Proposal calls for IPS board revamp with expanded authority over charter schools

This story will be updated.

Parents, educators and students affiliated with the longtime advocacy group Stand for Children Indiana are proposing sweeping changes to how Indianapolis schools are governed.

Around 42,000 students attend traditional, charter or innovation schools within the Indianapolis Public Schools district boundaries. The plan, released today, calls for a revamped IPS board with authority over all of them.

It also urges moving traditional IPS schools toward a governance model in which each has its own board, similar to how charter schools operate.

The proposal is directed at the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, the state-created group chaired by Mayor Joe Hogsett. The plan aligns closely with the legislation that requires the alliance to recommend how IPS and charter schools should be governed, ways to streamline the district’s central office and how to handle future property-tax referendums.

The alliance must submit recommendations on these and other topics to lawmakers by the end of the year.

The goal, the advocates say, is to replace what they describe as a fractured system with one accountability framework for every school.

“I think now is the right time to make changes in our educational system,” said Bony Georges, an IPS math teacher at H. W. Longfellow Middle School and one of the plan’s 11 co-authors. “The society that we want in 20 years, the society that we want in 40 years, would be determined by the quality of education. So that’s why it’s not a debate about charter schools. It’s not a debate about IPS.”

Here’s a summary of the proposal: 

1. Unified oversight

A newly configured IPS board, made up of elected members and appointees made by the mayor's Office of Education Innovation, would oversee all schools within district boundaries. The board’s responsibilities would include high-level decisions such as school openings and closures, facilities, budgets and property-tax referendums. The board currently has seven elected members. 

The proposal would also consolidate charter authorization under the IPS board, replacing the current system where authorizers across the state can approve new schools in the IPS boundaries. 

More than 40 traditional IPS schools would gradually shift to an autonomous governance model with their own local boards.

“… not every school needs to be a charter, but each school should have its own board,” according to the document. “That board should include community members and parents.”

The plan does not address how collective bargaining agreements with IPS teachers might be affected.

2. Transportation for every school

The plan calls for requiring every school within IPS boundaries to provide student transportation. Currently, charter and innovation schools operate under different systems, leaving some families without bus access.

Under the proposal, the IPS central office would coordinate routes and control start and pick-up times to ensure efficiency.

3. Stronger accountability

The plan calls for a new accountability system for all schools in IPS boundaries and authority for the board to close schools that are “not getting results.”

The framework would use “multiple measures” of student success, not only test scores and allow time for schools to improve before sanctions are considered.

The system would also guide decisions about facilities, with priority given to school models that data show are producing strong results. Stand and its members have long advocated for IPS to partner with local charter schools that demonstrate academic success for Black, Brown and low-income students.

4. Reimagining the central office

The plan recommends narrowing the IPS central office’s role to essential functions in a system of autonomous schools and identifying positions that are no longer needed or cost-effective. It also calls for greater transparency in how future referendum funds are used.

Competing priorities

This all follows a highly contentious legislative session, when lawmakers even considered dissolving IPS. The debates pitted traditional and charter school advocates against each other, with disputes often spilling from social media into public meetings.

The recommendations of the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance comes of another another new state law that will require Indianapolis Public Schools and other traditional districts to start sharing local property-tax funding with charter schools beginning in 2028.

Nearly 60 charter schools operate within IPS boundaries, each authorized by different entities and run by independent boards. About 40% of students who live in the district attend charters, some through formal partnerships with IPS and others outside of the district’s oversight.

That growth has fueled competing priorities for the future of the city’s schools. Stand for Children Indiana has long advocated for charter schools and expanded school choice. The group has financially supported campaigns for IPS board candidates and organized families behind the district’s past three successful property-tax referendums. It also played a leading role in lobbying for the state’s new reading law that requires schools to adopt curricula aligned with the science of reading.

But Stand’s vision is not universally embraced. The IPS Parent Council and is one of several groups that argue the elected IPS board should remain the sole governing authority and they want a moratorium on new charter schools within the district through 2035. 

Charter schools are publicly funded and governed by nonprofit boards. Innovation schools, most of which are charters, operate with autonomy while partnering with IPS for facilities or services. 

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance meets at 6 p.m. today at Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School, where time will be reserved for public comment on school facilities.

Eric Weddle is WFYI's education editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org or follow him on X at @ericweddle.