Why Evansville School Leaders Say They Don't Need State Help To Turn Around A Troubled School

Her shoes kicked off, a white board in hand, teacher Amber Santana is leading multiplication drills with her fourth graders at Evansville’s Glenwood Leadership Academy — while standing on their desks.

Standing just outside the third-year teacher’s room, Glenwood principal Tamara Skinner smiles.

“I realize that’s a bit unorthodox,” Skinner says, but Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation leaders say that’s the kind of vitality they hope to see in its staff — vitality that’s key to turning the troubled school around.

Teachers were burning out when Skinner took the principal’s job at Glenwood last school year. The school had a discipline problem. Its student body turns over often as kids from the largely-poor neighborhoods on Evansville’s south side moved from school to school.

With one of Indiana’s worst passing rates on last year’s statewide tests, Glenwood is all but assured its sixth straight F — leaving state officials with a decision to make before this school year is over.

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