An effort to ease tensions fell flat at Indianapolis Public Schools' first public meeting about its plan to close three high schools.

An Indianapolis Public Schools task force says only four out of seven district high schools will be needed as enrollment declines.

More than six months after Indianapolis Public Schools officials held a series of painful meetings at high schools facing reconfiguration, the school board approved plans to decide which high schools to close and when.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would like to see more school districts across the country follow the "out-of-the-box" school management approach as used by Indianapolis Public Schools.

One local group getting federal money is the John H. Boner Community Center - they'll get $585,000.

The Indianapolis Public Schools Board approved a resolution Thursday pledging support of undocumented and immigrant students and their families.

Board members must fill an unexpected vacancy following the resignation November 7 of District 5 board member LaNier Echols.

School 103 on the Far Eastside was the first failing IPS school restarted under a controversial law allowing the district to partner with outside groups to independently run a school. Only 4.6 percent of students passed both portions of ISTEP exam in 2016 -- a five point drop from when when IPS ran the school.

Indianapolis Public Schools saw drops in ISTEP scores at the vast majority of schools. Scores fell across the state, but the situation was worse in IPS, where the passing rate went down by 4 percentage points to 25.3 percent in 2016.

Indianapolis Public Schools board members are set to vote Thursday on a proposal to join a common enrollment system that would allow families to use a single process to apply simultaneously to traditional public schools and potentially dozens of local charter schools.