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Indianapolis Public Schools will sell the Raymond Brandes School 65 building for $1 to a charter school that serves students with autism.
The school board’s approval on Wednesday to sell the building to Dynamic Minds Academy could mark the last time the district sells a building under a state law that requires traditional school districts to provide shuttered or underutilized buildings to charters or state educational institutions for $1.
The building, which was constructed on the district’s southeast side in 1961. It would provide a critical second campus for Dynamic Minds, which operates a K-12 school on the northeast side of Marion County. The school partners with the Hope Source clinic that offers applied behavioral analysis, a service known as ABA therapy that serves students with autism, for an experience that combines therapy with school.
The school enrolled 135 students this year, according to state records, but it has about 160 students on its waitlist, education director Samantha Bandy told Chalkbeat last month. She anticipates the need to grow even more, as state efforts to cut Medicaid spending impacts ABA centers that rely on such funding.
“We’re getting a lot more interest from families that aren’t ready for traditional public school but they’re being pushed out of their ABA center,” she said.
The school plans to open in the fall of 2027 to grades K-12 and is seeking approval from Education One at Trine University, which authorizes its existing campus.
The $1 sale could be the last of its kind, because lawmakers are considering a bill that would exempt IPS from the law and establish a new corporation to manage school buildings and transportation for district and charter schools.
A state appeals court ruled last year that the district must sell School 65 to any interested school.
Both Dynamic Minds and Damar Charter Academy — another charter school serving students with behavioral and developmental challenges — expressed interest in the building. State law dictates that if more than one charter school expresses an interest in an unused building, a committee of charter school authorizers must select which school receives the facility.
IPS will list School 68 on open market
The school board also voted Wednesday to list Susan Roll Leach School 68 as available for sale on the open market after no charter schools or institutions expressed interest in buying the property for $1.
The building in the near eastside neighborhood, built in 1938, had the lowest overall facility quality rating in the district, according to a previous study that IPS commissioned.
IPS will hire a broker to oversee the building’s potential sale.
The board also voted to transfer roughly 18 acres of the former John Marshall school property on the Far Eastside to the city’s parks department. IndyParks plans to use the land, which includes the school’s athletic fields, as part of its master plan for Grassy Creek Regional Park.
Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.
