School groups still far apart on improvement recommendations
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The group tasked with solving the facility and transportation issues facing the public schools in the heart of Indianapolis is receiving mixed messages from the two types of schools it's trying to help.
The big picture: The stated goal of the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance (ILEA) is "to deepen collaboration across traditional public and public charter schools and support a strong academic experience for all students," but after four months, the two sectors are still at odds.
Catch up quick: ILEA has less than three months to finalize the asset management and sustainability plan assigned by the Indiana General Assembly.
- That plan is supposed to include recommendations for school buildings — how they should be managed, the appropriate number needed to efficiently serve the students in the area, and how to reach that number, which is very likely fewer than exist today.
- It will also consider how best to offer transportation to all schools, including the charter schools that don't currently offer the service.
State of play: About 42,000 students were enrolled in more than 100 public schools within the Indianapolis Public Schools boundaries last year.
- About 30 of those schools were independent charters and the rest connected to IPS — either directly run or independently run through the district's Innovation Network.
The latest: This week, the IPS board put out its series of recommendations to the ILEA.
- Those included a moratorium on new school openings, limiting charter school authorization in the city to the Mayor's Office of Education Innovation, and a centralized transportation system run by IPS that charter schools can opt into.
The other side: The Mind Trust, an organization that supports and advocates for charter schools in Marion County, criticized the recommendations as falling "far short of adequately addressing the district's urgent financial and enrollment crisis" and called for a greater restructuring of the system.
- Stand for Children Indiana, another group that supports school choice and parents, released its own recommendations.
- Those include expanding transportation to every school, unifying all schools under a single governing body, and shrinking the district's central office.
What's next: The ILEA has split into two task forces — one examining facilities and another focused on transportation — which started meeting privately this month.
- Michael O'Connor, the consultant leading the ILEA's work, said each task force will develop a series of options for the full group to consider at a public meeting.
- The date for that meeting hasn't been set yet, but O'Connor said it will likely be in November.
- The ILEA meets again Oct. 22. The time and location haven't been set yet.