Author: Amelia Pak-Harvey
Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.Indianapolis Public Schools is starting off a new school year fully staffed in its standalone special education program for the first time after contracting with a national behavioral health company. The district’s ROOTS program, which IPS is rebranding this year as the Margaret McFarland Learning Academy, serves students with the most intensive needs. The roughly $2 million agreement for the 2025-26 year with ChanceLight allows the district to lean on the company for one of its hardest-to-fill recruitment…
Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.Irvington Community Schools will restart its search for a new CEO after pushback from staff, students, and parents over a hiring process that included the network’s board chair as a top candidate. The decision announced by the charter network’s board of governors on Wednesday follows a rocky return to school for ICS, which typically serves over 900 students at three separate elementary, middle, and high school campuses on the eastside of Indianapolis. Former CEO Häns Lassiter resigned from…
Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.Indianapolis Public Schools is considering a policy on artificial intelligence that would guide the district as it experiments with AI tools for teachers and staff. The policy — which the school board could vote on later this month — follows a yearlong pilot program in which 20 staff members used a district-approved AI tool to better understand its uses and challenges. Although the policy does not address specific acceptable student uses, it lists general guiding points for staff…
Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.Oralee Jane Burchfield fought the urge to drop out as a freshman at Herron High School.The classes were harder and the expectations were greater than she anticipated. And the 30-minute IndyGo bus or Uber ride from her home on the south side of Indianapolis to the school’s campus on the near northside frequently deterred her from attending. After transferring to Indianapolis Metropolitan High School her sophomore year, the 16-year-old is now set to graduate early from one of…
Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.Indianapolis Public Schools must make the former Raymond Brandes School 65 building available to interested charter schools for a sales price of $1, a state appeals court ruled on Friday.But the district can sell the former Francis Bellamy School 102 building to a nonprofit that has since leased the space. The ruling ends a lengthy contested lawsuit over the state’s $1 law, which requires school districts to allow charter schools to buy closed buildings for $1. IPS has…
Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.Several Indiana schools, including Indianapolis Public Schools, announced closed buildings or an online learning day on Monday, a day of action for the state teachers union that will feature heavy pushback against a proposed property tax reform bill slashing funding for public schools.The announcements from the Metropolitan School District of Pike Township and the Monroe County Community School Corporation on Friday come in the waning days of a legislative session that could carry a huge financial hit for…