The new mayor-appointed board overseeing Indianapolis Public Schools and the city's charter schools held its first meeting Tuesday, taking initial steps on decisions that will reshape how nearly 43,000 students are educated across the district boundary.
The Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, or IPEC, met for about an hour at the City-County Building. The meeting was largely procedural but set in motion two of the most consequential choices facing the board in its early months: whether to put a new IPS operating referendum on the November ballot and who will lead the municipal organization day-to-day.
The nine members unanimously adopted rules of procedure, named Michael O'Connor of Bose Public Affairs as acting executive director and passed a resolution authorizing a request for funds to operate, pay for staff, consultants and other expenses — the first use of IPEC's authority to draw on property tax revenue. The board set a distribution percentage of up to 3% of local property tax revenues for IPS and charter schools, as allowed by the new state law that created the authority.
“We are building a municipal organization from scratch that has not existed anywhere else in the United States," said David Harris, who chairs the corporation board, and was also Indianapolis' first charter school director and founded local education reform organization The Mind Trust in 2006 “This is a big assignment for us.”
The board takes on an ambitious charge by state lawmakers: reshaping a divided education system so that every public school student in the IPS boundary has access to the same resources. Reform advocates see it as the long-sought fix to a fragmented landscape that has left charter schools without equal footing. Traditional public school supporters see it as a slow dismantling of a district already weakened by declining enrollment and a looming budget shortfall.
The multi-step process for the corporation to approve a referendum for IPS and the city charter schools would begin immediately. “How many dollars?” O'Connor said about one of the many decisions the board must make. “And how many years?”
A public hearing will be held before the board makes a decision toward the end of June. State law requires final action by Aug. 1 for a question to make it on the November ballot.
The current IPS operating referendum expires at the end of this year. IPS projects ending the year with a $40 million cash deficit. Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who attended Tuesday's meeting, has said the district is already cutting staff and programs.
Mayor Joe Hogsett, who also sat in the audience, said he wants to hire a permanent executive director “the sooner the better.” Hogsett will select the candidate, and the board votes on the appointment.
O'Connor said a job description will be posted as quickly as possible and that the position will draw on the duties spelled out in House Enrolled Act 1423: “building a transportation that works efficiently and effectively and serves all of our kids; building a facilities program that assures all of our children are learning in a safe and welcoming environment. And then an accountability system that represents the needs of all of our kids is developed and then maintained.”
The salary range will be “both competitive and appropriate for the job of this nature,” he added.
O'Connor said he will stand up three working groups in the coming days — on the referendum, on staffing and finance, and on the accountability framework IPEC owes the legislature in a preliminary report due in August. IPS School Board members Ashely Thomas and board member Hope Duke Star pressed for parents and outside experts to be included in those groups.
In addition to Harris, president and CEO of Christel House International, the board includes other charter school leaders: Janet McNeal, president of Herron Classical Schools; Dexter Taylor, director at Paramount Brookside; and Edward Rangel, founding CEO of Adelante Schools.
A website for IPEC could be online as soon as Wednesday at indianapolispubliceducationcorporation.org, with board contact information, documents and meeting details. The domain will eventually shift to .gov.
O’Connor said public comment will be taken at meetings where decisions are made on taxes and budgets. The board’s next meeting is May 28.
Eric Weddle is WFYI's education editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org or follow him on X at @ericweddle.
