House bill would change some school takeover rules

• Reprints

Tony Bennett

Updated: February 22, 2012 8:05AM

INDIANAPOLIS — Gary’s Roosevelt Career and Technical Academy is under state control for likely five years.

But options for the future of the school after emerging from state takeover are detailed in a bill that cleared a House committee on Friday.

Roosevelt could turn into an independent school with the Gary mayor having a place on its board.

But the state could approve returning Roosevelt to the Gary Community School Corp., according to Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett.

“I would love to see us have a system where the district has to illustrate to the school and to the (Indiana State Board of Education) that it’s ready to take the building back,” Bennett said.

Bennett called initiatives found in House Bill 1324 critical to education reform. The bill allows the state to help under performing schools sooner than what law currently allows, which Bennett said was a takeaway from the 18 public hearings he attended at schools facing state intervention last summer.

“The one thing we heard consistently was it should not take six years for us to address the issue of chronically under performing schools,” Bennett told House Education Committee members. “We should close the window and narrow the window of chronically under performing schools that do not serve our children.”

Under the bill, a school board can request the state appoint an outside team to manage the school as early as its first year of failing to meet academic standards.

“It actually would have put Gary into this process a couple of years earlier,” state Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, said.

An amendment to the bill also makes school corporations subject to state accountability as well. The state board would analyze corporation spending and its relation to student progress annually, and if the school corporation continually fails to meet those standards the state could assign a special management team similar to what occurred at Roosevelt.

At the Gary school, the state entered into a contract with EdisonLearning to turn around student achievement.

EdisonLearning received a one-year transitional contract with the state and will receive an additional four-year contract if the firm meets certain benchmarks.

If Roosevelt becomes an independent school, the board comprised of the mayor and other local nominees would decide with the state’s approval how to operate the school including the choice of applying to become a charter school.

Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said she is already sending in an application to the state to have oversight in improving Roosevelt.

“I feel comfortable in being involved in the discussion and decision making,” Freeman-Wilson said. “In order to revitalize the city we really do have to pay attention to what goes on in the educational system.”