New IPS Board Faces New, Familiar Challenges

The Indianapolis Public School Board begins its 2015 session Tuesday with three new members.

The IPS Board faces a dramatic new year in which the district is expected to regain control of Arlington Community High School and Superintendent Lewis Ferebee continues pushing for novel ways to improve schools.

But the board continues to face age-old challenges: cutting spending, retaining and attracting top teachers and increasing student achievement.

Diane Arnold is the longest serving IPS commissioner. She is hopeful the new board will find common ground and find solutions.

“The last thing we want to do as a group is have division among ourselves, because that takes the focus," says Arnold, a member since 2004. "And I think that is what has happened too much in the past: whatever personal issues were going on clearly took attention away from the job that we should have been doing, which was to improve education for our children.”

During the Tuesday's meeting the seven member board will be sworn in, including three new commissioners: Kelly Bentley, LaNier Echols and Mary Ann Sullivan.

Bentley, a former IPS board member, reclaimed her spot from Samantha Adair-White.

LaNier, a dean at Carpe Diem Meridian charter school, beat out 16-year incumbent Michael Brown.

Sullivan, a former Democrat state representative, defeated IPS board president Annie Roof and three other candidates for an at-large seat with 46 percent of the vote.

At times the November election pitted traditional public school advocates against those favoring stronger reforms.

Arnold expects some of Ferebee’s plans vetoed by the previous board could find more support with the new members in coming months. Those include a leadership program with that national Teach Plus group and a new school curriculum designed as part of a Mind Trust fellowship.

“What happened in the past, happened in the past, and there is nothing to say that votes that did not go the way that the superintendent would liked them to have gone can’t be brought back up as a recommendation," Arnold says. "And a new vote taken."

Sullivan expects the new board will act differently than past boards did. Reducing central office bureaucracy,redirecting funds within the district into the classroom and finding new talent to lead schools are some of her major goals.

"The last board seemed to move more toward micromanaging than what all of us believe what should be happening with the board," Sullivan says. "As much as we push for autonomy at the school level and holding people accountable for their work, that is the same relationship we want to have with the superintendent.

"But hopefully we will get out of his way and support him and make sure he has the tools he needs to do the job that we expect him to do."

The meeting is 6 p.m. Tuesday at the IPS main office. A schedule for the 2015 IPS School Board meetings is at www.myips.org.

Contact WFYI reporter Eric Weddle at eweddle@wfyi.org or call (317) 614-0470. Follow on Twitter: @ericweddle.