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This article was originally published by Mirror Indy.
Elementary school students in Warren Township could attend a different school next year under a redistricting plan being explored by district officials. And the fifth grade — now grouped in with the township’s three intermediate middle schools — could be moved back to elementary school buildings.
But first, district leaders say they want to hear from the community. Warren Township’s school leaders are having three meetings in late September to explain their vision for balancing enrollment and replicating popular programs across the district.
The plan, in its earliest stages, places middle schools at the center of Warren’s enrollment strategy at a time when more families are choosing other nearby school options. According to state data, the township lost more than 3,000 students living within district boundaries to other nearby public and private schools last year.
“We are competing to retain our families and we are trying to recruit new families,” Marques Clayton, Warren’s chief operating operations, said this summer. “We know we’re getting hit hard in the charter space. We have to compete with charter schools. Period.”
Meanwhile, district officials say the shift could bring academic benefits to fifth and sixth graders.
The two grades are currently sandwiched together in Warren’s intermediate schools that include grades 5-8. That means fifth graders don’t currently get recess, and sixth graders don’t follow a bell schedule like their older peers in the seventh and eighth grades.
“For the principal, they’re running two different buildings,” Assistant Superintendent Tierney Anderson said of Warren’s intermediate schools. “We’re trying to ensure that we’re doing what’s developmentally appropriate for our students.”
Why are Warren Township schools considering redistricting?
It’s been about 15 years since Warren Township shifted its fifth graders into intermediate schools. At the time, the district was preparing to close two elementary schools and needed to redistribute students among remaining schools.
Since then, district leaders say they’ve learned a few things. While districtwide enrollment has ebbed and flowed over the years, a more recent concern has been a loss of students at the middle school level — specifically in the transition from fourth to fifth grade.
“During those transitions, we know that’s when, statistically, you lose the most students,” Clayton said in a recent presentation to the Warren school board. Administrators also hope to make sure the nine elementary schools have similar enrollment.
Pleasant Run Elementary, for example, has more than 540 students, while Eastridge has just over 400. School capacity across the district’s elementaries sits at about 650.
District leaders also think the change could allow them to replicate and grow high-ability programs.
Currently, only three Warren elementary schools offer the advanced classes. School board members said this summer that some students lose as much as 30 minutes of instructional time busing over to their nearest high-ability school.
“Imagine going to your home school and then waiting for another bus to pick you up to transport you to a second school,” Clayton told the Warren school board recently. “If we’re going to reintegrate fifth graders back, then we have to make sure that we create equitable opportunities at all of our buildings.”
There’s also been talk of using the opportunity to build up more college-and-career-readiness programs at the middle school level. Administrators hope the idea can give Warren a competitive edge over other nearby districts or charter schools.
It also comes at a time when student enrollment, which is tied to funding, is particularly important for Indiana schools. Many districts are expecting to bring in less revenue than anticipated this year as the state implements new property tax rules.
“This is a concerning problem that we have that collectively we have to address,” Clayton said this summer. “We believe that this provides an opportunity for us to stabilize not only our population, our enrollment, another year — but it’s providing time for us to become more creative in that 6-8 space.”
What has Warren Township done so far?
School officials began their public discussion of redistricting over the summer.
In July, school board members approved a maximum budget of $75 million for school renovations across the district to be paid for through bond financing. The district anticipates some of its current debt falling off in the near future and that new debt would not affect property tax rates.
Administrators stress that $75 million is a maximum budget, and that they’re required to seek additional approvals from the Warren school board before projects could begin.
They plan to weigh construction costs and the effect of property tax reform on the district’s budget when deciding the scope of work Warren might consider taking on in coming years. The district has already engaged architecture and engineering firm Schmidt Associates and CSO Architects to study facility needs at the middle and high school levels.
In July, Warren Township CFO Matthew Parkinson said all of the district’s middle schools would likely see improvements of some kind. The district is also pursuing funding from the Lilly Endowment to help build out new Journey of a Graduate centers in the middle schools.
“To me, it’s really capitalizing on what I think is a core strength of our brand here in Warren Township, which is the Walker Career Center,” Parkinson said in July. “It’s infusing the strength of the Walker Career Center and the principles that we’re able to introduce to our students in a more advanced way at the middle school level.”
It comes at a time when Indiana has changed its high school graduation requirements to incentivize more work-based learning experiences, such as out-of-school internships and apprenticeships.
The effort has led some districts to introduce career-focused programs to students even earlier during the middle school years.
“We also have to think outside the box in terms of, ‘What can we do to ensure that our students are prepared?’ and that we’re helping them navigate that educational journey?” Clayton said. “How are we going to prepare them for high school? How are we going to prepare them for the workforce? How are we preparing them for higher education?”
The school board has also approved a $165,000 contract with a demographer to study enrollment trends and forecasts for Indianapolis’ eastside neighborhoods.
Administrators say the demographers would take into account birth rates and homebuilding trends, and could help the district plan for the next decade or so of school enrollment. They also say the firm, Woolpert, will help the district review elementary school boundary assignments.
“This is what parents want to know — what do these boundaries look like?” Clayton said. “We know what they’ve looked like for the last 15 years, but changes are coming. This is what this study is going to help us identify.”
What comes next for redistricting?
The district is having a series of community engagement sessions at each of its middle schools.
School officials say they’ll talk about their ideas for redistricting and ask families to share their feedback. Spanish translation will be available at each meeting.
A survey is also live on the district’s website. Both English and Spanish versions are available. Administrators say they plan to keep the survey open throughout the redistricting process.
District officials say redistricting recommendations could be brought to the school board for approval in December. Changes to school assignments would not take place until the start of the 2026-27 school year.
Renovation projects, if approved by the board, wouldn’t begin until at least the fall of 2026.
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.
