paid Stemnasium about $130,000 for Al-Nasir’s salary and expenses, in addition to spending some $88,000 to support him through coaching and other services.

Brown pledged to look for ways to vet the biographical information that prospective fellows provide, “so that we’re not just completely taking the word of the candidate.”

For Brown, the breach of trust potentially puts Al-Nasir’s financial challenges in a different light. Integrity, he said, is the most important trait of a leader: “It’s a black-and-white, non-negotiable piece of what we do.”

This Indianapolis principal wants to prepare students for jobs that don’t exist yet

2021-03-16T00:33:30+00:00

When she started her teaching career in Indianapolis Public Schools, Shatoya Ward tried to reach every student who came into her classroom. Some of them she could connect with, and some of them she couldn’t.

She wondered: What happened to the students who struggled? When Ward went to work at an adult high school, geared toward helping those over 18 finish their diplomas, she found her answer.

“They grow up, and they become adults — sometimes with the same issues,” Ward said. “They’re at a different age, but they’re my kids all over again.”

Those students told her about the barriers they faced: They didn’t form relationships with their teachers. They didn’t feel schools understood their cultures and backgrounds. Nobody believed in them, and they didn’t believe in themselves, either.

What stopped many of those students, Ward realized, were gaps in life skills. Some of them, for example, didn’t understand their transcripts or credits despite having some prior high school experience — “that’s data analysis right there,” Ward said. “That’s the start of it. Then you start thinking, what next? If you want to go to college, you start working backward. That is a critical skill component that you wouldn’t believe so many students don’t have.”

When Ward got the chance five years ago to create a new charter high school, Purdue Polytechnic, she wanted to do things differently. If they could teach students to think critically, find resources, and manage their time, would it change their course as adults?

Ward recently spoke with Chalkbeat about preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet and supporting staff members through the pandemic.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

At Purdue Polytechnic High School, Principal Shatoya Ward wants students to learn life skills such as problem-solving and logical reasoning.

Has there been anything in your career up to this point that prepared you for this school year?

At the start, we have been set on reinventing high school. Working previously in adult education at the Excel Center and being a part of redefining what secondary education looks like for adults positioned me to expand my perspective on the needs of high school students. The last few years, we have worked to set up our students for jobs that do not exist yet in a future society. People always ask, how do you do that? We do it by engaging students in authentic, relevant experiences that provide opportunities to coach and provide feedback on skills that are transferable in college, careers, and life. We have 20 competencies that we coach our students on — skills such as problem-solving, logical reasoning, historical thinking, and data analysis.

If you prepare students to be agile, if you prepare them for critical thinking, they’re going to see issues or complex problems that they want to solve. They’re going to invent things. We want them to be able to express themselves and get themselves in the position to reach their goals.

How are you helping to guide your staff through this unprecedented time?

This year we have made the biggest investment in technology needs, mental health, and tokens of appreciation. We sent care packages and did online trivia with prizes. We sponsored lunch through DoorDash gift certificates, and we did lunch-and-learns to talk through some of the lessons and strategies that worked for us in virtual learning. We made sure that we took the extra effort and created a culture of belonging and community to support each other.

What does a typical day look like for you now?

Busy! Before COVID, as an administrator, you were focused on student achievement and staff development. Now you find yourself spending more time on making decisions ensuring the safety of staff and students as the priority.

How are you addressing learning loss following months of remote learning?

We have begun to address learning loss by dedicating resources toward Purdue University student tutors working with our students and setting aside time before, during, and after school for the support. We will also dedicate resources to a summer session of academic support for our students.

After nearly a year of upheaval — and in some cases grief and trauma — there’s been a lot of talk about the importance of social-emotional learning. Are you doing anything differently to account for what so many families have been through?

While monitoring the state data on deaths and positive cases of COVID, we became acutely aware of the toll that loss of lives were taking on the community and our students. It hit home when staff and students lost loved one themselves. Additionally, parents were reaching out to us pleading for help for students who just did not adjust well to isolation due to virtual learning.

We were so fortunate to be able to partner with Damar Services, which provides mental health services for our staff and students coping with trauma and loss. We also made it a priority to set aside time to engage in activities that students and staff enjoy together to foster community and belonging, like through clubs or e-sports. It lightens up the mood.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

If I didn’t have people in my life who believed in me enough to guide me toward opportunities and helped me access them, I would have gone a different path that may have led to a darker future. I hope to be the light in students’ futures, especially to underrepresented minorities. The more our underrepresented students interact with STEM-focused professionals, the more they understand the importance of our school’s mission, and the more I am driven toward my mission.

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

I would like to highlight “Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement” by Zaretta Hammond. This book helped me to see what it takes and provided practical strategies to make learning accessible and relevant to our students, especially our underrepresented minorities.

What’s the best advice you ever received — and how have you put it into action?

The best advice I have ever received is: “You do not have to know all the answers; just surround yourself with people who provide you with access to the answers.” I am so fortunate to work with resilient, passionate, driven, and brilliant people. We go hard for our students and community.

To help deal with COVID, IPS will add administrators at some schools

2020-12-19T00:21:37+00:00

To increase instructional leadership and help with COVID-19 contact tracing, Indianapolis Public Schools will add an assistant principal at 10 of its smaller schools next fall. To do that, the district will remove an assistant principal at larger campuses and will draw on funds reserved to address high student mobility.

Currently, the task of leading a school and managing additional work brought on by the pandemic is overwhelming principals, IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said Thursday night. The board subsequently voted unanimously to require every school without an assistant principal to hire one.

“If you are a principal without an assistant, you are doing both sides of the balance beam,” Chief Schools Officer Nathalie Henderson said, referring to shouldering academic leadership and coronavirus tasks.

To fund the new assistant principals, the district will cut some of those positions at its largest campuses. Officials capped the number of assistant principals at three per campus; schools with more of those administrators will lose them. It may reassign the six current assistant principals whose current positions will disappear. The district also will tap $500,000 normally reserved to compensate schools that have had historically high student mobility.

The board’s mandate comes at a time when the district’s budget is strained. IPS enrollment has fallen by nearly 4%, or 1,200 students, from last fall. Because the state funds education per pupil, the district will receive $15 million less this school year.

In response to a question Thursday from board member Evan Hawkins, Johnson said that by eliminating the funds for schools with high student mobility, the district will lose a cushion to protect schools whose funding doesn’t match their fluctuating enrollment.

“Schools are going to need to be even more intentional about anticipating and planning for what shifts that come,” Johnson said.

She said school leaders will have to think about how they can make their campuses more appealing to their communities in order to increase and stabilize enrollment.

The board mandate contrasts with recent efforts to give principals more freedom over how they spend their budgets.

Carmel’s first Black school board member seeks to be a bridge for the community

2020-12-07T21:54:30+00:00

Louise Jackson chose to live in Carmel for the same reason many other families do: for its quality schools.

Now, seven years after moving to the suburban, predominately white city just north of the capital, the Indianapolis native will become the first Black member of the Carmel Clay school board.

Out of nine candidates in the November election, Jackson landed one of two at-large seats. She had highlighted her background as a school volunteer and a mother to a sixth and a 10th grader, as well as her corporate experience in human relations.

“One of the reasons why I wanted to become a part of the board is to be a bridge from the people that maybe have had a less-than-desirable experience in Carmel, and those that have had a good experience,” Jackson said.

She pledged to support teachers, keep schools safe, and create individualized plans for students, and also to ensure that every student and family feels safe, accepted, and included.

Jackson’s election comes amid heightened racial tension after Black, Latino, and Asian students spoke out about racism they experienced in the Carmel Clay school district.

In a YouTube video posted in July, current and former students talked on and off camera about being called “slaves” and the N-word, and receiving threats of lynching. They said they did not feel safe with their teachers.

The 16,400 student body of the Carmel Clay district is 71% white, 15% Asian, 4% Latino, and 4% Black.

In the video made by the group Carmel Against Racial Injustice, one graduate called Carmel a “sundown town” — segregated places that discriminated against and excluded people of color — and said that “to Black citizens, Carmel is a glass menagerie where racism is allowed to thrive and where you fear for your livelihood for speaking out.”

Two lawsuits have been filed accusing the city of racial profiling, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Jackson said while she’s never personally experienced racism in Carmel, it breaks her heart that many African American families and other non-white people have had challenging experiences in the school district and the city. Jackson said she hopes to improve the educational experience for all students.

Carmel Clay Superintendent Michael Beresford said Jackson will bring a fresh perspective to the five-person school board. She listens, collaborates, and people are drawn toward her, he said.

“I think she brings a great skill set,” Beresford said. “And also I think her having the Black perspective is going to be really important to our equity and inclusion work that we’re doing.”

Jackson, a breast cancer survivor, said challenges do not dissuade her. It causes her to lean in and listen. During her campaign, she said she reached out to Asians, Muslims, Republicans, and Democrats to understand various perspectives.

Jackson said she brings a unique point of view because she works in human resources, currently at Salesforce. “I help us look at our hiring processes and ensure that we have removed bias from them,” Jackson said.

She also founded a personalized coaching and strategy development company, Talent Cabinet.

Beresford said the district has included equity and inclusion in its three-year strategic plan. By January, he said the district will have its first diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator who will help increase diversity among its staff.

Kayla Seymour, a co-founder of Carmel Against Racial Injustice, lauded Jackson’s election as a great step forward. She said Jackson undoubtedly will feel pressure on her shoulders.

“Because you are the first, everyone is looking at you to make all of these changes and represent an entire community of people of color now,” Seymour said. “You alone cannot be that one voice, let alone do all this work by yourself to represent an entire community.”

Seymour charged that the district has not shown urgency in responding to allegations of racism, which the group wrote about on a Facebook post.

“It’s parents who have been wanting to see these changes and have been hearing these stories of their own kids going through this in these school buildings every single day and have asked the principal, have asked the superintendent for their assistance and nothing is being done,” Seymour said.

Beresford said, “We listened to them, we met with them, we heard their interest, but we have a mission, we have a strategic plan.”

Jackson said she wants to make sure that people who look like her feel like the board is where they can belong. She has people reaching out to talk to her.

“I hope that as a result of being on the board more people feel like, ‘hey, I want to raise my hand.’”

Indiana officials give flexibility on length of school days but hesitate to loosen too many rules

2020-10-07T16:37:53+00:00

Indiana education officials will allow a handful of school systems to take an unconventional approach to the length of their school year during the pandemic.

With the changes approved Wednesday, a few districts — including Center Grove Schools and Paramount charter network in Indianapolis — can offer longer school days to take advantage of in-person learning and cut back on e-learning days to help with planning.

They will still give the same number of hours of instruction as a normal school year but don’t have to do it in the standard 180 days.

“Under the current environment, every day with our students is a gift, and we treasure each moment for student instruction,” Brown County Schools Superintendent Laura Hammack told the State Board of Education.

About a dozen school systems sought to use a new state law, crafted before the pandemic, that aimed to lessen the burden of state training and reporting requirements. With the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, they hoped to gain temporary flexibility as they take on different instructional models, relieve administrative tasks, and prepare to quickly adapt if the pandemic worsens.

But state education officials balked at waiving several training requirements in areas they saw as critical, including police training, bullying, and child suicide awareness and prevention. They only allowed schools to skip an annual report on data that’s already publicly available and requirements on addressing gang activity.

“I think right now the safety of our kids is even more heightened,” said board member Pat Mapes, superintendent of Perry Township Schools, “and that the areas of minimal standards of training — police departments as well as suicide training — is very important for everyone to go through.”

Board member Pete Miller, a former Republican state senator, countered that the state has tacked on too many annual requirements for schools.

“No one is saying that suicide prevention and these other items are not important. What we’re saying is that these are your non-academic things we’re asking schools to do,” Miller said. “And then pretty soon you’ve got the straw that breaks the camel’s back in terms of these non-academic things.”

The board also drew a line on how schools approach instruction to prevent significant reductions in school time.

Switzerland County Schools, for example, can do two-hour delayed starts once a quarter for professional development, but the board denied another district’s request for early dismissals on Fridays.

Baugo Community Schools’ request would have cut short educational time for students to help teachers manage the increased workloads of instructing both in-person and remote students simultaneously.

“Our problem is that we are having our teachers do two things at the same time. They are working incredibly hard and are giving enormous amounts of personal time to make this happen,” Baugo school officials wrote in a memo. “We recognize that during this pandemic, a flexible, virtual option is important but it has required a much more significant amount of time from teachers than anticipated.”

Schools can continue to ask for flexibility throughout the year, and state board members expect this round will signal what they deem acceptable. The waivers could also inform education policy in the future, as lawmakers will examine what districts requested and the effects of the changes.

Indiana back-to-school teacher training: First, how are you?

2020-07-29T20:32:34+00:00

On the first day since March that Beech Grove High School teachers returned to their buildings, they didn’t talk about teaching academics.

Instead, they reflected on the trauma they’ve lived through during the pandemic. Principal Elizabeth Walters wanted to check in with teachers, making sure they felt safe so they could help students feel the same.

“My goal today was to provide some structure in what we know will continue to be a chaotic situation,” Walters said after training Monday.

Beech Grove and other Indiana districts refocused orientation and training for the new school year to address effects of the pandemic. Some schools are bracing teachers for tending to students’ emotional needs and preparing to possibly shift to remote learning again as coronavirus cases rise in the state. Some schools already have decided to start the year virtually.

Across Indiana, schools aren’t just resuming. They’re welcoming their staff to a new reality, and asking them, “how are you doing?”

Normally, returning teachers might fixate on class sizes and worry about finishing students’ schedules. They’d talk about historical discipline and attendance problems.

This year, they’re putting those issues on the back burner.

“We are by nature very controlling,” Walters said about educators. “We are Type A personalities. The conversations now, I think, are really about teachers embracing the unknown.”

First-year teacher Spencer King expected to look to veteran teachers for advice, but he now finds himself in the same position as educators who’ve been working for decades. That can be at once confusing and reassuring.

“It’s like we’re all starting over again, and we’re all learning together through this,” said King, who will teach fourth grade in person at Garden City Elementary School in Wayne Township.

He thinks the conversations about safety, online learning, and classroom cleanliness will serve him throughout his teaching career, including in a post-pandemic world.

He expects to track effective online platforms, learn to teach students healthy habits, and figure out the best way to sanitize a classroom.

“I like to think it’s going to be invaluable as I move forward,” King said.

He has supplemented his district’s training with regular Zoom and FaceTime calls with fellow new teachers. They’re looking through the district’s guidance together and brainstorming practices like how to encourage one-way traffic flow and write classroom procedures to encourage social distancing.

He’s also thinking ahead, in case an outbreak or high case numbers force the district into complete virtual instruction. He’s going to keep gallon-sized Ziplock bags on hand for students to store their belongings, which he could then distribute to their homes if they aren’t able to return.

Across the state, districts have augmented training to prepare to resume school, whatever shape that takes.

When Wayne Township moved back its first day of school, Chief Personnel Officer Shenia Suggs said school leaders built in extra days for training. This week, new teachers are going through a digital seminar introducing them to online platforms.

All new teachers in the district go through 32 hours of training over two years, which this year will be online and include tips on teaching remotely.

“It’s what we have to be able to do, and do well,” Suggs said.

Teachers are drawing on lessons they learned from the abrupt switch to remote learning in the spring.

Connor O’Day, who student taught in Wayne Township last spring during his final semester of college, will teach completely online this fall. He said he feels comfortable with the assignment now that he’s familiar with the district’s online system.

“I feel pretty confident going into the school year so far,” he said.

O’Day will teach 32 students in his online class — slightly bigger than a typical sixth grade class. In addition to coordinating with his fellow sixth grade teachers, O’Day is seeking advice from people with experience teaching online.

“It’s just a lot of asking questions, experimenting with different features on Google Classroom, and seeing what would be best to be used for my students,” O’Day said.

New teachers at Christel House always learn how the charter school network handles grading and teacher assessment. But this year, they’ll also learn how to teach virtually. Head of Academics Carol Larson said the network had fortuitously planned before winter break to triple teacher training time for this school year.

So Larson brought in outside experts to teach sessions on implicit bias, the transition to remote learning, and virtual lessons for students with disabilities.

The training also looked at how teachers can recognize in a virtual format when students have challenges associated with mental health, and how they can respond to those situations remotely.

Beech Grove provided teachers with three courses on online instruction that ranged from an introduction to the online learning platform Canvas to best practices for teaching students in person and online at the same time.

Beech Grove students will start Thursday completely online, and then students may choose to switch to a hybrid format. Principal Walters said all teachers are going through training on the blended model.

“We really felt that it would be a more efficient use of our teachers’ time,” Walters said.

No one knows quite what to expect this school year — academically and logistically.

In Wayne Township, new teacher King hopes families understand that teachers won’t be perfect.

“There are already those apprehensions about ‘Oh, there’s this teacher who not only has not had their own classroom before, but they’re having their own classroom during this pandemic,” he said. “And that changes the whole game.”

5 ways to make teaching more inclusive of Black students: Indiana education experts

2020-07-15T21:24:43+00:00

When Indiana schools reopen, teachers need to address the overlapping crises of the coronavirus pandemic and police brutality, which exacerbate inequities Black students face, said Lasana Kazembe, an assistant professor at IUPUI.

“White supremacy is the No. 1 organizing principle in this country...Our experience with education is no different,” Kazembe said.

As educators plan to resume instruction, Kazembe and other education experts offered advice on how to confront racism in the classroom and make teaching more inclusive of students of color. They spoke Wednesday morning during an annual education conference organized by the nonprofit Indiana Black Expo. Nearly 5,000 people registered for the virtual conference.

Here are five takeaways from the session:

1. Recognize emotional effects of pandemic

School leaders should position conversations about reopening schools in the context of overt and structural racism, IUPUI associate faculty member Seena Skelton said. Black and Latino Americans contract COVID-19 at three times the rate of white people. So teachers need to recognize that Black children are grieving at disproportionate rates.

Black children could manifest anger in response to the coronavirus and police killings of Black people. That anger could take the shape of difficulty sleeping that makes it harder to focus in class, deviant behavior, avoidance of work that could add extra stress, and a tendency to overplan and overcontrol. These behaviors are typically characterized as “problematic” in schools.

“We want to think about how we are training these behaviors, and what these behaviors are actually masking — what these behaviors are actually messaging,” Skelton said.

2. Focus on what students gained during the pandemic, instead of focusing on learning loss

In addition to planning what school will look like logistically, educators are planning to make up for learning gaps due to school closures in the spring. Cristina Santamaría Graff, an assistant professor of special education at IUPUI, said that view stems from a Eurocentric, white perspective.

“You’re quantifying it through a very narrow scope,” she said.

Educators should instead look at how students are reentering schools with a new understanding of the world around them.

3. Seek parent feedback beyond surveys

Santamaría Graff encouraged school leaders to take a step further than surveys and questionnaires when gathering feedback on reopening plans.

“A survey doesn’t always reach Black and brown families of color,” she said.

Schools could find cultural liaisons within the community that can represent families’ voices and encourage them to share their honest critiques. Then, school officials need to actively listen to their feedback.

Santamaría Graff also suggested virtual town halls to facilitate deeper conversations than are possible through a survey.

4. Pair student support with high expectations

Educators often view supportive communities and high expectations as mutually exclusive goals, Skelton said.

But that’s not true, she said, and educators should aim to be a “warm demander” in both in-person and virtual environments in the fall. Educators can do this by checking in with students and respecting each student’s strengths.

“Every child’s emotions are valid emotions,” Skelton said.

5. Promote racial literacy

When teachers spot stereotypes in material or classroom interactions, Skelton said they should confront the stereotype and create a counter-narrative. Teachers should take special care to help Black children understand their own history.

“So much of our history has been erased and marginalized through instruction in our schools,” she said.

Back to school: Indiana education chief favors acceleration over remediation

2020-07-14T19:01:17+00:00

Indiana’s chief academic officer advised educators to use grade-level material this year rather than review previous curriculum to address widely anticipated student learning loss.

Robin LeClaire said teaching to accelerate will prevent students from falling into a catch-up cycle. This method could especially benefit Indiana’s most vulnerable children, who have also been the most heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic, she said.

“If we focus on remediation, we will be playing catch-up with our students until they graduate,” she said.

School officials across the country do not yet know the extent to which teachers will need to catch students up this year — and potentially in years to come — after districts closed school buildings in March to guard against the coronavirus and teachers abruptly shifted to remote learning.

LeClaire spoke to educators Tuesday morning during Indiana Black Expo’s virtual education conference of nearly 5,000 people, just two weeks before Indiana school leaders expect to restart. LeClaire said educators should teach to accelerate regardless of whether their school plans to reopen completely virtually, as a hybrid, or offer a choice of all in-person or all-online.

With varying school formats, teachers will need to find new ways to diagnose students’ skills.

“We cannot have business as usual as our mentality,” LeClaire said. “We have to overcome that.”

The State Board of Education approved a measure last week to allow schools to administer a makeup third-grade literacy exam this fall to assess fourth graders’ progress. Some charter schools are offering virtual summer school to try to close learning gaps.

The state does not require schools to add instructional time this year to make up for days lost in the spring, she said. But school districts can still choose to add time on their own.

Indiana requires districts to provide 180 days of instruction per year. Each day for elementary students must include at least five hours of instruction, and for secondary students, six hours. But, LeClaire said, that doesn’t mean that students must be on camera for all of those hours if they’re doing virtual learning. But they do need to be engaged in a learning activity or project.

The state education department is offering grade-level videos and exercises on its website that students can work on remotely, without Wi-Fi. In response to surging interest, LeClaire said, the department is also offering resources for teachers on civil rights education.

These new Indianapolis charter schools didn’t plan on a pandemic. They’re opening anyway.

2020-07-09T21:16:24+00:00

School leaders at Believe Circle City High School, a charter school opening soon in Indianapolis, had originally planned for students to spend Friday afternoons outside the classroom. They’d volunteer, visit colleges, and participate in neighborhood cleanups.

But many places have closed their doors or barred visitors because of the coronavirus, and some students won’t be in classrooms at all, opting for a virtual option — so school leaders are switching that experience to Zoom, rethinking what was once a defining feature of their academic model.

“With the pandemic, all of that feels almost impossible,” Believe Director Kimberly Neal-Brannum said.

Believe is one of five charter schools in Indianapolis that are opening for the 2020-21 academic year, in addition to three Indianapolis Public Schools “innovation schools” where charter operators are taking over management of existing schools.

These new schools face more challenges this year because of the pandemic, especially with enrolling students as families are preoccupied with a host of other concerns. School leaders who’ve spent years designing creative academic models are modifying aspects of their plans to catch up students from the spring, while pitching their personalized approaches as uniquely suited to connect with students in this disruptive environment.

The new schools see enrollment as a particular challenge in Indianapolis, which has a saturated school market that pressures schools to compete for students. Schools receive funding for each student they enroll, so leaders are under pressure to attract enough students to be financially sustainable.

Believe school staff members weren’t able to canvass for two months, and they suspect families were preoccupied with pandemic-related hardships that prevented them from enrolling. They anticipate 75 to 90 students this year instead of a target 90 to 115, Neal-Brannum said.

However, school officials at another new charter, Rooted School Indianapolis, have seen enrollment numbers surpass their goal. Before the coronavirus, Rooted leaders selected classrooms of about 200 square feet and a 1:15 teacher-student ratio, so now they’re confident that students will be able to practice social distancing. They’re opening with 60 ninth graders this fall and will add a class of 60 students each year to gradually populate the high school.

“We have the space, we have the technology and the resources to be able to help our students succeed and feel comfortable in this environment,” founder Ma’at Lands said.

As student well-being gains attention because of the pandemic’s effect on families, leaders of a charter called the PATH School are stressing their commitment to social and emotional development. The PATH School, which is overhauling Indianapolis Public Schools’ Stephen Foster School 67, will provide teachers with six days of training on social and emotional development to help ensure students feel safe when they return to school buildings, school leader Alicia Hervey said.

Here are the charter schools opening in Indianapolis:

Believe Circle City High School

Believe will use dual enrollment, in high school and community college or technical school, to jump-start high school students to a career certification or associate degree. Students will complete most of their high school credits in grades nine and 10 and will start taking classes through a local community college in grades 11 and 12.

Believe is founded by people of color who are “invested in ensuring that people of color see themselves at all levels of education,” Neal-Brannum said. As racial justice protests spread across the nation in recent months, school leaders revamped their ninth grade literature course to focus on social justice and are weaving discussions about the current civil rights battle into other curriculum.

Rooted School Indianapolis

Rooted School is opening at Eastern Star Church in Arlington Woods. The church will offer families support like financial aid and food to help children focus on their education.

Rooted’s academic model focuses on technology, and through industry partnerships, students can work toward technology certifications and paid internships. School leaders hope that students will graduate with both a college offer and a full-time employment offer.

They plan to provide university student tutors, personalized plans, and extra support outside school hours to address learning losses during the pandemic. At least 60% of enrolled students are taking summer classes, Lands said.

The PATH School

The IPS board voted earlier this year to restart the near northside’s School 67, or Stephen Foster, under The PATH School’s management in an effort to improve its chronically low test scores. The decision was initially met with passionate resistance from some parents, who worried about losing staff with whom they’d already built connections. Some of those opponents were eventually won over once they learned more about the new operator.

PATH stands for Purpose, Achievement, Talent, Heart. Among planned changes, teachers will move to content-specific teaching, meaning students will have different teachers for each discipline. In an expansion of support for students and teachers, the new leaders will increase school social workers from one to three, and instructional coaches will help teachers develop skills by subject.

Adelante Schools

Adelante Schools will take over management of Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School on the south side. The campus will remain a K-8 innovation school, which means it’s overseen by Indianapolis Public Schools but managed independently. Donnan was previously run by for-profit operator Charter Schools USA, which was recently ousted from managing Donnan and two other Indianapolis takeover schools.

The new operator is a non-profit organization based in Indianapolis and led by Eddie Rangel and Matthew Rooney.

Of the other schools formerly run by Charter Schools USA, Howe High School has closed and existing charter school Christel House Academy will run Manual High School and later move its south campus into the building in 2021.

HIM By HER Collegiate School for the Arts

This school will open for K-2 with a focus on serving students from marginalized families. Its model centers around academic rigor, character development, and a strong school community.

HIM by HER stands for Helping Improve Mankind by Healing Every Race. The non-profit was founded in 2014 by Michelle Christian Dunn and Harry C. Dunn III, an Indianapolis homicide detective whose goal is to target at-risk children and counteract the school-to-prison pipeline. The charter purchased the school building that formerly operated as the IPS Forest Manor Professional Development Center on the east side.

GEO Next Generation Academy

At this east side high school in partnership with Indiana Black Expo, students take dual-credit classes at Ivy Tech Community College for free. They can start taking college classes in ninth grade and will be able to earn an associate degree before graduating high school. The campus will open this fall for grades nine to 11 and add 12th grade in 2021.

GEO also runs Gary Middle College, and its 21st Century Charter School in Gary will function as a model for the new Indianapolis campus. The charter network previously ran two schools in Indianapolis, but both were moved to other operators before closing in 2015.

Phalen Leadership Academy Elementary at Louis B. Russell School 48

This neighborhood school was managed by IPS until this year. IPS hired Phalen to run the campus as an innovation restart school. The pre-K-6 campus will stay in the same building but under new leadership.

Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy

Phalen Leadership Academies will run an all-online K-12 school. Phalen’s students can also access online enrichment programs, field trips, and classes in art, physical education, and science and technology.

The school will offer a 25-day boot camp in the fall to remedy learning loss and will continue online learning through the summer. Students will take scheduled classes with teachers in real time.

Indianapolis superintendents vow to fight racism as advocates call for action

2020-06-25T21:38:25+00:00

Superintendents in Marion County say they will work to eradicate racism from their schools, pledging to take action following days of protests against racial injustice in Indianapolis. But it remains to be seen if their recent shows of support will translate into policy changes.

The county’s 11 district leaders released a joint video last week denouncing racism and lit up high school sports stadiums on Friday night in honor of George Floyd, a Black man killed last month by police in Minneapolis. They promised to reexamine their curriculums and training for both teachers and students.

But making more substantive changes — the kind of changes protestors and community advocates are calling for — will be more difficult to execute.

“They have to look at, honestly, how to dig deeper into it,” said Jessica Louise, an organizer with Indy10 Black Lives Matter. “We are transitioning into a time where people are not soothed by just performative platitudes, and honestly that’s what this comes across as.”

Louise said reframing curriculum is important, but schools also need to change the discipline practices that disproportionately punish Black students, create a safe environment for teachers of color, and eliminate police officers in schools. A school’s anti-racism effort should be led by students, she said, rather than chosen and imposed by adults.

After years of trying to address issues including teacher diversity and discipline on their own, district leaders said it’s important to pool their resources amid the public momentum protesters have created. The goal is ultimately to create better policies and practices that can be implemented county-wide.

But first, some superintendents said, it was important to make a firm statement that Black lives matter and publicly acknowledge that schools have played a role in systemic racism.

“I think that naming of the history of how we have ourselves engaged in racist practices is really important so that we can move forward in the course correction,” said Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Aleesia Johnson during a press briefing Tuesday. “Racial equity is the foundation really of being a district that can serve all of our students.”

Johnson is working to expand a racial equity training program to all staff, and the IPS board is poised to approve a policy on racial equity. The document highlights the district’s historical role in supporting racist institutions and pledges to address disparities in academic achievement and discipline for students of color.

Other districts in the county, including Beech Grove and Perry Township, are starting slower, first creating parent and student committees to gather feedback and begin reviewing policies.

“It’s more than one incident or one thing, I think — it’s how we treat people across the board,” said Beech Grove Superintendent Paul Kaiser said. “I think we have to spend a lot more time teaching our kids about the background of our kids.”

Kaiser said Beech Grove “has work to do” in better training teachers and hiring teachers who reflect the student body. The district’s teachers are 97% white, compared to 67% of the student population, according to state data. Beech Grove is hiring three new counselors as a result of its successful referendum, and Kaiser said he will be intentional about hiring people of color.

Perry Township Superintendent Patrick Mapes said one of his first steps will be to create an avenue for students to report racism acts or comments anonymously — a move that follows new allegations that two teachers used slurs and mocked immigrant students. The district is investigating, Mapes said, but may not be able to resolve the situation until school starts.

School systems in other states have taken more drastic and immediate measures in response to protests. In Minneapolis, Portland, and Denver, districts cut ties with local police departments. But there appears to be little momentum for such action in Indiana, despite the fact that school police are 2.5 times as likely to arrest Black students than white students, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

Both Kaiser and Mapes defended their districts’ use of school resource officers, saying they had a positive impact on school culture. Beech Grove is adding three more officers after passing a referendum in November. The district currently has one officer working at its high school.

Mapes said Perry’s police officers are more diverse than the teaching staff — which is 96% white. When asked why the district hasn’t been as successful hiring diverse teachers, Mapes said there aren’t many people of color in the candidate pool.

“I think everybody has the ability to get better,” Mapes said, referring to equity. “And that’s the goal. … We think we can do a better job educating our students so they don’t have racist tendencies.”

It’s not clear how districts will evaluate the success of their policy or procedural changes. Mapes said he looks to improve arrest, suspension, and expulsion data every year. Teacher diversity is also easy to gauge. For Louise, success means the community and administrators no longer feel they need police in schools. But some improvements are meant to lead to less easily identifiable changes, such as how students treat each other.

“There’s never an ending point,” said David Marcotte, executive director of the Indiana Urban Schools Association, which represents city public schools throughout Indiana and helped put together the initiative. “This needs to be something on the forefront of our minds. We’re never ever going to say, ‘Ok, great, we’re done now.’”

$1 million for hand sanitizer: Indianapolis leaders size up costs of reopening schools

2020-06-18T21:43:32+00:00

Two Indianapolis school leaders warned Thursday that the costs to reopen schools in the fall will likely exceed what their districts received in federal aid to pay for additional safety precautions against the coronavirus.

Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, used its federal relief money to buy devices for each student and recently spent nearly $1 million on hand sanitizer, Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in a virtual town hall on reopening schools.

“The reality is, I think, that what we are going to end up spending will likely be more than what has currently been allocated,” Johnson said.

Johnson, Wayne Township Superintendent Jeff Butts, and the mayor’s charter school director Patrick McAlister discussed the complicated factors for reopening in Thursday’s virtual event hosted by the Indy Chamber. While they acknowledged many uncertainties and said they are working on multiple learning options, Johnson and Butts said they hoped to release their districts’ reopening plans by early July.

Educators across the state have raised the issue of cost as a major hurdle to reopening. That’s a key reason behind Gov. Eric Holcomb’s decision this week to maintain state funding levels for schools despite seeking other budget cuts, which McAlister said was a win for local schools.

Some educators are hoping for another round of federal relief dollars. McAlister also said he’s advising charter and private schools to look for outside resources such as grants or donations.

The leaders said their first priority is the safety of students and families, but they believe in-person learning is the most effective means of instruction.

“We are set up best to do that in the physical learning environment,” Johnson said.

But they aren’t sure if school buildings will be allowed to open completely, and they want to give families the flexibility to choose virtual. A potential compromise could be a hybrid model, where some students would learn in-person and others would learn at home. Johnson and Butts said their districts are spending the most time planning for this option because it would be the most complex to pull off.

Virtual instruction would need to match the scope, sequence, and pacing of in-person lessons so that students can transition smoothly when they return, Butts said.

One of the most complicated logistical challenges schools face centers around transportation. With social distancing, Johnson said a school bus that usually transports more than 40 students could only accommodate about 12.

“That dramatically reduces the number of students that can actually get to school every day,” she said.

IPS is surveying families to get a sense of how many would be able to bring their children to school themselves.

In addition to addressing logistical issues, schools expect to account for a learning gap due to the disruption caused by classrooms closing in the spring. Johnson said IPS is thinking about how to embed last quarter’s standards into the first four to six weeks of the fall semester, while balancing students’ emotional and mental health needs.

“We know our students are coming to us having experienced, like we have, a very traumatic event that we are still in the midst of,” she said.

Wayne Township schools are focusing on a two-year strategy to catch students up.

The district is considering offering standardized tests such as IREAD 3, a literacy exam that was canceled this year, to get a sense of where students are, Butts said.

The school leaders said they hope to improve virtual learning this fall based on the lessons they learned in the spring.

“The virtual learning environment at home in this next year will look dramatically different than it did the last three months of this school year because of what we’ve learned and what we’re putting in place,” Butts said.

IPS will be able to offer every student a device for virtual learning in the fall, addressing a major barrier. In the spring, Johnson said the district only had enough devices for one out of every three students. IPS is also working to ensure students have internet access at home, she said.

McAlister’s key takeaway from the spring was that some schools are more prepared than others to adapt to distance learning.

“We are all in the same storm, but we start off in different ships,” he said.

Gary schools’ takeover manager needs to fix finances. But what about the ‘academic crisis’?

2020-05-21T22:39:04+00:00

Three years after Indiana took over Gary Community Schools, the state now must decide if it will continue to shell out millions to the company running the cash-strapped and chronically low-performing district — giving families more to worry about than just how the coronavirus will affect school in the fall.

The state’s $6.2 million contract with Florida-based MGT Consulting comes to an end next month. The company is asking for another three years, saying that’s all it needs to get the northwest Indiana district out of takeover and stressing the importance of consistency.

The decision state officials make in the next few weeks will set an important precedent for how Indiana handles districts forced to turn control over to the state. While officials seem unlikely to make a drastic change at this point, they will also have the opportunity to set new expectations for district managers.

Since arriving in Gary in 2017, MGT has made deep cuts to stop the district’s chronic overspending and has reduced its $100 million debt, while receiving praise from state officials and pocketing $900,000 in state incentives along the way.

But some community members, fearing learning is taking a backseat to budget goals, are pointing to the benchmarks the company failed to meet. Those include improving the schools’ academic performance and increasing enrollment. MGT has appointed three different emergency managers to oversee the district in as many years and there continue to be reports of concerning conditions inside classrooms.

“There’s also an academic crisis that has been brought on,” Gary resident Tracy Coleman told state officials during a virtual meeting last week. Coleman is part of a parent group advocating for improvements to West Side Leadership Academy, the district’s only remaining high school.

‘The slowest to turn’

In 2019, five of the eight schools in Gary received an F rating from the state. Schools statewide saw low scores that year, the first year with the new ILEARN exam. But Gary’s passing percentage was among the lowest, with just 7.8%, passing both the math and English portions. And West Side’s graduation rate plummeted from almost 90% prior to takeover to 59% in 2019.

Improving academics remains a priority for the company, MGT Vice President Eric Parish said during his public pitch to the state last week. He attributed the drop in graduation rate in part to the fact that high schoolers switched guidance counselors each year and the school struggled to track where students went when they left, which may have resulted in them being marked as dropouts rather than transfers.

During the meeting, which was streamed online, district leaders said MGT plans to change how guidance counselors monitor high schoolers’ progress and create a dashboard for local testing data, so teachers can easily check where students are struggling.

Parish also pointed to some “building blocks” the emergency manager has put in place over the past three years, including new textbooks, monthly student assessments, professional development for teachers, and curriculum that aligns with state standards.

“I will be the first and last person to tell you the academic performance is not where we want it to be,” Parish said to state officials. “Two steps backward to take five steps forward. … We knew going into this that academics would be lagging. It’s the slowest to turn and it was a long time coming.”

But Parish has previously acknowledged in interviews with Chalkbeat that if the community wants to exit state takeover, finances — not buildings or academics — have to be the priority. State lawmakers wrote the takeover law so that a district can exit takeover without making academic improvements. All that’s required is posting at least two years of a balanced budget.

“The performance of the schools and the performance of the students was a matter of great concern,” said Luke Kenley, the since-retired Republican senator who co-authored the legislation. “But we didn’t feel like you could begin to address those without sorting out your finances.”

Rationing toilet paper

Stripping a school board of local control is a drastic step to take, with varied results nationwide. Earlier this year, the state returned control of four takeover schools back to their original districts, signaling waning enthusiasm in Indiana for state oversight of low-performing schools.

Lawmakers’ move to seize control of both Gary and Muncie school districts was a first for the state. Muncie was a C-rated district about an hour northeast of Indianapolis with mismanaged money from a school bond. The situation in Gary was more dire and complex, with decades of decline and red flags.

The once-booming steel city of Gary, located just 25 miles from downtown Chicago on the banks of Lake Michigan, has been plagued by challenges that come with de-industrialization and the loss of jobs — economic decline, population loss, increased poverty, crime, and neglect.

That, along with increasing competition from higher-performing neighboring districts and a growing number of charter schools, caused enrollment at Gary schools to plummet by more than half in the decade leading up to the takeover. There are now around 4,800 students.

In a state where funding is doled out per student, dropping enrollment meant fewer dollars. The district, which serves mostly black and low-income families, began struggling to live within its means, eventually racking up millions in debt to local vendors and taking out state loans to cover payroll.

When she arrived in 2017, former emergency manager Peggy Hinckley said there was no system for clocking in employees. Instead, their hours were tracked on paper by a secretary in each building. What computers they were using for finances were likely 20 years old, Hinckley said, which made it difficult for administrators to track where money was going.

Once she found a pile of brand new textbooks, still wrapped in plastic, gathering dust in a closed school while remaining classrooms were using books that were 10 years old. Many bathrooms didn’t have toilet paper. Teachers would keep a roll in their classroom, she said, and dole it out as students asked.

“Where in Indiana does a child need to get a ration of toilet paper to use the bathroom?” Hinckley asked. “I’ve been in 150 schools in Indiana, I’ve never seen that in my life. … It was a completely broken system.”

‘Nothing has changed’

Over the past three years, MGT has closed a school, outsourced services, renegotiated contracts, addressed fire code violations, and brought special education into compliance. Teachers, who hadn’t received a raise in nearly a decade, were given a stipend in December.

But community advocates say the company hasn’t made positive changes to the aspects of school that students experience, including its aging buildings.

The district made headlines in October when a State Board of Education member revealed there were more than a dozen leaks in the ceiling of West Side’s library, and deteriorating buildings forced students to take classes in garage bays at the Gary Area Career Center.

“Nothing has changed,” District Advisory Board President Robert Buggs told the State Board of Education at the time, referring to school conditions. “There’s no reason in the world that a child should have to try to learn in an unsafe environment like that. Almost three years later and you see buckets everywhere.”

A tarp hangs from the ceiling in the library of Gary’s West Side Leadership Academy in December 2019.

Last week, Parish said MGT plans to continue making improvements to school buildings. The district will have more money to do so after lawmakers passed legislation earlier this year allowing Gary for a little over four years to use its monthly loan payment to the state, about $500,000, for repairs and demolition. More than 30 abandoned schools sit empty around the city, some of which haven’t been used in decades and have created safety concerns.

Exit in sight

MGT will be able to balance the district’s budget — cutting another $6 million from its usual spending — by the 2021-22 school year, Parish said.

Part of his plan, however, includes increasing enrollment. Gary received around $7,530 in state funding per student in 2019. Using that figure, the district would need 160 new students to offset the funding loss expected when the county’s 10-year property tax cap exemption ends and the limits go into full effect for the first time.

Given the district’s current trajectory, that kind of enrollment jump seems unlikely. While enrollment dropped less drastically the last two years, it’s fallen by more than 300 students since takeover began.

And the coronavirus could lead to cuts in school funding statewide, as soaring unemployment causes income and sales tax revenues to plummet. That could mean losing money MGT was relying on to balance Gary schools’ budget.

It’s too soon to speculate how the coronavirus could impact MGT’s financial progress, said Justin McAdam, chairman of the Distressed Units Appeals Board, which is tasked with overseeing state takeovers. It’s still unclear how significant unexpected coronavirus-related expenses will be, or how much of those will be covered by federal aid.

Financially focused

The state has yet to consider other companies to run the troubled district. The board felt it was important to let MGT “present their vision and plan” before deciding whether to ask for other bids, McAdam said. Stability will be vital, he said.

In addition to the public virtual presentation, the board met with MGT to ask more questions during an executive session on Thursday. A public meeting will be scheduled for the vote on renewing MGT’s agreement.

Of the five voting members of the distressed units board, only one represents educators. Other members are either lawmakers or representing finance-minded entities, which could make it difficult for them to monitor academics.

When asked about the district’s declining test scores and graduation rate in February, McAdam, who is also the policy director for Indiana’s Office of Management & Budget, said the board understands academics need “significant improvement,” but that those results don’t typically happen quickly.

“The emergency management team has been working to implement nationally recognized processes for academic improvements and has brought in various groups and mentors to assist teachers and principals,” he said in an email.

A COVID-19 complication

But the coronavirus, and subsequent closure of school buildings, has thrown a big wrench into those plans. District leaders and teachers were forced to quickly adjust. Administrators are now working to move up to the fall plans to provide a device and hotspot for every student. It’s still unclear if school buildings will be allowed to reopen, so schools statewide are preparing to continue remote learning if needed.

At first, when the governor ordered schools to close, all of Gary’s students were doing schoolwork on paper packets. The district has since moved to putting lessons online three times a week. Laptops were distributed to high school seniors, but other students are asked to use their own devices. The district is now down to delivering a few hundred paper packets to students who don’t have devices or internet access, said its interim emergency manager Paige McNulty.

The situation could make it difficult to monitor whether Gary’s schools are improving academically. State standardized tests were canceled for 2020. And educators statewide have warned that missing weeks of in-person instruction will have a big impact on students’ performance.

How to handle school in the fall and how best to catch students up on what they’ve missed remain the most pressing decisions MGT will have to make, should the state renew their contract.

“Obviously [COVID-19] has created a significant disruption,” McAdam said during the virtual presentation last week. “It’s created a lot of uncertainty about where things are heading here over the summer and into next school year… This decision is probably not the highest decision on everyone’s list, so we want to make sure that we are thorough in our analysis and make sure that we hear from as many people as possible.”

IPS is in a stable financial position for now, but it could be hard hit by a recession

2020-05-01T02:21:35+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools says it is in a strong financial position in the short term, despite the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But the district could eventually be hard hit by the deepening recession.

The state’s largest district is more financially stable than many school systems across the country for several reasons: The state has not cut this year’s education funding, voters recently approved a referendum to boost local dollars, the district has access to bond funding, and the Indianapolis economy is strong, said Weston Young, the district’s chief financial officer.

“IPS is positioned well, in my opinion, for the short term to navigate the recent historic and severe COVID-19 economic impacts,” Young said during a media briefing ahead of an IPS board meeting Thursday. The district will also receive about $21 million in federal coronavirus aid, which can be used to cover a wide range of costs.

Over the long term, however, the financial implications for the district are far less certain. Unemployment in Indiana has surged, while sales and income tax revenue have fallen in recent weeks.

Although it’s unclear how bad the recession will be or precisely how it will impact the school system, the district may need to begin making decisions to save money to build a cushion for the future, said Jason O’Neill, a consultant with Policy Analytics who is advising the district.

“The impact of a recession on school finance is not immediate, at least the majority of the impact is not immediate,” O’Neill told the IPS board, “but preparations should be made in the short term.”

Noting that state revenue is “going to diminish significantly,” IPS Board President Michael O’Connor said at Thursday’s meeting that the district must “be prepared to make some very conservative, very difficult decisions about preparing for those cuts.”

Indiana school budgets are particularly vulnerable in recessions because districts get much of their funding from the state, which relies on income and sales tax — a less stable source of revenue than property tax.

If tax revenue continues to decline, the state may cut budgets for schools next year or the years after, Young told the board. “A state can’t pass dollars to schools that it doesn’t have.”

Some Indiana districts have raised concerns that they could also lose state funding, which is awarded on a per-student basis, if parents decide to keep their children home in the fall due to health concerns.

As the pandemic unleashes turmoil across the country, many school systems are facing severe financial challenges. The Los Angeles Unified School District estimates that it has shouldered $200 million in emergency coronavirus costs. As New York City grapples with severe drops in revenue, schools could see $827 million in budget cuts. And in Denver, district officials said the pandemic would cost its schools about $10.5 million this year — a figure that includes the unplanned cost of purchasing about 9,000 laptops for students.

In the early weeks of the crisis, IPS has not taken a severe financial hit. In fact, it spent less than anticipated because school closures reduced costs in some areas, such as transportation, extracurricular activities, and facilities, Young said.

The district, however, is in the midst of making a huge investment in technology. Amid fears that schools could be closed in the fall or the need for some form of social distancing could continue, IPS is spending about $12 million so that every student has a device. That will pay for 14,000 Chromebooks, 7,000 iPads, and 9,000 mobile hotspot devices for students without broadband at home. The purchases will be funded with several sources, including reserves and philanthropic giving.

State charter board will require Indianapolis schools to use Enroll Indy

2020-04-30T00:14:02+00:00

The Indiana Charter School Board voted Wednesday to require Indianapolis campuses it oversees to participate in the city’s common enrollment system, Enroll Indy. As a result, families are now one step closer to being able to apply to all public, choice schools in Indianapolis Public Schools boundaries through one website and office.

Until now, a handful of charter schools have been reluctant to cede control of their enrollment to Enroll Indy, a lottery-based single application process for families to register for IPS magnet schools and charter schools. Most of the public schools in IPS boundaries now use the three-year-old system, but two notable holdouts are the state-authorized networks Christel House Academy and Phalen Leadership Academies.

When schools seek charters from the state board, they will now be required to participate in Enroll Indy, after the board approved the new policy without dissent during its virtual meeting Wednesday. Existing schools that do not use the system will only be required to participate once their charters are renewed.

The state board had previously left the decision up to schools. But Indiana Charter School Board Executive Director James Betley said that data shows that Enroll Indy gives the city’s most disadvantaged families access to school choices through a transparent lottery system.

Using the enrollment portal will help the state charter board oversee campuses more effectively. In recent years, many of the Indianapolis schools overseen by the board have struggled with enrollment, and some have opened with just 30 students, Betley said.

“One of the issues is, we have no idea what their enrollment is,” he added. “Not only is it self-reported, but there is no way to verify it.”

Many of the city’s charter schools are already required to participate. The mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, which oversees most Indianapolis charter schools, already mandates participation for new and renewed charters. It is also typically required by IPS as part of innovation partnerships, which allow charter schools access to some district services or buildings while maintaining independence. (Both Christel House and Phalen participate in Enroll Indy at campuses that are innovation schools.)

When families apply for seats through Enroll Indy, which also does outreach to help them find schools, they rank the schools they would like their children to attend. Each student is typically given a seat at the highest ranked school where a spot was available based on the lottery. The system runs winter and spring lotteries for the upcoming school year. During the summer and current year, students enroll in schools with open slots on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Proponents of common enrollment systems say that it allows schools to more accurately plan for the coming year because parents cannot hold spots at multiple schools. But one reason why some schools are reluctant to participate in Enroll Indy is that the system does not have waitlists — instead, schools are expected to plan for attrition by admitting additional students.

Sarah Weimer of Christel House Academy said that she is concerned that without a waitlist, the network won’t be able to prioritize students appropriately during the late enrollment period.

“We think that it’s important ... that we are able to call students and families who do meet those preferences — the low-income preference, the sibling preference — to be able to backfill any open seats that we have,” Weimer said. Without a waitlist, she argued, some students will “essentially jump ahead of any student who wasn’t placed with us as their first or second choice.”

But Bill Murphy, executive director of Enroll Indy, said that when it comes to making a system-wide decision about whether to have waitlists, “we look at who is most likely to be impacted.”

“The fact of the matter is,” Murphy said, “the very families who are coming from low-income backgrounds, who are historically under-served are the ones who engage in summer transition.”

What happens if coronavirus closures extend into the fall? Indiana schools are already preparing.

2020-04-14T21:05:08+00:00

When Fort Wayne Schools staffers met with the county health commissioner on March 4, they were told campuses could be forced to close for as long as 28 days to help contain the spread of coronavirus.

“The whole room was aghast at what that would mean for the community,” said Krista Stockman, spokeswoman for the district. But a month later, after statewide school closures were extended for the rest of the academic year and as the pandemic continues to spread in Indiana, she said educators have started grappling with the fact that closures may last much longer.

“We could have a second wave in the fall,” Stockman said. “This could just keep going on, and we may not start in the fall.”

A growing number of Indiana educators are beginning to prepare for remote instruction to go into the next academic year. Schools that were caught off guard and initially focused on triaging the immediate needs posed by building closures are now recognizing that they could be shut down indefinitely. As a result, districts are making massive investments in technology with the aim of ensuring all students have computers or tablets by the fall. And community leaders are raising funds to train teachers in a bid to improve the quality of the instruction that happens online.

The likelihood of distance learning stretching into the fall remains unclear. Anthony Fauci, a physician and the leading infectious disease expert on the White House coronavirus task force, was optimistic that classrooms will be able to reopen by then. But education leaders across the country — including top officials in Maryland and Washington state — are cautiously getting ready for closures to extend into the fall or begin again if the U.S. is hit with a second wave of COVID-19 infections.

“The question is, how do we put in place some sort of planning so that next year when this happens we’re not scrambling?” said Michael Barbour, associate professor of instructional design for the College of Education and Health Science at Touro University in California.

For schools to improve the quality of remote instruction, they must not only ensure students have access to devices and the internet but also train teachers to use remote tools effectively and prepare students to learn independently online, Barbour said.

The most concrete step many Indiana schools are taking is purchasing additional technology to give to students next year. Fort Wayne moved up plans to go “one-to-one” so each student can have their own device, and the district will use federal stimulus money to purchase about 700 additional devices. And Indianapolis Public Schools is also preparing for an extended period of remote instruction by purchasing enough devices for each student to have one. The district is hoping philanthropic dollars will offset the cost.

It’s a significant transition for IPS, which had to distribute thousands of Chromebooks and mobile hotspots in order for high schoolers to complete spring courses online. Elementary and middle school students are using paper packets this semester.

The district is making an investment in devices because “we are assuming that there will be a world in which we’ll need to be in a remote or home-learning environment again,” said Superintendent Aleesia Johnson.

A newly launched Marion County e-learning fund aims to help schools connect students from low-income families with essential resources, including internet access and devices. The fund, however, is designed to do more than plug short-term holes. The money will go toward creating long-term plans to improve virtual learning and meet the mental health needs of students in Indianapolis. It will also create a lab for educators across the state to share what they’ve learned about remote instruction.

“It’s likely going to take a while to return to normal,” said Brandon Brown, who is on the fund advisory and CEO of The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis education nonprofit. Making sure students have technology is not enough to make remote instruction work, but it is an essential prerequisite.

“I tend to think that the device is actually most important to facilitate human interaction between educators and students,” Brown added.

The Tindley charter network, which runs three Indianapolis campuses, is using technology to support hours of virtual connections between students and teachers. The schools are attempting to mirror traditional days, with students regularly signing on for video classes, said CEO Brian Metcalf. The network, which had not used remote instruction before, bought hundreds of devices for students to make the approach work.

They are still working out gaps, like how to mentor and evaluate teachers, Metcalf said. But the goal from the start was to come up with a plan Tindley schools could use if buildings remained closed indefinitely, Metcalf said.

“We are sending the message that this is school,” Metcalf said, “just school done in a different way.”

Indianapolis ‘restart’ schools try to build trust and hire teachers — from a distance

2020-04-07T23:10:01+00:00

When the Indianapolis Public Schools administration recommended in February that Alicia Hervey take the helm of a troubled westside campus next school year, she began reaching out, introducing herself to families, meeting them at McDonald’s, and canvassing the neighborhood.

That engagement helped Hervey gain the trust of some parents who were anxious about the overhaul of School 67, which educates about 600 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, as an innovation school with new staff under Hervey’s management. By the time the IPS board voted to officially approve a contract with Hervey on March 19, however, Indianapolis schools were closed and the state was just a few days away from issuing a stay-at-home order in an effort to contain the rapid spread of the coronavirus.

As most Indiana schools attempt to shift to remote instruction, while ensuring their students have access to essentials such as food, Hervey is among a small group of educators facing a different task. They must lay the groundwork for overhauling three existing IPS campuses at a time when buildings are closed and socializing is severely curtailed.

“The biggest challenge is the face-to-face interactions that you want to have with families,” said Hervey, who is now relying on phone calls, video conferences, mailings, and social media to relay her plans for the PATH School, the new charter operator that will take over School 67.

Next academic year, Adelante Schools will take over Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School, and Phalen Leadership Academies, an established Indianapolis charter network, will take over School 48. All three operators were approved at a March board meeting, igniting criticism from some people who said the decision should not have been made during the crisis.

The campuses will still be considered part of IPS, which will get credit for their enrollment numbers and test scores. But the staff will be employed by the charter operators, and the teachers won’t be represented by the district union.

The coronavirus and the school closures it triggered could be roadblocks to overhauling struggling Indianapolis campuses because building trust with the community and families can be crucial to the success of turnaround efforts.

The barriers to building trust are particularly steep at Emma Donnan, which has been at the center of a bitterly fought battle for control for several months. The school, which enrolls about 400 students, is currently managed by Charter Schools USA, a network that was hired after the state took over the struggling campus in 2012.

Leaders of the charter network hoped to gain permanent management of Emma Donnan and two Indianapolis high schools, but the State Board of Education voted in January to return them to IPS oversight. The district, in turn, chose Adelante to take over Emma Donnan.

Because of that friction, Adelante has not yet hosted on-site meetings with parents. The co-founders, Eddie Rangel and Matthew Rooney, have instead been making connections through community groups, such as neighborhood associations.

“We actually had a fairly extensive plan for family engagement,” said Rooney. It included canvassing and building relationships with housing complexes where students live. Now, they are shifting their focus to phone and social media. “We want to make sure to make live phone contact with every single family prior to the start of the school year.”

One way they are hoping to smooth the transition for families is by keeping current staff, who already have strong relationships with parents and students, said Rangel. After the upheaval caused by COVID-19, fostering stability for students seems especially important.

“We know that it’s a pipe dream that 100% of teachers want to come back or are a good fit for Adelante Schools,” Rangel said. “But what we’re committed to is getting as many people as possible so that kids have a safe haven to come back to, and there’s some sort of normalcy when they get back.”

Hiring staff during a pandemic is also a challenge facing school leaders overhauling campuses. Before social distancing became the norm, Hervey held a day-long hiring event with staff, parents, board members, and other Indianapolis educators. Teachers rotated through interviews, and they were able to meet with about 10 educators in a single day, she said.

Now, the PATH has been forced to shift hiring to video conferences, and the process is much slower, she said. Adelante has also shifted hiring to online interviews, where applicants must teach model classes over video.

As communities respond to COVID-19, schools that serve low-income students and children of color “will feel this moment much more than schools that are serving higher-income kids,” said Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, a nonprofit that supports innovation schools.

In the coming years, students will have higher social and emotional needs, there will likely be less funding to help meet those needs, and gaps in passing rates on state tests will widen, Brown predicted. “It will take years in my opinion to rebound,” he said.

The founders of restart schools, however, have an advantage in preparing for the challenges ahead. Because they are not struggling to educate and meet the needs of current students, they can focus on how they will adapt their approach for next academic year and educate students who have gone several months without traditional school.

They can also plan for the possibility that schools may still be closed in August — or may close again next school year if the pandemic has another wave.

“It is in students’ best interest for people to be planning for school not to look the same,” Rangel said. “If this should happen again — for anything, for any reason — what is the playbook?”

Facing criticism, IPS board reconvenes to affirm innovation school votes

2020-04-01T00:44:37+00:00

The Indianapolis Public Schools board convened virtually Tuesday to affirm unanimously the actions taken at a meeting held earlier this month. The board had faced criticism for telling members of the public they could not attend the March 19 gathering in person, only allowing them to watch the proceedings via livestream amid coronavirus fears.

The IPS board accepted written public comments in advance of that meeting, and it was broadcast live on Facebook.

Despite those efforts, the decisions to prevent the public from attending the in-person gathering and to go forward with controversial votes to convert four campuses to privately managed innovation schools sparked some criticism. It also raised concerns that the votes could be challenged in court.

Board President Michael O’Connor said that the decision to close the meeting earlier this month to the public was consistent with public health recommendations and complied with modified public access laws. Pointing to projections of growing coronavirus cases in Marion County, O’Connor said, “I believed then and I believe now that the decision was reasonable and necessary.”

He called Tuesday’s vote a “belt and suspenders” approach.

The board was able to gather virtually without concerns Tuesday because Gov. Eric Holcomb issued an executive order last week that allows governing bodies to meet by videoconference or telephone if the meeting is made available to the public and media.

The meeting follows a report from WFYI last week in which Indiana’s public access counselor, Luke Britt, said “the law that was in place wasn’t technically followed” because members of the public were told they could not attend in person. As a result, the actions the board took could face legal challenges, WFYI reported.

Indianapolis City-County Councilor Dan Boots, in a letter to the board and Superintendent Aleesia Johnson also signed by 11 other councilors, said the council had minimized attendance at its meeting without fully excluding the public. He said limiting gatherings for public health “should not undermine the desired objective of allowing public input and oversight to the greatest extent possible.”

Boots also questioned whether the board should vote during the crisis on innovation school conversions, plans that had already ignited fierce debate.

The core of the debate now is whether the decisions needed to be made at a time when gatherings of all kinds are being limited. Holcomb’s March 16 executive order says that during the coronavirus pandemic, public meetings “should be limited to only essential matters critical to the operations of the governmental agency.”

Before the board voted on the innovation agreements, Johnson said that the board’s decision had been discussed at prior meetings, and the public had offered extensive feedback. It was important to vote soon, she said, because “we need to be able to make sure those school communities know what to expect in the new year.”

In the coming weeks, the new school managers are expected to lay the groundwork to take over the schools in the fall, hiring teachers and getting to know families they will serve.

At a livestreamed board meeting, IPS approves measures to aid staff amid coronavirus, expands innovation schools

2020-03-20T02:03:23+00:00

The Indianapolis Public Schools board gathered Thursday in a surreally empty room at the district headquarters, with wide gaps between those present. Three board members phoned in, and the reporters and observers who usually fill the room instead tuned in to watch the live video on Facebook.

The meeting — which took place in the midst of a pandemic just hours after Gov. Eric Holcomb announced that schools across Indiana would be closed at least until May 1 — was a sharp contrast with the performances, student-led flag raisings, and public comments that are typical of the district’s monthly gatherings.

The agenda was pared down to items that staff considered urgent: It included votes on approving new, outside managers for four campuses next year — all of which passed — and a resolution to give Superintendent Aleesia Johnson extra flexibility in staffing during the current crisis.

“It seems like every day, every moment, every minute, the world is changing,” said board member Evan Hawkins. “I would say, especially Superintendent Johnson, there’s a community that’s rallying behind you, and your staff have done an amazing, amazing job as we work through this. And so, I am so thrilled to stand behind and support this resolution and know that we will get through this together.”

The resolution in response to the new coronavirus will allow Johnson to give staff permission to work from home, to continue paying hourly workers who are called off because of the crisis, and to pay extra to those who must continue working — such as food service workers, bus drivers, and janitorial staff.

The district is paying hourly staff who are not reporting to work this week the same amount they would have if school was in session. Johnson said she hopes to continue that practice.

Johnson also announced plans to dramatically expand the district’s food distribution for low-income families who depend on the free breakfasts and lunches students typically receive at school. Indianapolis Public Schools is adding seven additional breakfast and lunch distribution sites, and it is launching a program in partnership with Gleaners Food Bank where school buses will deliver packages with enough food for a family of four for seven days to 25 locations throughout the city.

On Wednesday, about 1,200 students received meals from the district. That’s more than the district served during spring and summer breaks last year, Johnson said.

In the wake of Holcomb’s announcement earlier Thursday that schools would be shuttered for several more weeks, the state’s largest district is also working to plan how to educate students during an extended closure.

Although Indianapolis Public Schools has provided materials to help families with education this week, it was not considered formal remote learning. Last Friday and this week, the district is using six of the 20 waiver days granted by Holcomb as a result of the crisis. Students were already scheduled to be on spring break for the next two weeks. That buys district leaders some time to plan for remote learning. But when that break ends, educators must grapple with whether they can provide effective instruction remotely — especially in a district where many students lack access to devices and the internet.

In a call after the meeting, Johnson said the details are still uncertain but she hopes they will be able to offer remote learning in the coming weeks that would meet the bar to be considered instructional days. The district is looking at a range of ideas for tackling the challenge, including starting by focusing on serving seniors so they can graduate, incorporating paper-and-pencil instruction, and using local television.

“We have taken no options off the table,” Johnson said.

At the Thursday meeting, the board also approved plans for three district schools to become innovation schools, which are considered part of the district but managed by outside operators. A fourth campus, which is already an innovation school, will get a new manager. Most teachers at the schools are not employed directly by the district and not covered by the union contract.

Two struggling campuses — School 48 and School 67 — will be restarted as innovation schools and daily management will be taken over by charter operators. School 99 will become an innovation school voluntarily, with its current principal at the helm. Management of Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School will be handed to a new operator.

Clarification: March 20, 2020: The headline has been updated to reflect that the board meeting was held largely virtually due to coronavirus concerns.

Indianapolis schools scramble to plan education and get food to students after closing for coronavirus

2020-03-13T18:03:49+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools is rushing to plan for how to educate more than 25,000 students — and get food to many low-income families who typically depend on free breakfast and lunch — after Marion County officials closed all public schools to help contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The state’s largest school district is closed Friday and is not requiring students or teachers to work from home. It is using one of the 20 missed days that schools will be allowed to waive under new guidance Gov. Eric Holcomb released Thursday.

Marion County schools will remain closed through at least April 6. Indianapolis Public Schools was already scheduled to take spring break for two of those weeks. District officials are still working to decide whether to use remote learning next week, said Superintendent Aleesia Johnson at a press briefing Friday morning. In a video posted later that day, she said the district is working to provide “a hybrid of educational activities and materials” to support home-based learning.

All employees will be paid their regular pay for work that’s missed as a result of the closure. That’s especially important for hourly workers such as bus drivers and food service workers who cannot sustain an unexpected loss of wages, Johnson said.

The district sent most students home with paper-and-pencil packets with two days worth of school work, Johnson said. But they were not able to get those materials to the students who left earliest in the day. They are working on preparing and distributing additional school work, she said.

“We’ve been working pretty steadily for the last week to ensure that we have a thoughtful and responsive plan to serve our community,” Johnson said.

The closure will also be a burden for thousands of students in Indianapolis Public Schools who depend on the district for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner. The district has prepared about 8,000 prepackaged breakfasts and lunches to distribute Friday. Meals will be distributed to any children 18 or under at the parking lot of seven schools, and the district’s mobile food distribution bus is making stops at two apartment complexes. Food will be distributed daily through next week.

Indianapolis Public Schools is also planning to cancel a board meeting scheduled for Tuesday. It will hold its Thursday board meeting. The room will be closed to the public, but the meeting will be streamed live.

A full-scale rollout of online learning in Indianapolis would be difficult because more than 65% of students come from low-income families, and many have limited access to internet and computers at home. Through an informal survey of schools, the district estimates about half of students are prepared for online learning at home.

Avon schools, which closed last week after two students were confirmed to have COVID-19, has been offering virtual learning for students. But the suburban district was well-positioned for the approach because, unlike IPS, it was already using virtual education for cancelations such as snow days.

Indianapolis educators have been working for days to get ready for a possible closure. The Neighborhood Charter Network, which manages two schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools innovation network, started with preparing paper packets for students, said Executive Director Kevin Kubacki in an interview before the closures Thursday.

But they are aiming to give students access to online work that’s more challenging. That includes looking for programs that students can access from cellphones, which is how many families connect to the internet.

“What we do want to do is mitigate the amount of lost instructional time that we do have,” Kubacki said. “We don’t want to just send home busy work for kids. … If we only rely on packets that we are sending home, it keeps kids busy but I don’t know that it’s going to push them forward in the same way as digital content.”

New online school will close amid concerns over Indiana Virtual School connection

2020-03-11T21:57:18+00:00

An Indiana district will close its new online school after Chalkbeat revealed that its manager is caught up in a state investigation into alleged enrollment inflation and misspending at two virtual charter schools.

Following an internal district investigation, the Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson school board decided Tuesday to cut short the manager’s three-year contract to run Indian Creek Online Academy. The school, which opened this year and serves about 120 Indiana students in grades 6-12, will close at the end of June.

“This was a mutual agreement,” Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson Superintendent Tim Edsell told Chalkbeat. He did not elaborate on the district’s internal investigation.

Gar Hoover, the businessman hired to manage Indian Creek Online Academy, was named in the State Board of Accounts’ investigation into Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, two virtual charter schools that shut down last year amid allegations of an $86 million enrollment fraud and self-dealing scheme.

Hoover served as an Indiana Virtual School board member and later worked for a company providing services to the two virtual schools. The investigation lists him among more than a dozen other individuals responsible for repaying some of the misspent funds. During the 2016-17 school year, Hoover signed off on a request for more than $96,000 in state funds based on inflated enrollment numbers, the state investigation said.

A federal investigation has been launched into the fraud allegations. It is unclear whether Hoover’s role is included in that investigation.

Hoover said he was not involved in any of the problems found at the two virtual charter schools.

“I have always and continue to act in the best interests of the students,” Hoover wrote in an email to Chalkbeat this week. “In that vein, and to avoid disruptions, I am ending my management in the education industry on June 30, 2020.”

Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson does not plan to hire another management company to keep Indian Creek Online Academy open, Edsell said. Instead, the district will look for ways to offer students online instruction through its educational service center or help students transfer to other online schools.

Hoover’s online management company also provides services for Michigan Online School, a charter school in Michigan that serves about 430 students. Michigan Online School plans to stay open and find a new management company, board president Chris Van Winkle said.

“We’re just in the process of changing management companies, in light of some of the allegations,” Van Winkle said. “I don’t know what’s all true or whatever, but we’re moving away from anything related to that.”

He added that Hoover “has done nothing but good for us.”

After a marathon of feedback, IPS board backs overhauling two struggling schools with charter partners

2020-02-28T22:47:07+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools is moving forward with plans to overhaul two struggling campuses in a decision that came after a large contingent of parents and advocates weighed in, with most speaking in support.

The IPS board tentatively backed proposals to restart School 48 and School 67 as innovation schools, which would be managed by charter operators under the oversight of the district. If the board approves the changes at its March meeting, the principals, teachers, and other staff at the neighborhood schools likely will be replaced.

Whether to restart School 67, also known as Stephen Foster, has become one of the most controversial overhaul decisions the board has faced. The neighborhood campus has dismal scores on state tests, but many parents and staff were stunned by the decision to hand the school to a charter manager, and vocal opponents came to the board meetings last month.

That made the two board meetings this week something of a test of whether the operators that may take over the schools had been able to persuade anxious parents that the overhauls would be best for their children. And supporters of innovation schools turned out in force — including a large contingent of families and staff from other campuses who spoke about their positive experiences.

It was clear that the public feedback weighed heavily on board members, several of whom shared long statements about their decisions. Board member Evan Hawkins said the district’s low passing rates on state tests and the especially low passing rates for children of color cannot be ignored.

“Though I do not believe that test scores tell the whole story of any school community, these statistics are intolerable,” Hawkins said. “For generations across this nation, this state, and this city, we have seen what happens to our children and what they lose access to when they are not given the mere opportunity to be prepared academically.”

On Thursday, Hawkins was joined in supporting both overhauls by Michael O’Connor and Diane Arnold. Venita Moore, who was absent Thursday, said on Tuesday that she supported continuing the process for both schools. Elizabeth Gore supported the restart of School 48 but not School 67. And Taria Slack and Susan Collins said they opposed both overhauls.

Many family members of children at School 48 and a few from School 67 spoke in favor of the new operators — including some parents who had initially opposed the restarts.

No one exemplified the change of heart that some parents felt as much as Angela Cordova, who has four children at School 67, a westside elementary and middle school. When the plan to restart the school and replace the educators was announced, Cordova helped lead unusually vocal opposition.

This week, Cordova focused on her frustration not on the potential change, but on the district. “Every child in that school deserves a chance — a chance that you failed to give them,” said Cordova, during the public comments portion of Tuesday’s meeting. “You saw us failing and didn’t help.”

Cordova, who is one of many parents at restart schools who didn’t realize the campus had an F grade from the state, now says she loves the potential operator selected to restart School 67. Cordova told Chalkbeat that in the days since she initially opposed the overhaul, she researched innovation schools on her own and visited an existing campus.

She also met with Alicia Hervey, the local educator who is founding the PATH, a planned charter school the administration recommended as the new operator of School 67. Cordova said she connects with Hervey “on a mom level,” and she trusts her to help the school.

“I think this would be very beneficial to all the kids,” she told Chalkbeat. “I think a change is what we need.”

In contrast with School 67, the resistance to the proposed overhaul of School 48, also known as Louis B. Russell, was muted. In part, that’s likely because the elementary school on the near northside has received years of failing marks from the state. The district administration previously attempted to improve it by placing it in its transformation zone, a group of struggling schools that receive extra resources and attention. Superintendent Aleesia Johnson is recommending that the campus be taken over by Phalen Leadership Academies, a charter network that also runs two other Indianapolis Public Schools campuses.

Several parents from the school told the board Thursday that they support overhauling the campus and want Phalen to take charge.

Joseph White, a parent at School 48, became a supporter after visiting an innovation school. White’s daughter attends the pre-kindergarten program for students with special needs, and last month he told Chalkbeat he was skeptical about the restart. But at Thursday’s meeting, he told the board he supports the overhaul.

“I do believe innovation would be the best way for this school,” White said. “I can tell you one thing, if it’s not restarted, she will not be going there. My daughter deserves the best.”

More than 70 people signed up to speak for the public comment period at Thursday’s meeting, which O’Connor estimated was the largest crowd since he joined the board, and each speaker’s time was reduced to 2 minutes.

But even though the proposed operators had support from many parents, the meeting was tense. A smaller number of family and staff members from School 67 spoke against the plan. And as the meeting came to a close, an uproar broke out with a handful of angry parents and educators yelling at the board and superintendent because they had expected a formal vote based on flyers from the district.

Since Indianapolis Public Schools began overhauling failing campuses as innovation schools five years ago, six schools have been turned over to outside managers. The schools have freedom from some district requirements, and educators at the schools work for the charter managers and are not covered by the district teachers contract.

School board member Venita Moore said at the Tuesday board meeting that she believed the district waited too long to overhaul School 48. But in the future, she suggested the district should try to bring families into the conversation sooner. “Would it be better for us to allow more time on the front end?” she asked.

Jamie VandeWalle, who oversees innovation schools for the district, said officials have begun asking themselves “how do we make sure that everyone within the schools and then families who send their students to schools every day truly understand the performance of their schools?”

The board also supported partnering with Adelante Schools to run Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School. Adelante would be the first charter school run by Eddie Rangel, who previously led a Tindley charter school, and Matthew Rooney, an Indianapolis native who led a charter school in New York City.

The Donnan elementary school was launched as an innovation school run by Charter Schools USA in collaboration with Indianapolis Public Schools after the state seized the middle school from the district. Earlier this school year, Indianapolis Public Schools ended its partnership with Charter Schools USA, and the state board voted to return the campus to the district in January.

Indiana officials end takeover of Roosevelt, returning it to the troubled Gary district

2020-01-15T15:54:54+00:00

Less than a decade after the state took over chronically failing Theodore Roosevelt College & Career Academy, the school is returning to Gary Community Schools.

With little discussion, the State Board of Education voted 10-0 to end state takeover of the school — one of four schools the board returned to their local districts on Wednesday. Members also voted to hand three schools back to Indianapolis Public Schools, bringing to a close the chapter of the state’s turnaround experiment that started in 2012.

For Roosevelt, the move came after months of concern over the conditions for students, who last year were moved into career center garage bays after burst pipes damaged their historic school building.

Dramatic decision: Indiana ends takeover, returning 3 schools to IPS in a dramatic twist

Board member Tony Walker pushed for the vote in order to leave decisions about the future of the school up to local officials. But the move doesn’t necessarily mean the middle and high school is back under local control, because Gary Schools is in its third year of a district-wide takeover and managed by Florida-based MGT Consulting.

“There are very strong views on every side of the Roosevelt issue, as to whether it should continue as a school or not continue as a school,” Walker said. “The fact of the matter is, those are really decisions that should be made at a local level and not by the 11 of us here.”

After the meeting, State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick said facilities “have a lot to do” with the decision to relinquish control of the school now, but also pointed to the new state-appointed leadership in Gary Schools.

“I think it’s in a better place,” she said. “Given the facilities, given leadership, given the space that it’s in with our board, it’s just time to have [Roosevelt] go back.”

Wednesday’s vote ends the state’s contract after June 30 with EdisonLearning, a Florida-based company that has managed Roosevelt since it was taken over in 2012. Until then, state board staff said EdisonLearning should work to transition the school to the district.

It remains unclear whether Gary will continue working with EdisonLearning. In 2017, Roosevelt signed a five-year agreement with the district to become its first innovation school — independently run by EdisonLearning inside a district building.

Before the board vote, State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick asked if anyone from MGT was at the meeting and wanted to speak about the district regaining control. No one stood up.

MGT officials also did not respond to a request for comment from Chalkbeat on Wednesday.

MGT will ultimately have to decide where to house Roosevelt students next year. Gary’s emergency manager is expected to present a recommendation Thursday for what to do with the Roosevelt building to the Distressed Unit Appeals Board, the state board overseeing the district takeover.

EdisonLearning had proposed the state allow it to seek a charter, which would have severed ties with Gary Schools — however, no board member supported that plan on Wednesday. EdisonLearning said it would have worked to raise $25 million in private funds to fix up the damaged historic buildings.

No one from EdisonLearning spoke at the meeting. After the vote, school leaders said in an email to parents that this does not mean the school will close.

“Members of the State Board of Education clearly recommended that EdisonLearning and the Gary Community School Corporation work together to determine the best, safest, and most appropriate long term solution for the students of Theodore Roosevelt today, and into the future,” EdisonLearning said in the email. “We have every intention to work diligently and collaboratively with the Gary Community School Corporation, as we have in the past.”

It’s been nearly a year since Roosevelt’s 400 students were displaced after sub-zero temperatures caused water pipes to burst. It wasn’t a new problem for the 99-year-old building, where burst pipes and failing heat have cancelled class a handful of times in the last seven years. But the latest damage is estimated to cost $10 million to repair — a big price tag for cash-strapped Gary Schools.

Students were moved into garage bays in the Gary Area Career Center, which state board member Walker saw during a tour in October. The temporary walls brought in by the district did little to comfort Walker, who at the time said the situation was a “disgrace.”

Students have since been moved into classrooms in the career center, Chalkbeat confirmed during a December tour. But the career center has said they need the classrooms back next year.

Roosevelt’s academic performance has only improved slightly since the state intervened. In 2018, the school received an A grade from the state, jumping from a D the year prior. But that grade was based only on how much students improved. It doesn’t include how many students passed the state’s standardized test, because new innovation schools are given three years before they have to start reporting those scores.

The last test results reported for Roosevelt in 2017 showed 3.3% of students passing both math and English, up from 1.1% the year before. And the school’s graduation rate has for the most part remained under 50%.

Renewing Phalen contract, IPS gives a vote of confidence to its first innovation school

2019-12-20T02:04:26+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools has granted a local charter network another five years to continue its turnaround efforts at what had been a chronically low-performing elementary school on the far eastside.

The board voted unanimously Thursday evening to renew an “innovation school” partnership with Phalen Leadership Academy at School 103. Back in 2015, that school was the first to undergo a “restart” through outside management.

While the school continues to post very low passing rates on state exams, its students show significant growth on tests, and the district reported a much calmer school environment.

“This process reveals for us something that we already know — which is that school turnaround takes time, and it begins with things like stabilizing school culture,” IPS chief portfolio officer Jamie VanDeWalle told Chalkbeat.

The board delayed voting on a five-year extension of the innovation contract for Enlace Academy, a charter school geared toward English-language learners that operates in a district building in northwest Indianapolis.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson pushed back consideration of the renewal in order to provide more information on the school. On Tuesday, IPS board member Taria Slack had raised questions over a dip in school letter grades and feedback from focus groups of teachers, students, and families.

If the contract is extended, the district plans to start providing transportation funding for Enlace.

Innovation schools run independently while still falling under IPS’s umbrella, with their enrollment and academic results counting toward district totals. But they’re controversial because of their ties to charter operators and because teachers are not part of the district union.

“IPS is seeing success with recognizing innovation as one of the many tools in our toolbox, to make sure we can have all of our schools on a continuous improvement strategy and also offer quality options to families,” VanDeWalle said.

The Phalen renewal marks the first time that IPS has extended an innovation school contract. Last month, it ended an agreement with another innovation partner, Charter Schools USA, after the district raised concerns over dwindling enrollment and high teacher turnover at Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School. The split set off a battle for Emma Donnan and two other Indianapolis schools that have been under state control for eight years and were seeking charters in order to permanently leave the district.

Charter Schools USA finds support for charter applications as critics stay silent at public hearing

2019-11-26T23:34:30+00:00

For nearly three hours Monday night, staff, parents, students, and alumni made the case that the operator of three Indianapolis schools that were taken over by the state should be granted charters to continue running them.

As one supporter after another spoke and the crowd slowly dwindled, the mood of the remaining people seemed increasingly buoyant, with students laughing and cheering as their classmates stepped up to the microphone in the Manual High School auditorium.

“My daughter gets up every day excited to go to school,” said Kim Hamilton, who has three children who have attended Howe High School. “The staff is wonderful.”

Although the roughly 50 speakers at the meeting were uniformly supportive of the schools receiving charters, the decision is controversial. Members of the Indiana Charter School Board, who were not present at the hearing, will receive public comments and those submitted in writing.

Howe, Manual, and Emma Donnan Middle School are expected to exit state takeover at the end of this school year. With that transition about six months away, the futures of the schools are still in limbo.

Monday’s hearing focused on whether the state charter board should grant approval for the schools to continue under the management of a group tied to Charter Schools USA, which would essentially cement their separation from Indianapolis Public Schools. The state charter board is expected to vote on the matter at a December 13 meeting.

If the charters are not approved, it is unclear what will happen to the campuses. The options, which would likely be left to the state board of education, could include returning the campuses to IPS control or closing them altogether.

Officials from IPS and the mayor’s office who had initially signed up to speak against the charters — as well as a contingent of neighbors who are critical of Charter Schools USA — submitted written comments.

IPS spokeswoman Carrie Cline Black said district staff decided written statements would be “more efficient” since the charter board members did not attend the hearing in person.

Ahmed Young, IPS chief of external affairs and general counsel, wrote in his statement that “IPS and countless community members wish for there to be local control of the buildings governed by the locally elected IPS Board of School Commissioners.”

Last week, IPS leaders scuttled a plan for the future of Donnan that would have allowed Charter Schools USA to continue managing the campus in partnership with the district. Now, IPS is seeking permission from the state to take control of the school and potentially bring in a different charter manager.

Young’s statement did not answer the crucial question of what IPS would do with the high schools if they were returned to district control. IPS officials have previously said they would close the campuses, but more recently, district leaders have hinted they may be willing to keep the campuses open — potentially, under the management of a different charter network.

Many of the speakers, however, feared the district would close the schools if it took control of them. Alice Glover, a 1961 graduate of Manual who is president of the alumni association, said that if Manual is not available to students, “a lot of them won’t graduate high school.”

“I don’t trust IPS to keep Manual open,” said Glover.

Even if the schools receive charters, however, they could face continuing challenges. Patrick McAlister, director of the mayor’s office of education innovation, said that if the schools had applied to his office for charters, he would have recommended rejecting them.

“I am concerned that the schools are not financially sustainable,” he wrote. “In Indiana, dollars follow the student. It’s not clear that CSUSA will come anywhere close to meeting the enrollment goals in its applications.”

The high schools are also facing additional scrutiny because a recent Chalkbeat investigation revealed that large numbers of Manual and Howe students have left without diplomas. Both high schools maintained higher graduation rates, however, because those students were categorized as leaving to home-school and left out of the state calculation.

That was one of several concerns about the school’s management raised by Laura Giffel, the president of the Bates-Hendricks Neighborhood Association, which is near Manual.

“I am fearful of their lack of honesty in our community,” wrote Giffel in a statement to the board that she shared with Chalkbeat. “The administration has proven itself loose with the truth.”

Charter Schools USA wants permission to stay in Indianapolis. Now is your chance to weigh in.

2019-11-22T23:31:13+00:00

Indianapolis residents will have the chance Monday to offer input on the fate of three city schools ahead of a decision that could determine if they remain in the hands of a Florida-based charter company.

The Indiana Charter Schools Board is expected to decide next month whether to grant charters so the schools can remain with the state-appointed manager, Charter Schools USA. If the board does not grant those charters, the future of the schools is uncertain — state officials could return them to Indianapolis Public Schools, close them, or find another solution.

The three schools — Howe and Manual high schools and Emma Donnan Middle School — have been under state control since 2012, and they are expected to transition out of takeover next year. Before the charter board decides whether to approve charters for the schools, Indianapolis Public Schools plans to make a last-minute plea to the state board of education for the return of Donnan, so the district can bring in a new, local manager. But IPS officials have been less clear about what role they hope to play at Howe and Manual.

In order for the charter network, known as CSUSA, to continue managing the schools, they must win the endorsement of the charter board. One potential concern is the strikingly high number of students who left Howe and Manual without diplomas, as uncovered in a recent Chalkbeat investigation.

Both schools have disproportionately large numbers of students labeled as leaving to home-school, and if those students had been included in the state graduation calculations, graduation rates likely would have plummeted. In the class of 2018, for example, Manual reported 83 graduates, six dropouts, and 60 students who left at some point during their high school years to be home-schooled. But many of those students may not be continuing their education at all, since the state does not track home-schooling.

Those numbers signal that “the distinction between home-school and dropout is really disappearing,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, in an interview with Chalkbeat earlier this year.

CSUSA officials told Chalkbeat that parents decide whether to home-school their children and attributed the high numbers to the “high-risk students” the schools educate.

The network will need to make the case to the charter board that it is serving students well, and the large numbers of students leaving Howe and Manual without diplomas could be a red flag.

Another potential hindrance came up this week. Indianapolis Public Schools abruptly decided to end its existing innovation partnership with CSUSA at Donnan — throwing a wrench in the plan for the collaboration to continue.

It’s unclear whether losing the alliance with the district will diminish CSUSA’s chances of gaining approval for its plan from the charter board.

“We are still trying to figure out what impact, if any, it has on our decision,” said James Betley, executive director of the Indiana Charter School Board. “It is a moving target right now.”

Betley said he is seeking more information from the district about why it wants to cut ties with CSUSA and how proposals from Howe and Manual to lease district buildings for $1 could financially affect IPS.

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who described the large numbers of students leaving Howe and Manual to home-school as “very concerning,” said at a press briefing Tuesday that leaders are wrestling with what the future of the schools means for the district financially, what the community wants, and how the outcome will impact the stability of families.

IPS board member Diane Arnold said that at this point, the decision about the future of Howe and Manual is out of the district’s hands.

“We would like to have control of those facilities back,” Arnold said. “Then we will have to decide what the best course of action is — whether we’re looking for new innovation partners or whatever may come.”

The charter board will hold a hearing to gather public input at 5:30 p.m. on Monday at Emmerich Manual High School. It is expected to vote on the charters at a meeting on December 13.

In a messy breakup, IPS cuts ties with Charter Schools USA — setting off a showdown over the future of takeover schools

2019-11-22T02:42:56+00:00

From the start, Indianapolis Public Schools was reluctant to partner with Charter Schools USA.

Three years after state officials seized control of several academically struggling schools and chose outside charter managers, Indianapolis district leaders faced a choice: Were they willing to collaborate with the Florida-based company operating Emma Donnan Middle School in order to regain some oversight of the campus?

Indianapolis Public Schools, breaking its own policy against partnering with for-profit operators, agreed to work with Charter Schools USA. Together, they created a so-called innovation elementary school at Donnan.

The charter network had pitched this partnership to the state as a way for schools subject to a takeover to transition back to the district “without jeopardizing progress that has been made by the turnaround provider and without major disruption to the community.” Rather than a smooth transition, however, nearly five years of quiet partnership are ending with a dramatic breakup.

The IPS board voted unanimously Thursday not to renew its innovation agreement with the network, known as CSUSA, after little discussion.

“We gave it a chance,” said IPS board member Diane Arnold, who supported creating the partnership with CSUSA. “But I think it’s important for us to not let it go too far.”

Indianapolis Public Schools will now seek permission from the state board of education to take back control of Emma Donnan Middle School and choose a new manager for the campus. But the state board could instead decide to instruct CSUSA to pursue a charter to run the school independently — or to close the school altogether.

The IPS board decision comes just weeks before the Indiana Charter Schools Board is set to decide whether to grant charters to CSUSA to continue running Donnan and two other Indianapolis campuses — Howe and Manual high schools — that were also taken over by the state. The district’s last-minute play could hinder the charter network’s attempt to gain permanent control of all three campuses.

“Our board previously had said, ‘we’re not going to play a role,’ ” said Superintendent Aleesia Johnson of the IPS board at a media briefing Tuesday. “But the reality is, that’s 1,200 some odd students who are our students, who I believe we have a responsibility to.”

Johnson said her administration evaluated whether to renew the Donnan innovation contract with CSUSA independently from the other campuses. Still, the move is a clear sign that it is not likely to partner with CSUSA at Howe or Manual.

All three schools may be less financially sustainable without that alliance.

Officials from Charter Schools USA did not speak at either the Thursday meeting or Tuesday agenda review session the IPS board held. But in a statement Tuesday, a company spokeswoman, Colleen Reynolds, fired back at the district, accusing it of disrupting “students’ and teachers’ lives for political gain.”

“These actions do not deter us from our mission,” Reynolds wrote. “We have a proven track record showing tremendous improvement at all three schools over which we have managed and will continue to do so.”

The showdown marks the latest development in a political saga that began in 2012 when the academically struggling campuses were severed from the district by the state. The IPS superintendent at the time, Eugene White, went to war with Indiana education officials over the takeover, and the new operators accused the district of withholding student information and recruiting teens to transfer to other campuses.

The relationship changed, however, when former Superintendent Lewis Ferebee took the helm of Indianapolis Public Schools soon after and won over state policymakers. Indiana officials eventually returned Arlington High School, which had also been taken over, to local control. And under Ferebee’s administration, the district avoided state intervention by converting failing schools into innovation schools run by outside charter managers.

The district’s approach looks strikingly similar to the state’s decision years earlier to bring in Charter Schools USA. But, crucially, innovation partners are chosen by the district, which continues oversight, and managers are typically local.

“Having a partner who has history and connection to Indiana, to Indianapolis, is something that we have found the community values greatly and that we think makes for a more robust partnership,” Johnson said.

Reynolds, CSUSA’s spokeswoman, dismissed that argument, writing: “IPS has voiced concerns about local control without recognizing that local parents making a choice for their child’s education is the ultimate local control.”

Under Ferebee, Indianapolis Public Schools had largely abandoned any role in determining the future of Howe and Manual high schools. His 2017 plan for consolidating several other high schools, for example, called for closing Howe and Manual if they were returned to district control. And during a multi-month state process to determine the future of the three campuses, Indianapolis Public Schools did not offer plans to keep the schools open.

In March, Johnson made a last-minute request for the state board to delay its decision on the future of the schools while the district analyzed the financial implications of transferring the buildings to Charter School CSUSA. Johnson also raised the possibility that if the district regained control of Howe and Manual, it may keep them open as innovation schools.

The state board rebuffed the appeal for more time and instead instructed Charter Schools USA to seek charters to run the high schools independently of the district. The network has applied for charters for all three schools. But state officials expected that Donnan would continue as a K-8 innovation school under the district’s oversight.

Whether Indianapolis Public Schools is ultimately able to win back control of any of the schools hinges on the state, which is expected to consider the future of Donnan at its board meeting on December 4. If the state board backs Charter Schools USA, the network will also need charters to continue managing the schools. The State Charter Schools Board is expected to decide whether to grant charters to all three schools at a meeting on December 13.

IPS seeks to end innovation partnership with Charter Schools USA

2019-11-19T23:26:18+00:00

For the first time since Indianapolis Public Schools began partnering with charter operators to run campuses, the district is poised to end one of those agreements.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s administration is recommending that the IPS board vote Thursday to end its innovation partnership with Charter Schools USA to run Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School — citing shrinking enrollment, high staff turnover, and a new principal.

The district has “concerns with the stability of the school moving forward, both financially and academically,” said Johnson, who wants to select a new manager to run Donnan next school year.

The proposal is the latest volley in Indianapolis Public Schools’ push to regain control of three schools that were taken over by the state in 2012 and handed to Florida-based for-profit Charter Schools USA to manage. And it’s another twist in the road for Emma Donnan, a one-time middle school where CSUSA stepped in and then expanded to serve elementary grades through the innovation agreement with Indianapolis Public Schools.

In order to take over full control of Donnan, however, Indianapolis Public Schools needs approval from the state board of education. The state board would face a choice of whether to hand control back to IPS — which could then select a new, local charter operator — instruct CSUSA to pursue a charter to continue operating it, or close the school altogether.

Chalkbeat could not immediately reach Charter Schools USA for comment Tuesday evening. But in a statement to WFYI, spokeswoman Colleen Reynolds described the decision as “extreme.”

“While we have been working hard to bring Emma Donnan students to a place where they can be successful, it appears that IPS has been planning to disrupt this success all along,” Reynolds wrote. “IPS clearly has decided that parents do not deserve high quality educational options while their own schools are in decline.”

The Donnan elementary school was one of the earliest innovation schools created in Indianapolis Public Schools. As an innovation school, it is managed independently, but it is considered part of the district, which gets credit for its enrollment and test results. The elementary school has earned A grades from the state for the past two years based on test score growth, and the middle school had a nearly 10% jump in passing rates on the state test in 2018.

Despite some bright spots, Johnson said that given the turnover in leadership at the school, she is not confident performance will remain strong.

“We couldn’t say that the folks who had led that effort and that work historically are going to be able to lead the work moving forward … because all those people are now gone,” Johnson said.

The school has a new principal this year and unusually high teacher turnover, according to Jamie VanDeWalle, who oversees innovation schools for Indianapolis Public Schools officials. Between last school year and this one, 50% of staff turned over. And under 10% of current staff have been at the school for the last three years, VanDeWalle said.

District officials also raised concerns about shrinking enrollment. Donnan enrolls about 435 students in the elementary and middle schools combined, according to the district. That’s down from a peak of about 630 in 2016-17.

Donnan is the first innovation school the board will vote on renewing. It is one of three such schools with contracts that are set to expire at the end of the school year, and the IPS board must decide whether to renew those agreements by the end of 2019. The other innovation schools whose agreements are up for renewal are Phalen Leadership Academy at School 103 and Enlace Academy. The board is expected to discuss those contracts in December.

If the board decides not to renew the agreement with CSUSA, it would be the first time the district has ended an innovation partnership. But it’s unclear what the implications would be for other innovation schools since the district was already locked in a power struggle with CSUSA.

In the spring, Johnson made a last-minute push to convince state leaders to delay their decision about the future of two other takeover schools managed by CSUSA, Howe and Manual high schools. Johnson raised specific concerns over potential financial implications, but the move was also a roadblock at a time when the two schools are on the cusp of being permanently severed from Indianapolis Public Schools. State officials declined to delay and instead voted to instruct those schools to seek charters that would allow them to continue running independently.

Donnan, Manual, and Howe are now seeking charters from the Indiana Charter School Board. The board is expected to decide on the applications in December.

Whether the schools will win approval from the state charter board is uncertain. Some people have raised concerns about their financial stability as independent charter schools. And a recent Chalkbeat investigation found that Howe and Manual have exceptionally large numbers of students leaving without diplomas who are marked as home-schoolers. At Manual, for example, if students who left to home-school were included in the 2018 graduation rate, it would fall to 50%, from 78%.

‘This is a warning shot’: Indiana’s Red for Ed rally isn’t a strike, but it’s closing schools anyway

2019-11-15T22:59:34+00:00

Indiana teachers aren’t going on strike, but experts say they are putting lawmakers on notice.

Tuesday’s fast-growing rally is expected to cancel school for half of the state’s students while as many as 12,000 teachers descend on the Statehouse to make a list of demands, including more funding and higher pay.

“This is a warning shot,” said Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, a Carr professor of labor and employment law at Indiana University. “This is a sign of how serious the problem is and how unified the teachers are.”

Indiana ranked last in teacher salary raises over a 15-year period, according to a Forbes study, and discontent has grown among public educators over the past decade of education reforms — making it a place to watch as teachers strikes happened in other states.

Tuesday’s rally is the first large-scale movement the state has seen during the recent national wave of teacher protests, sometimes referred to as Red for Ed, due to the red t-shirts many educators wear when they protest.

Tuesday is the ceremonial opening day for the legislative session and with a critical mass of teachers asking for the day off to attend the rally, more than 130 districts have cancelled classes for the day.

But it remains unclear whether the rally will be big enough to capture national attention — even with the American Federation of Teachers’ national president Randi Weingarten making an appearance. And it’s far from certain if it will result in lawmakers increasing funding or mandating better working conditions.

Lawmakers, however, shouldn’t assume that a strike is off the table, Dau-Schmidt said.

“I think the legislature would be smart to be responsive to this,” he said. “If they want to keep heading on the track that they are heading on, we very well could have an illegal teachers strike, and they will be in the same position as other states.”

The upcoming rally is likely just the first step, however, in a longer strategy for Indiana’s unions, experts said. Even if lawmakers don’t reopen the budget this year because it’s set through 2020, the rally could make teacher pay a major discussion in upcoming elections.

“While there is much excitement for Tuesday’s rally, don’t let it end there,” Fort Wayne Community Schools Superintendent Wendy Robinson wrote in a letter to parents on Friday. “Take a look at how your state representatives have voted when it comes to funding public education and supporting teachers, and make your decisions wisely.”

In her letter Robinson announced that the district, one of the largest in the state, would close Tuesday despite initially trying to keep enough teachers at work to stay open.

“This event and the number of teachers requesting to take the day off have grown to the point where I no longer feel we can safely educate our students on Tuesday, Nov. 19,” she said.

Many school districts said the decision to close or move to an e-learning day came after the number of teachers who requested a personal day reached a critical mass. Of the districts that cancelled school, most will need to make the day up later in the year, while 18 opted to have students complete school work from home using an e-learning day, according to the Indiana State Teacher Association’s count.

By asking for a personal day teachers are using a protest approach experts said was similar to a “sick out,” when a group of workers organize to call in sick. It’s different than a strike, which would mean teachers refused to work and therefore give up pay and eventually lose their benefits.

Teachers mobilize on a smaller scale every year to advocate at the state legislature, but the size of this movement appears to be unprecedented in Indiana. They showed up in force earlier this year on a Saturday, and by the hundreds in 2011 when the legislature was considering restrictions on collective bargaining, but their activism has yet to have such a broad effect on students being out of school.

Over the past few decades, a handful of Indiana districts have seen strikes or threats of strikes when new contracts can’t be reached, according to news reports. Gary teachers, for example, went on strike at the start of the 2006-07 school year.

Indiana’s rally comes on the heels of successful demands in other states. Last month, Chicago’s 11-day strike ended with $1.5 billion worth of concessions from the city across a five-year contract, including raises for educators and support staff, and $35 million annually to help reduce overcrowding in some schools. West Virginia teachers won a 5% raise after a nine-day strike in 2018. Oklahoma’s teacher strike ended with a $6,000 salary raise for teachers.

The building national momentum behind teacher’s labor movement likely motivated and could benefit Indiana, said Steven Ashby, a University of Illinois professor of labor and employment.

“Every time there’s a victory, it empowers teachers across the country,” he said.

And so far the rally has avoided criticism from top elected officials, including Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. Often teachers who strike are criticized for skipping work and causing students to miss class time, said Charles Taylor, a political science professor at Ball State University.

But a lack of criticism won’t necessarily translate into increased education funding from the Republican supermajority during a short legislative session, when the state’s budget is already set through 2020.

Top lawmakers have been quick to shift the responsibility of raising teacher pay on school districts. While the General Assembly decides how much state funding districts receive, pay is ultimately negotiated and set by local school boards, which decide how much of the district’s budget goes to salaries.

“Local school districts are the decision-makers to determine what is best for their school corporation and for their students,” Holcomb’s office said in a statement. “The Governor has made finding long-term sustainable solutions to improve teacher compensation a top priority.”

Holcomb created a commission tasked with looking for new ways to increase teacher pay, but the group’s report isn’t expected to be finished for another year.

Lawmakers sent more money overall to schools last year and relieved pension expenses for districts, which has resulted in some districts announcing teacher raises. Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma pointed to these raises in a statement on Friday when asked about Tuesday’s rally.

“We support our teachers, the most important professionals for our state’s future, and appreciate their service to our state and to the next generation of Hoosiers,” he said. “We look forward to working with them to help drive more of the historic increases in education funding provided by the General Assembly to the classroom – where it belongs.”

But there was no requirement that districts put any savings from pensions toward teacher pay. And Keith Gambill, the president of the Indiana State Teachers Association union, said the additional funding increase is only expected to keep education spending about on track with inflation.

The state teachers union is calling specifically for lawmakers to take three actions: allocate part of the state’s more than $2 billion surplus to schools, pass a hold-harmless provision to protect schools from any negative consequences related to low 2019 ILEARN scores, and repeal new license requirements requiring teachers do 15 hours of professional development related to their community’s workforce needs.

Gambill said the union wants the state to give schools $75 million of the estimated $400 million the state will bring in this year above its expected revenue.

Indiana is so far behind neighboring states in teacher compensation that it would cost an estimated $658 million to make salaries more competitive, according to a January report. In 2016-17, Indiana teachers made an average salary of $50,554, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but starting salaries can be as low as $30,000.

“[Teachers] believe that they’ve done everything they should to make a difference and that we need to take a different course of action,” Gambill said.

IPS teachers union membership declines after a year of turmoil

2019-10-15T21:55:36+00:00

Membership in the Indianapolis Public Schools teachers union fell to 45.7% of eligible educators this school year, down 4 percentage points from last year. Those numbers point to the weakened state of an association that has withstood serious challenges over the past year.

The newly released data, which comes from annual state-mandated disclosures, is the first indication of how members have responded to the Indianapolis Education Association’s tumultuous year. Over the past 11 months, the former president of the group pleaded guilty to embezzling money from the union, and a frustrated group of former union loyalists led a campaign to replace the IEA.

The weakened state of the union reduces the influence of educators at a pivotal moment for the state’s largest district. With a new superintendent in place, Indianapolis Public Schools leaders will face decisions on whether to close schools, boost teacher pay, and expand partnerships with charter schools.

Of the roughly 1,900 educators covered under the union-negotiated contract, about 880 are union members — meaning they pay dues and can participate in decisions, such as choosing union leaders and approving new contracts. That’s down about 60 members from last year, when nearly 940 educators were in the union, according to data from the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board.

IEA President Ronald Swann did not respond to a request for comment.

Union membership in Indianapolis Public Schools lags significantly behind other school systems in Indiana, though that could change with new leadership and the recent union victory that boosted teacher pay.

Across public school districts in the state, over 60% of teachers are union members. In Marion County, the district with the highest union membership is Decatur, where 75.4% of educators are in the union. Lawrence, where 31.8% of teachers are members, has the lowest union participation in the county.

If membership in the IEA continues to shrink, it could mean that the union has less money to support its work. Fewer members and dollars could result in “less of a voice for teachers, and as a result, you worry that the state legislature and the school boards won’t pay enough attention to teachers’ needs,” Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, a professor of labor and employment law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, told Chalkbeat last year.

In Indianapolis Public Schools, the dip in participation is the latest loss for a group that has seen the number of teachers covered by its contract slowly shrink as the district hands schools over to outside managers. Teachers at those externally managed schools are not represented by the district union. The district did not convert any additional schools to innovation status last year, and the number of teachers represented by the union rose slightly.

From ‘chill out’ spaces to weekend hours, a new principal attempts to turn around School 43

2019-09-11T00:19:01+00:00

School 43 has gone through at least five leaders in five years. But its latest principal, Lauren Johnson, wants parents and neighbors to know that she’s here to stay.

“I have yet to run away from a school in less than a year. It’s not how I roll. It’s not how I do business,” said Johnson, a veteran Indianapolis Public Schools principal who led her prior campus for 7 years. “My commitment to this district is strong.”

Johnson joined Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Aleesia Johnson and School Board Member Evan Hawkins Monday night for a discussion about the future of School 43 — a campus that has been roiled by instability and continues to face steep challenges. Chalkbeat Indiana moderated the event, which was hosted by the Butler Tarkington Neighborhood Association at the Martin Luther King Community Center.

Also known as James Whitcomb Riley, the northside school enrolls about 450 students in preschool through 8th grade. More than 92% of School 43 students are children of color, and about 67% of them are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. School 43 has posted some of the district’s lowest passing rates on state tests, and during a meeting last school year after another principal left, parents and teachers raised concerns about discipline problems and said the school was short-staffed.

On Monday, Principal Johnson, who took over this school year, laid out the steps she is already taking to make the school culture more upbeat and support teachers. She introduced positive routines, such as morning meetings, shout outs to classes that are doing well, and “chill out” spaces. She has monthly meetings with new teachers, and she makes herself available to work with teachers before or after school, and on weekends.

“We are all working on this together,” Principal Johnson said. “They see that their principal is a visible leader. They see me in their classrooms. They see that I have their back.”

The district is relying on the new principal to help turn the school around, said Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, but others also have a role to play. District leaders will do what they can to ensure the principal has “what she needs to be successful,” she said.

“Right now, the proof has to be in our actions,” said Superintendent Johnson. “It has to be in consistent ability to execute on what we say we’re going to execute on — that’s how you build trust. That’s how you build relationships. That’s how you build success over the long-term.”

School 43 is the neighborhood school for a large swath of the district’s northside, but the area it covers also includes five magnet schools. The magnet schools attract more middle-class families and more white students. Those students typically have an edge in the admissions lottery at some of the most popular magnets because district rules give preference to students who live nearby or have siblings at the school.

The superintendent and Hawkins, who represents the neighborhood on the school board, acknowledged the disparities between School 43 and nearby magnet schools, though neither laid out a specific plan for bridging the gap.

“So many schools serving predominantly students of color were not resourced for generations and for decades,” Hawkins said. “Families deserve the highest quality educational experience. That needs to be everywhere. That needs to be here.”

Indianapolis Public Schools leaders are committed to reflecting on where magnet schools are located, and also on what they can do to pursue racial equity, Superintendent Johnson said.

“But I’m under no illusion that will be easy,” she said.

Upstart teachers group abandons plans to challenge the IPS union

2019-08-02T21:58:19+00:00

The union representing Indianapolis Public Schools teachers notched a quiet victory this week when an upstart group abandoned plans to challenge them.

The Indianapolis Teachers Society did not file a petition to decertify and replace the union, as the group had previously planned. The society, which already led one aborted effort to replace the union, will continue to operate as a teacher support organization, a leader said. The group would have another opportunity to challenge but it would likely be in more than a year.

The society launched a push to replace the Indianapolis Education Association earlier this year after the former president was revealed in November to have mismanaged money from the union. Rhondalyn Cornett, who resigned after she was confronted by state union officials, pleaded guilty last month to embezzling more than $100,000, and she faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The union has faced opposition in recent months from a small but vocal group of teachers, including former union loyalists. Ultimately, however, the existing union proved more powerful and resilient than its challengers anticipated.

The society decided that waging a battle against the IEA, which is backed by the Indiana State Teachers Association, would cost too much money, said teacher Lora Elliott, who is one of the society founders.

“Financially, it was a nightmare,” Elliott said. “ISTA was going to drive us into bankruptcy.”

The society filed a petition with the state in February to replace the IEA, but withdrew it about a month later because of a technical error in describing which teachers it hoped to represent, according to co-founder LaMeca Perkins-Knight. At the time, the group planned to file another petition during the July window, which is now closed. The process cost society members about $6,000 in attorneys’ fees, Elliott said.

Ronald Swann, president of the IEA, did not respond to a request for comment. When the society withdrew its initial petition in March, Swann told Chalkbeat in a statement that the withdrawal of the petition showed the society did not have support from educators. “The grass seed did not germinate,” wrote Swann, a high school science teacher.

“The IEA’s membership continues to grow as we continue our commitment to the professional staff and students of the Indianapolis Public Schools,” Swann wrote.

The society will have to wait until at least January 2020 to file another challenge. It could take longer, however, since a petition must be filed in the year that the contract is set to expire, and IEA will soon begin negotiating a new contract with the district that could extend two years.

Perkins-Knight, a prior leader in IEA and one of the founders of the society, told the Indianapolis Public Schools board last month that she is leaving the district, though she will remain active in the society.

The group would also need to win support from significantly more teachers to succeed. If the society had petitioned for an election over the union, it would have needed to show support from 20% of educators who are covered by the district contract, about 380 teachers.

Elliott said the society has fewer than 10 active members, although more people were supportive of their challenge.

Ex-union chief for Indianapolis Public Schools teachers pleads guilty to embezzlement

2019-07-22T20:13:22+00:00

The former head of the Indianapolis Public Schools teachers union pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than $100,000, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana.

Rhondalyn Cornett wrote checks from the union’s bank account and used the union’s debit card for personal expenses and cash withdrawals, the U.S. attorney’s office said, stealing more than $100,000.

Cornett, 54, resigned from the teachers union in November when her alleged mishandling of funds came to light.

Cornett, who led Indianapolis Education Association for five years, faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Cornett’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office is committed to prosecuting individuals, like Cornett, who abuse their positions of public trust,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Josh Minkler in the news release. “Teachers depend on the union dues they’ve paid from their paychecks in order for the union to represent their best interests.”

Some parents and teachers are frustrated that Shortridge’s next principal remains unknown

2019-05-17T22:35:00+00:00

Several months after Shortridge High School Principal Shane O’Day announced plans to leave, Indianapolis Public Schools is still on the hunt for a replacement. Now, amid pushback from some parents and teachers over the process and candidates, the district faces the possibility of ending the year without a permanent leader — and some fear for the school’s stability.

Tensions over the search for a new principal have been running high. When a group of finalists were chosen for interviews with some parents, students, and staffers, the names soon began to circulate. Frustration over the options spread on social media. A letter to human resources from staff at the school urged the selection of a temporary principal. And interim superintendent Aleesia Johnson shared a public letter aimed at calming anxiety.

Founded in 2012 in a building on the west side, the International Baccalaureate high school allows students to earn college credits in high school and has a global focus. The school is racially and socioeconomically diverse. But it’s popular among middle-class parents with lots of school choices. That makes Shortridge’s position somewhat precarious because if families don’t feel confident in the stability of the school, they might leave the district.

Uncertainty over the next principal is the school’s latest challenge. At a time when the district is overhauling its high schools in a bid to improve their results, Shortridge has one of the most consistent track records of success on measures such as graduation rates and state letter grades. As one of four campuses that survived high school closures and consolidation, the school absorbed the district’s performing arts magnet and its enrollment swelled to 1,045 this year.

Just where the search stands — and what will happen next — is unclear.

At least one of the finalists was told he is no longer under consideration for the position. Charlie Schlegel, an Indianapolis education consultant and former leader of a local charter network, says he was told by the district he is no longer a candidate.

The district declined to answer any questions related to the search and what is next in the process, instead referring Chalkbeat to a public letter from interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson.

The district’s goal, Johnson wrote the letter published online about the search, is to recommend the next principal before the end of the year. “However, I will also assure you that we will not sacrifice finding a quality leader in order to meet this timeframe and will create an alternative plan if needed.”

“With input from the school community, interview panels have formed, engaged candidates, and provided input into the decision-making process,” Johnson wrote in the letter. “As with every school leadership vacancy that arises in our district, I am deeply committed to selecting a leader at Shortridge whose values are aligned to those of our district and who will best position SHS for success.”

An online post shared by the IPS Community Coalition, a group that’s critical of the district administration, raised concerns about candidates’ ties to charter schools and whether the apparent finalists had sufficient experience to lead an International Baccalaureate high schools.

“What the district has done with this hiring process is anything but about community decision making and autonomy,” said Jeb Bardon, a parent at Shortridge, who added that the district administration had not done enough to search for candidates internationally as parents had asked. “We’re just trying to hold on to our faculty right now,” he said.

It is not just parents who are frustrated. Earlier this month, staff at Shortridge sent a letter to human resources. The letter, which was signed “Shortridge High School Staff,” raised concerns about the process and proposed the district name an interim principal for next year.

“We are concerned that the principal hiring process has presented challenges, including equity and transparency, and that the process will lead to the selection of a leader whose appointment does not reflect the values, mission, and ethics of the IPS community nor of the Shortridge community,” read the letter, which was shared with Chalkbeat by someone with knowledge of the search process who was not authorized to comment.

O’Day told the Shortridge student paper in December 2018 that he was leaving the school because it had outgrown his strength as a founder, and he planned to travel with his wife.

This Indianapolis teacher’s salary covered the basics. Then came everything her students needed

2019-04-18T19:55:16+00:00

When Anita Saunders joined Teach For America and was hired by an Indianapolis charter school, she didn’t discuss compensation.

She was later in her career and already had decades of working experience — and she also had a mortgage, a car payment, and student loans.

When it came time to sign her contract, Saunders was surprised to see she was agreeing to a salary that was $23,000 less than what she had previously earned working at a nonprofit.

The salary stress ultimately drove her out of the classroom. Saunders now works as a school psychologist for Indianapolis Public Schools, in part because it’s a better-paying job in education. She recently shared her experience at a story slam event co-hosted by Chalkbeat and Teachers Lounge Indy at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art.

Here’s an excerpt of her story:

So I started my teaching career really anxious — anxious about all the policies and strategies and paperwork, etc., that goes along with teaching, along with how much money I was not making.

I’d done my budget, and I was going to just make it each month, barring any emergencies.

Of course emergencies happened. A pothole ate the front of my car — new tires. My basement flooded — new sump pump. Ninjas had a fight with fighting stars in my stomach that included a hospital stay and the subsequent bills.

And those were just the big things.

The little things came regularly, and most often were not related to my needs, but the needs of my students. Middle-school boys need a lot of stuff to get them to read at grade level. There were granola bars, Takis, Hot Cheetos. Lotion, because they stay ashy, but they don’t like to be ashy. Socks, shoes, rewards for reaching reading goals, classroom decor, coats, soccer cleats, treats for ISTEP, NWEA, and interims. Deodorant. Toothbrushes and toothpaste. Gatorade. Athletic fees. Febreze.

And the greatest expense known to teacher-kind: pencils.

Check out the rest of Saunders’ story in the video below.

You can find more stories from educators, students, and parents here.

Glenda Ritz treasured books as a child, and she sees literacy as Indiana’s most important education goal

2019-03-22T15:30:00+00:00

Chalkbeat journalists ask the people we come across in our work to tell us about their education stories and how learning shaped who they are today. Learn more about this series, and read other installments, here.

Glenda Ritz was previously Indiana’s state superintendent. Before getting into politics, she spent her career in Washington Township as a teacher and media specialist.

I grew up in Lafayette, Indiana. I come from a very hardworking, low middle class family. I was the oldest of five children, and school was something I loved.

We didn’t have many books in my house, and I don’t recall ever being read to. I did have a grandmother who knew I loved to read and would give me books every Christmas, and I treasured them.

The Wizard of Oz was probably my favorite book and my favorite movie during that time period. I read mostly fiction books.

When I got to school, I remember thinking, oh my gosh, the whole world opened up.

READ: Find more on this year’s races for superintendent, governor and IPS school board.

By the time I was in high school, I had a feeling I might want to become a teacher. I took a course called cadet teaching, and I would go and be in an elementary school classroom for a couple hours a week. My family did not have money to send me to college, and so I worked two to three jobs every summer to save the money I’d need to go to college. I chose to go to Ball State University — I didn’t want to live at home.

I spent 34 years in Washington Township. I worked in six different schools … teaching at the elementary, middle and high school level. I went back to school shortly after I was hired to get my master’s at Ball State, and then I really got involved with a librarian at Fox Hill who was just a fabulous librarian and media specialist.

She said, “I want you to partner with me on a project for the library of congress.” And so we went to Washington D.C.

I came back and thought, you know, I think I want to get a master’s of library science. They had an opening at another school in Washington Townships for a media specialist, so I applied.

It really gave me a sense of working with teachers as an entire faculty. My focus has always been on literacy. Learning and reading really develops you into the person you are — at least, it did with me.

So I want to make sure that children know that literacy has to be a part of their lives, always. It can take them on different paths, but being a great reader and communicator and problem-solver is really what it is all about.

Which is why I’m so determined about our testing system because every test you take is first a test on reading. You need it for math, you need it for science, you need it for social studies — you need reading for everything you do. That’s really the key to kids being great learners. And once they get hooked on it, they can read whatever they want to read as long as they do it.

Because reading is never going away. Ever.

Being a special education teacher showed Jennifer McCormick the value of relationships

2019-03-22T15:30:00+00:00

Jennifer McCormick became state superintendent in 2017. Previously, she was the superintendent of schools in Yorktown, near Muncie, where she was also a teacher and principal.

I remember as a high school student having the opportunity to share lunch time with students (with special needs). I really think that as a peer, that really helped me realize the power of relationships with peers and in better trying to understand students in special populations.

We all shared lunch together and tried to really develop some friendships with students that we might not have had experiences with. I really think that piqued my interest in the area of special education and the area of elementary education and how powerful that was — not just giving of yourself, but how much you receive by having those types of experiences.

When I went on to study education (after high school), obviously I saw things that were different as far as diversity, as far as socioeconomic struggles, so that was good for me. That really opened my eyes — I was from New Castle.

READ: Find more on this year’s races for superintendent, governor and IPS school board.

I remember especially there was a young gentleman who was … between 8 and 10 at the time that I saw him. He was in the child protective services, and he was receiving a lot of wraparound services. At the time, as a young educator, I didn’t have a great handle on that — I’ll be honest with you. That was my first time dealing with someone whose home situation was really volatile, and his academics weren’t necessarily a huge priority for him.

That was a change for me because I came from a stable home, I came from a stable district.

For me, that situation was an eye-opener. There were many more issues as far as what his focus was on, more of the survival instinct and getting his basic needs met vs. academics. Education cannot simply be just about the academics. That was an important lesson and really has shaped a lot of how I approach things as far as the whole child and not just the academic side of things.

I often wonder (about him). I saw him for a couple of years, and (at the time) he was very mobile. I don’t know what happened. He’d be older now, and I hope he’s productive and doing OK.

In order for students to be successful, we all just had to really make sure that we were all working together and trying to provide the students services that they need. Those years of special education … today I look back at a lot of those experiences I had with those families and those students, and it really did mold who I am today.

I understand the value of partnerships — that’s who I am, and that’s how I’ve led, that’s how I taught, that’s how I parent. I understand it truly does take a village. Everyone plays a role in what we accomplish, and I think that’s true at a local or state level.

Indianapolis Public Schools’ Aleesia Johnson joins national education leadership group

2019-03-14T17:08:35+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson was named to a roster of rising stars by a high-profile education leadership group.

Johnson, a likely leading contender to head the district permanently, was named a future leader by Chiefs for Change, a leadership organization that is considered a springboard for rising school administrators. Former Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Lewis Ferebee, who now leads the Washington, D.C. school system, joined the group in 2017.

Johnson, who served as deputy superintendent until Ferebee’s departure in January, was one of nine school leaders selected for the group’s latest cohort of future school leaders. A native of Evansville, she rose up in the ranks of Teach for America and KIPP Indy before joining Indianapolis Public Schools four years ago.

“I’m honored to be joining this incredible community, and I look forward to the opportunity to work with like-minded leaders who are expanding opportunities for all students,” said Johnson in a statement.

Chiefs for Change is a network of state and district education leaders that has supported charter schools, the Common Core State Standards, and other like-minded policy changes.

“These Future Chiefs are already making a tangible difference for students across the country, and Aleesia is no exception,” said Chiefs for Change CEO Mike Magee in a statement. “We’re impressed by her commitment to the Indianapolis community and her relentless drive to do the right thing for students and families.”

Other new participants in the year-long “future chiefs” program include education leaders from Chicago, Denver, San Antonio, Cleveland, Louisiana, and Florida. The participants will receive training, coaching, and mentoring from members of the Chiefs for Change network.

Founded by former Florida governor Jeb Bush in the 2000s, Chiefs for Change has since split from the foundation that launched it and taken a bipartisan turn. The group advocates for school choice, culturally diverse curriculum, tough accountability standards, and the rights of immigrant students, among other issues.

Aleesia Johnson took the helm of IPS amid rising opposition. How will she respond?

2019-03-08T00:21:33+00:00

Back when she was principal of the KIPP middle school in Indianapolis six years ago, Aleesia Johnson was about to head out one evening when she heard something that made her stop. Her assistant principal, Andrea Minich, was in the middle of a difficult call with a mother upset about how her child was disciplined — and it wasn’t going well.

So instead of leaving, Johnson stayed in the office until about 10:30 p.m., Minich recalled. Johnson passed Minich notes with advice, encouraging her to be less defensive, to breathe, and to listen to the mother’s concerns.

At the end of the phone call, Minich said she and the mother still disagreed, but the parent was calm.

“I was still relatively young at that point in time, and it definitely could’ve been a moment that really broke me,” she said. “But she used that to really build me up.”

This willingness to listen, including to critics, and a deep investment in helping colleagues grow are among the strengths that supporters say Johnson, 40, brings to her role leading Indianapolis Public Schools and could be assets if she secures the position permanently.

Johnson took over the district on an interim basis in January, after former Superintendent Lewis Ferebee left for Washington, D.C. As Ferebee’s deputy superintendent, Johnson is a favorite of several influential Indianapolis leaders to take the helm permanently of the state’s largest school district, even before any candidates have thrown their hats into the ring.

Those who knew Johnson in previous roles say that while, like Ferebee, she has not led a district, she has many of the qualities that would help her succeed as superintendent: empathy, grace under pressure, and the ability to make tough decisions. She listens to critics and handles conflict deftly, they say — traits that could be powerful in Indianapolis Public Schools, where Ferebee faced persistent criticism that his administration was not engaging families early enough on tough decisions or responding to feedback.

But amid that anger and distrust, someone closely associated with the district’s controversial changes like Johnson could struggle to win over critics. Much of her 15 years working in Indianapolis education were at a charter school and the school reform-aligned Teach For America. She is still relatively unknown among some parents, teachers, and advocates.

And critics argue that building strong relationships is not enough considering the challenges the district faces. Although Indianapolis Public Schools won an influx of funding from voters last fall, it is still facing massive cuts — including likely school closures — so it can spend more on priorities such as teacher pay. At the same time, passing rates on state tests remain persistently low, particularly for students of color and students from low-income families.

“She’s personable. She’s approachable,” said Jim Grim, a frequent critic of Ferebee’s administration who leads community school partnerships at IUPUI. “Those are good qualities, I’m not saying they are not. But those aren’t the only qualities we need.”

Johnson’s mother and grandfather were educators in traditional public schools, but she took a different route. After earning a master’s degree in social work, she began teaching in New Jersey through Teach For America. In Indianapolis, she worked at both Teach For America and KIPP Indy, where she led the middle school for three years before joining Indianapolis Public Schools.

A native of Evansville, Johnson, who attended private school, said she works in education because she believes families should have access to the same kind of high-quality education she had. As a black woman, she is keenly aware of the systemic issues facing black and brown children, she said.

“I was very fortunate to have a great education,” Johnson said in an interview with Chalkbeat last month. “I just feel this incredible sort of responsibility to my community.”

Her route to the top of Indianapolis Public Schools was unconventional, but it reflects the transformation of the school system into one where the line between traditional and charter schools is blurred. Since 2015, the district has created 20 “innovation schools,” which are considered part of Indianapolis Public Schools but are run by outside operators, primarily charter networks. And even at schools that are still run by the district, principals have gotten increasing freedom.

Johnson has been instrumental in that change. She joined Indianapolis Public Schools nearly four years ago to oversee the new innovation schools, and she helped define the contours of the program — from how to engage families at schools that might be overhauled to the details of contracts with the operators.

The central office still has a role to play in supporting principals and helping them become better leaders, Johnson said. But she believes in the mission of giving principals more control over their schools.

“They know their families and students deeply. They know their staff,” she said. “They need the space to be able to make decisions that are going to be in the best interest of all of those people.”

Likely because of Johnson’s work in Ferebee’s administration, there is substantial opposition to choosing her as the next superintendent from critics of the district’s direction, such as the IPS Community Coalition. The group came out with a statement in January that described Johnson’s experience and qualifications as “lacking.”

Chrissy Smith, one of the leaders of the coalition, said Johnson’s work with innovation schools is “troubling,” because she does not want the district to continue that approach, and she has concerns about the process of creating the schools. The meetings at traditional schools facing the prospect of conversion to innovation status were “always rushed” and didn’t involve the community as much as they should have, she said.

Based on that experience, Smith said, “I don’t have hope” that Johnson will be able to work with critics.

Johnson is aware she is stepping in at a time when there is organized opposition to changes in the district and vehement disagreement over the best way to improve education.

“I believe we all agree on, we want a great system for kids — we want great schools for kids,” Johnson said. “We can disagree respectfully on the ‘how.’ And I think we can struggle through that in a way that can ultimately be productive. … If people are willing to come to the table sort of open to what can be possible.”

As interim superintendent, Johnson, who is paid $222,380, presides over a district of about 31,000 students, including those at charter schools under district oversight. There’s a political side to the job, and she spends a fair amount of time meeting with community leaders and, especially during the legislative session, talking to lawmakers, she said. But she also oversees what’s happening in schools, spending time with school principals and academic staff.

At about 7:30 a.m., Johnson starts each day by dropping her three children off at a district school. Then, she heads to the gym or into the office, where she is often one of the first to arrive. If she’s picking her children up from school, she leaves before 6 p.m., but other days she spends her evenings at school board or community meetings.

Even before Johnson joined Indianapolis Public Schools, she worked long hours, her former colleagues say. At KIPP, she would work a full day and leave to pick up her children, only to return with her whole family for a school barbeque or basketball game.

“She definitely worked ridiculous amounts of hours for our kids, while still somehow managing to be an amazing mom, which I think was something that always astounded me,” said Emily Pelino Burton, superintendent for KIPP Indy.

The close relationships Johnson developed are evident in the stories students, parents, and colleagues tell about her.

When Nyree Modisette started at KIPP Indy’s middle school in eighth grade, she was so far behind that an assessment put her at about a second-grade reading level. Johnson and other educators at the school went back to the basics, staying after school to tutor her on phonics and making sure she had her favorite books, like those by Judy Blume, said Modisette. By the end of the year, she was on grade level and heading to Brebeuf High School.

“It was remarkable. I will never forget that — how they took that time out to actually help,” said Modisette, who is now a senior at Butler University and still keeps in touch with Johnson. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for their help.”

Nyree Modisette’s mother, Roshawn, met Johnson when her daughters enrolled in KIPP, but she eventually took a job as a special education assistant, her first “professional” job, she said. Initially, she felt insecure because she was a single mother who hadn’t graduated from college.

But that changed after a meeting at the school when Roshawn Modisette was too afraid to respond as a parent yelled at her.

“Aleesia told me, ‘I’m gonna teach you how to use your words,’ ” said Roshawn Modisette, who began leaning on her experience as a mother as a source of authority. “What she taught me was confidence.”

Colleagues say Johnson holds students and employees to a high standard. But she is consistently kind. Even in tough situations, dealing with middle schoolers or irate parents, she keeps her cool and never gets visibly angry.

“I’ve never seen her upset. It used to make me nervous,” said Roshawn Modisette, who now laughs about it. “She’s always so calm.”

What you need to know about Aleesia Johnson, IPS’ interim superintendent

2018-12-11T22:36:22+00:00

Even before she was chosen as interim superintendent last week, Aleesia Johnson was a rising star in Indianapolis Public Schools.

Johnson spearheaded the district’s innovation strategy under departing superintendent Lewis Ferebee, developing controversial partnerships with nonprofit or charter operators and giving schools more freedom.

About Aleesia Johnson, IPS’ new interim superintendent:

Johnson started at Indianapolis Public Schools in 2015 overseeing the district’s innovation schools. She was promoted to deputy superintendent of academics earlier this year.
Johnson started her career as a teacher through Teach for America. She came to Indianapolis to teach at KIPP Indy and later led the charter network’s middle school. She has also worked for Teach for America’s Indianapolis office.
She graduated from Agnes Scott College and received master’s degrees from the University of Michigan and Oakland City University.
An Evansville native, Johnson comes from a family of educators. Her mother was a longtime teacher and is now an elementary school principal. Her grandfather was one of the few black administrators in Evansville in the 1970s and 1980s, she said.
Johnson has three children who all attend district schools.

Her work overseeing innovation schools — sometimes used as a turnaround approach for the most struggling schools — has transformed the district into a more decentralized, hybrid model that has attracted the national spotlight. Because of innovation schools, Indianapolis is widely regarded by reform advocates as a district among the “most inventive and dynamic in the country,” as the Center on Reinventing Public Education put it last year.

Now Johnson, 40, is the first African-American woman to serve as the district’s superintendent, and she appears a likely contender when the district begins its search for a permanent successor to Ferebee.

“I’m under no illusion of the challenges that face our district and the tough decisions that will have to be made,” Johnson said in a district blog post about her appointment.

As deputy superintendent of academics, Johnson has often been a public face of the district, speaking on panels about racial equity in education and forums about the district’s innovation work. Personable and confident, she’s well respected within the district and in Indianapolis education circles, even though her work with innovation schools can be controversial.

As a key leader in Ferebee’s administration, Johnson is closely tied to charter schools and school reform in Indianapolis. A former Teach for America and KIPP Indy leader, she has said she supports the path the district is on, which means she’ll likely have the support of the majority of the school board. Johnson told the Center on Reinventing Public Education that she was drawn to Indianapolis Public Schools in 2015 because she “connected really strongly with the vision the superintendent laid out.”

“She’s had the opportunity to see first-hand some of our strategy and transformation efforts,” Ferebee said Friday.

Under Johnson’s leadership, the district would likely continue to broaden its innovation strategy. A district of some 30,000 students, made up of mostly students of color and from poor families, Indianapolis Public Schools serves about a quarter of its students in 20 innovation schools.

In interviews, Johnson has often touted how innovation schools can move more nimbly than schools that have to wait for district-level changes.

“I think what we’re trying to do is create a third way of thinking — how do you marry empowering schools with flexibility with lots of the resources that are available to schools in a traditional public schools district structure,” Johnson told the Reinventing America’s Schools project, a pro-charter school reform movement led by David Osborne.

It’s hard to make a blanket statement on the performance of innovation schools. Because most of them are less than three years old, many are graded based on the growth of their students alone without taking into account their proficiency levels. Many of the schools have seen early gains in passing rates on state tests.

Johnson has been upfront about the challenges of the innovation strategy. In the book “Reinventing America’s Schools,” Osborne wrote that she acknowledges “constant problems to be worked out,” such as funding to support innovation schools and uprooting teachers when schools convert to innovation.

“It’s never, ‘No, we can’t do that,’” she said in the book. “It’s, ‘Oh, we’ve never done that, so let’s talk about it and figure out how to get it done.’”

In an interview with the local Indy Education blog, Johnson said she invites critics to see the changes strong leaders can make in innovation schools.

She also said innovation can allow community members to feel like they have ownership of the schools in their neighborhood: “I see this work as an incredible opportunity for there to be, unlike ever before, a much stronger community voice, much stronger way for parents to interact and engage in their schools.”

Still, Johnson was careful to note Friday that she won’t be a carbon-copy of her former boss, who has both won the hearts of many national reformers and rankled community members with the dramatic changes to the district. “I think obviously I am a different leader,” she said.

She won’t be immune to criticism. The IPS Community Coalition, a grassroots group that is critical of innovation schools, posted on Facebook about Johnson’s appointment to interim superintendent: “Although that is a great milestone for IPS in terms of equity and diversity, we have continued concern about the IPS agenda. The statement this appointment makes about pushing innovation schools and charter ‘choices’ on poor, and black and brown students is concerning — as charters have not proved to be more effective, nor equitable in their treatment of students.”

Others, though, including school board members, have heralded her appointment. Andrew Pillow, a teacher who worked with Johnson at KIPP Indy, wrote on the Indy K12 blog that Johnson is “infinitely qualified and the perfect choice to lead Indianapolis Public Schools.”

So far, Johnson has said she will wait until the school board decides the superintendent search process to say whether she’s throwing her hat in the ring to lead the district long-term.

Asked again in her first television interview as interim superintendent this week, she said, “We shall see.”

Correction: Jan. 4, 2019: A previous version of this story identified the Indy K12 blog under its former name, Indy Education.

With Ferebee’s departure, Indianapolis Public Schools could name an interim superintendent on Friday

2018-12-06T02:51:57+00:00

The Indianapolis Public Schools board is set to discuss Friday afternoon who will temporarily lead the district as they search for a successor for Superintendent Lewis Ferebee, who is leaving to lead Washington, D.C.’s public school system.

But the board will not vote on a permanent replacement or decide on details about the search process, according to a district statement Wednesday night.

The district won’t choose a new superintendent until after three new board members are sworn in next month, incoming school board member Susan Collins said.

Ferebee was selected Monday to be the next chancellor of D.C.’s public schools. He is slated to start Jan. 31.

The selection of a new Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent could prove challenging because of the new board make-up. Two of the new board members are not in lockstep with Ferebee’s philosophies, particularly about innovation schools — the group of charter and charter-like schools managed by outside operators that was one of Ferebee’s main achievements. It’s unclear how easy it will be for the new board to reach a consensus.

A big question will be whether the board chooses to look internally or locally for its next leader, or whether it will launch a national search.

Who should replace Lewis Ferebee as superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools?

2018-12-04T21:31:34+00:00

Indianapolis’ education community is already mulling what kind of leader should replace Superintendent Lewis Ferebee, who announced Monday that he’s leaving to head D.C. public schools.

With the 31,000-student school district in a state of flux, school board members and advocates say there is no time to waste. The district closed high schools last year. Two candidates opposed to innovation schools — the group of charter and charter-like schools managed by outside operators that was one of Ferebee’s main achievements — were recently elected to the school board. And despite the passage of a referendum to send more taxpayer money to schools, more large cuts are looming.

“Certainly it’s an important, critical time for IPS — the work that we’re doing with them, how they approach teacher pay and principal pay,” Mark Fisher, who leads policy for the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce said. “It’s going to be a critical hire for Dr. Ferebee’s replacement, and especially with several new board members joining the board, they’ll be drinking from the firehose.”

First, Indianapolis Public Schools board members will have to decide if they want to hire from within the community or pursue a national search for their new leader. Board president Michael O’Connor said the school board would meet soon in executive session to hammer out next steps.

“We’ll gather as a board and make some immediate decisions on a transition period,” O’Connor said. “This is a particularly touchy time period because you’ve got a board transition occurring, so we’ll make sure to be very inclusive.”

Mary Ann Sullivan, an outgoing board member, said her advice to her colleagues would be to keep it local. Don’t make the process to find Ferebee’s replacement lengthier than it needs to be, she said, noting that there are definitely people in Indianapolis who are ready to step in to take over, though she declined to provide names.

“Things can drag on a long time, and in the meantime, people have to go to work every day and get things done for kids,” Sullivan said. “I would prefer a very, very short turnaround to new leadership.”

A few possible internal candidates exist, including Ferebee’s deputy Superintendent Aleesia Johnson and his chief of staff Ahmed Young. Another local option would be to pluck the leader of a neighboring township, as IPS did before Ferebee with former Superintendent Eugene White.

A national search would likely take longer than a local hire, leaving an interim leader at the helm for some stretch of time. But with budget cuts and school closures looming, any outsider would need to be a quick study — and an attractive superintendent candidate might be hesitant to join a district facing those difficult realities.

“This is certainly going to be a more challenging transition, especially if the board does a national search and you look to bring someone in from the outside,” Fisher said. “There’s a lot of data out there, so I don’t think a new superintendent is going to be coming in blind to the challenges that the district faces or, quite frankly, some of the tough decisions we know that they’ll need to make.”

The selection could prove challenging because of the new board make-up. The two new board members are not in lockstep with Ferebee’s philosophies, and it’s unclear how easy it will be for the new board to reach a consensus.

As far as who that new leader should be, insiders focused on the need for someone with strong communication skills, both with the public and with politicians in the statehouse. Ferebee, who took heat for not always garnering grassroot support for changes, specifically mentioned collaboration as a skill that his successor will need.

“Continue the collaborative spirit,” Ferebee advised in an interview with Chalkbeat. “It would be unfortunate if we became isolated from our partners and we’re back to what I call random acts of improvement … We must hold on to it.”

Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, a group that supports charter schools in IPS and has worked closely with Ferebee, agrees. Brown said the district needs the community on its side as it continues rolling out changes.

“One thing I’ve learned over the past five years is that change is really hard, and when you think about the series of changes that have happened in IPS, it has been a lot,” Brown said. “One of the important things when you’re going through change is to ensure that you’re communicating that change effectively, and it’s important to prioritize those who are impacted the most.”

And that isn’t limited to local partners either — the next superintendent of Indiana’s largest school district needs to have the ear of state leaders and lawmakers as well, advocates say, especially as Indiana heads into a new legislative session where school funding and teacher pay will be central debates.

“It’s not just what’s happening with our city, but how we interact with the legislature and how state policy is set.” Fisher said. “That is something that has gone very underappreciated when it comes to how Dr. Ferebee has worked that end of Market Street.”

Ferebee’s replacement will also have to consider whether to keep up his growing network of innovation schools. The controversial schools have won some support across the city, but critics are calling for a closer look at the model before it is allowed to grow. Figuring out how to balance growth and evaluation of the young program will be key to winning the support of board members and community members alike.

Board member Venita Moore said it was too early to make any kind of conclusion about whether innovation schools work or not, but she says over the next year the board will be able to better evaluate where the district is at. Although she said she’d prefer if Ferebee didn’t leave at such a pivotal time, she’s got her eyes on what’s coming next.

“I’m looking for someone that can think outside the box, who is very open to looking at different things but also willing to look at what we have and see how we can shape what we have,” she said. “It’s not a secret that I am open to a portfolio of schools … but I am also about ensuring that as we move forward, that we are assured that the direction we are currently going is in the correct direction.”

Charity Scott, executive director of the IPS Community Coalition, a group that organizes parents and has often spoken against the Ferebee’s administration, said she was skeptical that the district should continue its strong march in favor of charter school partnerships. She thinks the focus of the new board and, eventually, its new leader, should be nailing down what does and doesn’t work.

“The priority should be evaluating the effectiveness of these partnerships,” Scott said. “It’s very concerning that three innovation schools are under (school quality reviews) with the district,” adding that because those schools are measured according to a more generous growth-only yardstick, it’s even more troubling that they’re struggling.

“How can we make sure what we have now is effective for all students, especially those who are most vulnerable — poor, black, brown kids,” Scott said. “We need to know if it’s working in the first place and if it should be expanded.”

Who’s in charge of rethinking Manual High School’s ‘offensive’ mascot?

2018-11-15T23:01:10+00:00

As other schools in Indiana and across the nation have renounced controversial team names and mascots in recent years, Emmerich Manual High School in Indianapolis has held onto the Redskins.

One of the reasons why the school hasn’t given it up, officials said during a state board of education meeting this week, is because it’s unclear whose responsibility it would be to change the disparaging name.

Is it the obligation of the district, Indianapolis Public Schools, which owns the building and granted the nickname more than 100 years ago?

Is it the duty of the charter operator, Charter Schools USA, which currently runs the school?

Or is it the responsibility of the state, which took Manual out of the district’s hands in 2011, assuming control after years of failing grades?

“I don’t care who’s responsible for it,” said Indiana State Board of Education member Gordon Hendry, as he acknowledged the uncertainty. “I think it’s high time that that mascot be retired.”

The mascot debate resurfaced Wednesday as state officials considered the future of Manual and Howe high schools, which are approaching the end of their state takeover. Charter School USA’s contracts to run the schools, in addition to Emma Donnan Middle School, are slated to expire in 2020, so the schools could return to IPS, become charter schools, or close.

Manual is only one of two Indiana schools still holding onto the Redskins name, a slur against Native Americans. In recent years, Goshen High School and North Side High School in Fort Wayne have changed their mascots in painful processes in which some people pushed back against getting rid of a name that they felt was integral to the identity of their communities.

Knox Community High School in northern Indiana also still bears the Redskins name and logo.

“The term Redskins can be absolutely offensive,” said Jon Hage, president and CEO of Charter Schools USA. “We’ve had no power or authority to do anything about that.”

He suggested that the state board needs to start the process, and that the community should have input on the decision.

An Indianapolis Public Schools official told Chalkbeat the district didn’t have clear answers yet on its role in addressing the issue.

Even if the state board initiates conversations, however, member Steve Yager emphasized that he does not want the state to make the decision on the mascot.

“We don’t have to weigh in on that,” Yager said. “I feel like that’s a local decision.”

Meet the newly elected Indianapolis Public Schools board members

2018-11-09T16:38:32+00:00

In a shakeup of the Indianapolis Public Schools board, two challengers unseated incumbents in Tuesday’s election.

In all, three newcomers will join the school board: retired teacher Susan Collins, Marian University administrator Evan Hawkins, and federal employee Taria Slack.

Learn more about where the new school board members stand on issues such as the district’s budget woes, school closings, and innovation schools, from their responses to our candidate survey published last month.

Election results 2018: Track the IPS board races and referendums

2018-11-09T01:45:00+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools faces several critical votes Tuesday that will determine its leadership and its financial future.

On Election Day, voters are being asked to weigh in on two tax measures that could raise up to $272 million in additional funding to increase teacher salaries and improve school safety. They will also choose three out of the seven board members who oversee the district.

Read up on the issues and races, and track live election results here. Marion County did not have enough people to finish counting ballots Tuesday night, clerk spokesman Russell Hollis said. Votes from the remaining 60 precincts, in addition to about 50,000 absentee ballots, were expected to be counted starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday. The county finished tallying precincts around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and finished counting absentee ballots around 8:45 p.m. Thursday.

Election coverage:

Election 2018: IPS critics poised to defeat incumbents in school board shakeup

Election 2018: In a sweeping victory for IPS, voters approve tax hikes to raise $272 million

School board results:

IPS At-Large

IPS District 3

IPS District 5

Referendum results:

Question #1: $52 million capital referendum

Question #2: $220 million operating referendum

Here’s a rundown of the Indianapolis Public Schools board races for the 2018 election

2018-10-29T19:03:56+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools leaders have rolled out one change after another over the past five years — restarting failing schools, expanding school choice, and closing high schools.

But all that upheaval has sparked growing opposition. Next week, the school board election will put to the test whether these critics of Superintendent Lewis Ferebee’s administration and his policies have broad community support.

Three of the seven seats on the Indianapolis Public Schools Board are up for grabs in the election, and candidates who are critical of school choice and other Ferebee-supported policies are gunning for spots, backed by organized support and significant campaign funding.

“The changes within the system have not been transparent to assuage everyone’s fears of severe change that destabilizes the community,” at-large candidate Susan Collins said, calling for more transparency of the school board earlier this month at a Chalkbeat candidate forum.

Well-financed school board candidates who support school choice and other controversial policies have won spots on the board in the past several elections. Once on the board, they have rolled out changes such as partnerships with charter operators, a new system for students to enroll in charter and district magnet schools, and the closure of three district high schools.

Some of those policies, particularly closing high schools, have led to significant backlash from students, families, and community members. That discontent could help critics of school choice and the current IPS administration — who have consistently failed to win seats on the board — gain a foothold this election cycle.

Critics of the current administration last year formed a relatively well-organized group, the IPS Community Coalition, which organizes parents and often speaks against the current administration. Now, the group is rallying support behind three candidates — Susan Collins, Michele Lorbieski, and Taria Slack. The coalition is aligned with the local teachers union. The group receives funding from a national teachers union, and the political arm of the state teachers union also contributed $68,400 to the trio of candidates it endorsed.

What is unclear is how that stacks up against the campaigning on behalf of candidates who support the administration. Stand for Children, a political group that is not required to disclose its spending, is paying campaign workers, sending mailers, and advertising online in support of three candidates — incumbents Mary Ann Sullivan and Dorene Rodríguez Hoops, and newcomer Evan Hawkins.

Those candidates support the district’s partnerships with charter operators.

“What this board has done has been very methodical and clear and principled,” Sullivan said at the Chalkbeat forum. “We are, again, unapologetically transformational, and I realize that transformation has resulted in a lot of change at a fairly quick pace. … Now that we’ve built a lot of the foundation, it’s time to support that work.”

Two other candidates, Joanna Krumel and Sherry Shelton, haven’t raised large war chests or won influential endorsements. But either could pull out a victory. In 2016, Elizabeth Gore claimed a seat on the board despite having minimal funding and no endorsements.

Chalkbeat has been covering the race since August. We have the details on where the candidates stand on the most important issues facing the district, how much they’ve raised, and why the race matters.

Highlights:

Chalkbeat survey: Candidates for IPS Board talk budget cuts, closing schools, and more

Indianapolis Public Schools has 3 open board seats. Meet the 10 people vying for them

IPS voters have a lot on their ballot this November. Here’s why the school board race matters

Here’s what Betsy DeVos has to say about Indiana’s failing virtual schools

2018-10-26T20:12:45+00:00

Days after Indiana officials unveiled recommendations for addressing the state’s chronically failing but fast-growing virtual charter schools, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos — a longtime supporter of online schools — reiterated her support for families having educational options.

“I applaud Indiana for the progress that they’ve made in ensuring that families are empowered to make the right decision,” she told Chalkbeat Friday after touring exhibits at the annual convention in Indianapolis for the National FFA Organization, previously known as Future Farmers of America.

DeVos said the state is responsible for ensuring online schools are “meeting the needs of the students, the families, and the taxpayers of that state.”

When asked what she thinks about 12,000 Indiana students attending failing virtual schools, DeVos said, “We want all students to receive a quality education.”

Earlier this week, a committee of Indiana State Board of Education members recommended a package of policy changes that would overhaul how online charter schools operate in the state. The changes included adding more oversight, reducing a financial incentive for the groups that monitor virtual charter schools, limiting how quickly schools can grow their enrollment, and keeping more kids from going to the schools if they continue to post poor academic results.

Gov. Eric Holcomb urged the state board to look into such changes late last year, but Holcomb “is still reviewing the recommendations,” his spokeswoman said in an email Friday. The proposal is expected to be presented to the full board next month.

Virtual charter schools garnered national attention this month after two Democratic senators called for federal officials to launch an investigation into the recruiting practices of online schools and student participation, as well as their low student-to-teacher ratios and lack of financial transparency.

DeVos has a history of supporting online charter schools, and her former organization has close ties to major virtual school operators, including K12 Inc., which operates two virtual charter schools in Indiana. In her first week as education secretary, DeVos said, “I expect there will be more virtual schools.”

Candidates clash over innovation schools and high school closures in IPS Board campaigns

2018-10-17T21:22:52+00:00

In the races for three seats on the Indianapolis Public Schools Board, candidates are sharply split over whether the district is moving in the right direction.

The divisions were clear during a forum Tuesday night hosted by Chalkbeat, the Indianapolis Recorder, WFYI, and the Indianapolis Public Library. Some of the most heated discussions came over the district’s recent decision to close high schools and move to an all-choice high school model, and candidates also clashed over the district’s innovation partnerships with outside operators to run schools — including some where students have struggled the most.

“It’s just disruptive when you just keep changing and changing and changing,” said ceramics studio owner and IPS parent Joanna Krumel, who goes by Jodi, a challenger in the at-large race. “Especially when the district was doing a good job with the programs that they had.”

Retired IPS teacher Susan Collins, who is also running for the at-large seat lamented the closure of high schools that had long legacies in their neighborhoods: “Why do we let our good programs die?” she said.

But at-large incumbent Mary Ann Sullivan defended the district’s decisions, pushing back on the perception that schools have taken a turn for the worse.

“I don’t think we were doing well. I don’t think all was all right with IPS. I think we were patient for too long with strategies that weren’t moving the needle for kids,” said Sullivan, a former Democratic state lawmaker.

Candidates also debated the district’s low test scores, financial transparency, community engagement, and equity of access to highly sought-after magnet programs.

Often, their disagreements illustrated long-standing rifts between advocates and critics of school choice.

The at-large challengers denounced the district’s partnerships with charter schools, influential charter supporters such as The Mind Trust, and the Indy Chamber on finances and its referendum efforts.

“There is too much incursion by business interests in the education of our children,” Collins said.

Krumel said she didn’t support working so closely with charter schools, either: “I don’t think that charter schools are here to stay. At least I hope they’re not.”

But Sullivan called those “adult battles” over politics that distract from addressing the needs of children.

“I’m just very sad that we still have the same kinds of conversations that take our eyes off the prize of being able to offer every single kid in the city of Indianapolis a great opportunity,” Sullivan said. “I would like to have more conversations about where we’re going, what’s possible — and not a return to something that I don’t think were ever really glory days, especially not for too many of our students of color and students in poverty.”

In the race for the open seat in District 3, which represents the north side, one candidate supported innovation schools while two others expressed concerns.

“I see innovation schools, frankly, as the next generation of the district willing to take risks, to do what it takes to serve our students,” said Evan Hawkins, executive director of facilities and procurement for Marian University and an IPS parent. “Innovations schools are not the panacea, but innovation represents one of those options that the district has … [to] ensure that our schools stay locally controlled.”

But Sherry Shelton said she wanted to support ideas proven to work, and she didn’t believe the innovation schools showed enough positive results.

“I don’t think we should take a chance with our students,” said Shelton, director of information services for Pike Township schools. “I think we should stop the innovation schools, re-evaluate the program, tweak it, and if it’s something that we’re going to move forward with, that we develop a successful process to open those, evaluate, and keep them up to a certain standard.”

Michele Lorbieski, a trial attorney with Frost Brown Todd and an IPS parent, said the innovation schools cause disruption, and said they haven’t shown as much improvement as is often touted.

“I think we need to pump the brakes on these innovation schools,” she said. “We’re doing a pilot to figure out if our high school students should take the IndyGo bus, but we didn’t even pilot the innovation schools. So let’s make sure they’re effective before we keep going down this path at this pace we’re going.”

In the race for District 5, which represents the northwest side of the city, candidate Taria Slack outlined the challenges of teacher turnover that she has seen in the innovation schools that her three children attend.

“I think we need to stop replicating this program until we have better research on what’s really going on,” said Slack, a federal worker. “We need to make sure that our kids are hitting every last one of these benchmarks.”

But incumbent Dorene Rodríguez Hoops, an IPS parent, said families and community members sometimes feel innovation schools are the best fit for their neighborhoods.

“Sometimes the innovation school option is the best option,” she said. “So I see charter schools and innovation schools as part of our educational landscape, part of our toolbox if you will, to look at what’s the best option for our children in a specific neighborhood.”

Watch the full forum:

With re-election off the table, Indiana schools chief Jennifer McCormick also backs away from leading state board

2018-10-03T14:20:08+00:00

Days after she announced she wouldn’t pursue a second term as Indiana’s schools chief, Jennifer McCormick dropped another bombshell: She no longer wants to be the leader of the state’s education policy-making body.

McCormick told fellow Indiana State Board of Education members on Wednesday that she is not interested in being board chairwoman when members vote again in January. She was elected to the role by board members for the second time earlier this year. McCormick will remain a board member, which is required under state law.

“I will be stepping away from the chair when that time comes, probably in January,” McCormick said. “So that just gives the time for the board to think about it and handle it much better than it was handled last time.”

After her announcement, just one board member offered any comments. Gordon Hendry said he’s been proud to work with McCormick, and he appreciates the difficulties she’s faced as schools chief.

“It’s not an easy job heading up the department of education,” Hendry said, noting that he and McCormick frequently voted together “even though we’re on different sides of the aisle politically.”

McCormick’s decision to not seek out the chair position, a move that is unprecedented in recent Indiana education policy history, comes two days after she said she wouldn’t seek re-election as state schools chief in 2020. McCormick, a Republican and former public school educator, said political squabbles were distracting her from the important work of educating Indiana’s students and said she would “still serve students for the rest of my life, but it may not be in this role.”

Such infighting likely led to McCormick’s announcement on Wednesday as well. Though she campaigned as a more collaborative leader than her predecessor, Democrat Glenda Ritz, McCormick has butted heads with fellow Republicans as often as she’s agreed with them in the first half of her term.

Read: She’s no Tony Bennett or Glenda Ritz — Jennifer McCormick is charting her own course as Indiana’s schools chief

In fact, the former Yorktown schools superintendent made direct references to those moments in her out-of-the-blue announcement Monday, where she also detailed plans for the second half of her term.

Some of those disagreements are over policy — she frequently votes with a minority of board members who tend to include current or recently retired educators. During her first year, her budget asks were lock-step with Gov. Eric Holcomb, but since then, she’s strayed from party positions on issues like accountability for charter and private schools and A-F grades.

But some are political battles that represent a larger tension between the state’s competing state board and education department, a feud that dates back to 2013 when then-Gov. Mike Pence split the entities in an effort to quell Ritz’s influence and power.

Still, the board has voted to pick McCormick as its leader twice. Lawmakers approved a bill in 2015 to overhaul several aspects of the board, including letting it choose its own leadership from among its members. At the time, Pence said the change would allow the board to work more efficiently and smoothly, referring to near-constant clashes at board meetings between Ritz and board Republicans and Democrats alike.

It’s not yet clear who might seek out the chair position. Currently, the vice-chairman is B.J. Watts, an educator from southern Indiana. The state board is expected to elect new leadership from among its members early next year.

Ultimately, McCormick said, she wasn’t worried about what this decision would mean for her work on state education policy.

“The position of chair, as structured by state leaders prior to my time in office, is irrelevant to policy outcomes,” she said in a statement. “My time and attention are better utilized without this unnecessary distraction.”

Top adviser to the superintendent leaves Indianapolis Public Schools

2018-06-27T22:26:29+00:00

Le Boler, a top Indianapolis Public Schools official and one of Superintendent Lewis Ferebee’s closest advisors, left the district last week.

Boler, who served as chief strategist, was one of several staffers who followed Ferebee from North Carolina when he was hired in 2013. She was a top administrator, overseeing public relations, strategic planning, and parent involvement for the district. As of January, she was paid $136,000 per year.

Boler’s resignation was disclosed on the June district personnel report, and she could not immediately be reached for comment. School Board President Michael O’Connor said Boler said she was leaving the district to move back to North Carolina and be closer to family. Two of her children graduated from high school this year, he added.

“It was the right time for her to rejoin the community in North Carolina where she came from,” O’Connor said. “We will miss her advice and guidance as somebody who was also particularly impactful in helping the superintendent make decisions.”

The departure of Boler, who was a visible member of Ferebee’s staff, comes at a delicate time for Indianapolis Public Schools. The district is trying to gain support for two referendums to seek more funding from taxpayers, a campaign that has already been rocky. Plus, Ferebee was publicly named a finalist for superintendent of the Los Angeles school district, a revelation that left some wondering how long he will remain in Indianapolis.

In her role in the district, Boler often appeared alongside Ferebee at public meetings and press briefings. She played a key role in the district’s handling of issues including high school closings, the planned referendums to increase school funding, and transportation changes.

Boler was also involved in a 2016 scandal where the district was accused of failing to report sexual abuse allegations to the Indiana Department of Child Services for six days.

Boler started her education career in administration support roles for districts in North Carolina and worked with Ferebee in Durham Public Schools and Guilford County schools.

Another top leader who came with Ferebee from North Carolina, Wanda Legrand, left last August for a job with D.C. Public Schools.

Indianapolis Public Schools’ Lewis Ferebee is a finalist to lead Los Angeles schools

2018-04-17T18:27:31+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Lewis Ferebee is a finalist to lead the Los Angeles school district, the nation’s second largest, according to Indianapolis Public Schools Board President Michael O’Connor.

Former investment banker Austin Beutner is apparently the frontrunner for the job, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the news. Ferebee is another finalist along with interim Los Angeles Superintendent Vivian Ekchian and former Baltimore Superintendent Andres Alonso. Ferebee didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ferebee has made a name for himself nationally by overhauling Indianapolis Public Schools, converting low-performing schools into “innovation schools” run by outside charter operators but still under the district’s umbrella.

The selection of Ferebee might signal that Los Angeles is further embracing what some call the “portfolio model” — the idea that all schools should be given freedom to operate as they see fit, but held accountable for their results, largely through test scores.

Under Ferebee’s tenure, IPS has embraced key tenets of the approach, including a common enrollment system for district and charter schools and an initiative that turns over district schools to nonprofit or outside charter operators who handle daily management. Some Los Angeles school board members have suggested the district move in a similar direction.

O’Connor said that Ferebee’s selection as a finalist in such a large district is “a sign that both he and the school system are doing things that people are paying attention to and in many places want to emulate.”

He said that Ferebee told him that he was approached by a hiring firm that asked him to be in the pool of candidates for the Los Angeles position. O’Connor noted that Ferebee has been with the district for nearly five years, longer than is typical for urban superintendents.

“We’ve been lucky,” O’Connor said.

The average urban tenure of superintendents leading urban school districts is just over three years, according to a 2014 survey conducted by the Council of Great City Schools.

Even if Ferebee does not leave Indianapolis, the public confirmation that he is interested in other jobs could handicap his ability to win community support at pivotal time for Indianapolis Public Schools. The district will close nearly half of its high schools at the end of this year. And leaders are in the midst of a rocky campaign to seek more funding from taxpayers — an appeal that was first scaled back and then suspended. The district is now working with the Indy Chamber to craft a new proposal that leaders expect to put on the ballot in November.

Chamber chief policy officer Mark Fisher said that the campaign cannot hinge on a individual. Ferebee’s selection as a finalist in Los Angeles reinforces the need for a strong school board, which oversees the district and would hire his replacement if he leaves.

“Nobody is irreplaceable,” Fisher said. “He is an exceptional leader. But I have full faith in the board.”

If Ferebee took the helm of the Los Angeles school system, it would be a dramatic move. The Los Angeles district has more than 640,000 students, about 20 times as many students as Indianapolis Public Schools.

Ferebee came to Indianapolis in 2013. He previously served as chief of staff for the superintendent of Durham, N.C. Until coming to Indianapolis, he spent most of his career in traditional public school systems in that state.

Since Ferebee took the helm at the city’s largest school district, Indianapolis Public Schools has significantly improved its graduation rate to 83 percent, up from about 68 percent. The district has not seen improvement in scores on ISTEP, the state standardized exams.