State lawmakers Monday advanced a bill that allows schools to charge for public record searches, as long as those searches require more than five hours of work.

The group will determine what competitive teacher pay should look like for Indiana, and make policy recommendations to the governor and lawmakers on how to achieve competitive compensation ahead of the 2021 legislative session.

One of the event's sponsors said he decided to host the event after calls during the November election for the district to engage more with its community.

Keeping students with disabilities in general education classroom settings - or not - is an ongoing debate, but authors of a study say new data offers evidence highlighting the significance of where kids learn.

The board released an update on the search process Thursday with public engagement as a focus. Former IPS Superintendent Lewis Ferebee was tapped as the new leader of Washington, D.C. schools late last year.

District staff will receive between a 3 and 22 percent raise.

It remains to be seen if these studies will impact the IPS board's decision-making, which includes an upcoming vote on whether bring several charter schools into the district.

The bill doesn't include all of the state board's policy recommendations, made last month. Instead, it mainly focuses on orientation for virtual school families.

Some lawmakers want to keep state money out of schools with openly discriminatory policies, in response to the ongoing controversy over Roncalli High School putting an employee on administrative leave because of her marriage to a woman.

The ISTEP test vendor flagged some unusual data from the Frankie W. McCullough Academy For Girls in Gary in 2017, prompting the Indiana Department of Education to take a closer look.