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Legal Prep, the Chicago-based, legal-themed charter school opening a campus in Indianapolis next year, will launch at a onetime Indianapolis Public Schools building that currently operates as a coworking space.
The school’s downtown location at 525 S. Meridian St., currently known as the Union Campus, is central to Legal Prep’s desire to be close to the city’s legal and business community.
The school, approved by the mayor’s office in June, aims to launch in the 2026-27 school year with 225 students in grades 6 and 9. It will add one grade every year to its middle and high school grades until it reaches a total 825 students in its fourth year, according to its application.
The charter school will be one of the first to open since a divisive legislative session that pitted supporters of traditional IPS schools against charter school proponents. State lawmakers created the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance to examine how IPS and charters can share transportation and buildings.
Legal Prep founder and CEO Samuel Finkelstein said a nonprofit that works with charter schools, Epic Change Education, will purchase the building, and lease space to the school, which will occupy roughly 20,000 square feet on the third floor. The annual cost to the school will be a bit more than the $200,000 estimated in its charter school application, Finkelstein said.
Eventually, the school aims to purchase the building.
“This location is so exciting, because it just is going to allow us to do so many new things,” Finkelstein said.
The building sits on nearly 1.6 acres downtown, less than a mile from Monument Circle, the Indiana Convention Center, and Lucas Oil Stadium. (Chalkbeat Indiana is a current tenant of the Union Campus).
The building is the site of the city’s former Industrial Training School, which opened in 1895 with a focus on vocational education and later became known as the Manual Training School. When Manual — later renamed Charles E. Emmerich Manual High School after the school’s first principal — moved 2.5 miles south in 1953, the school at the original site became known as Harry E. Wood High School.
The campus has changed ownership multiple times since IPS sold the buildings in 1981, according to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis.
Finkelstein said the school is still hoping to attract students from historically disadvantaged communities.
As Legal Prep prepares to launch, proponents of traditional public schools and IPS school board members have been calling for a pause in new schools. Last school year, Indianapolis had roughly 9,000 more seats than students enrolled across IPS and charter schools, according to data from the city’s centralized enrollment system.
Still, Finkelstein said he thinks the school will be able to recruit its target of 225 students in year one.
“We think we’re going to be able to get there, and I won’t say easily — it’s going to take a lot of work,” he said. “But what we’ve found as we’ve been talking to students and families about what we’re offering, they’re really excited about it.”
Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.
