A meeting was held on April 18 to announce the need to close three Indianapolis Public Schools high school buildings. A facilities utilization taskforce report was presented, which discusses the costs involved, utilization of each school building, projections for enrollment, etc. The three schools slated for closure were not identified at this meeting, and will likely not be revealed until June. However, the community already has developed a compelling set of questions that must be addressed. The elephant in the room, according to IUPUI Professor of Education Jim Scheurich, is the question of race. See his comprehensive facebook post below for more information (reposted with permission):
IPS SCHOOL BOARD IS TRYING HARD TO “WHITEWASH” THE CLOSING OF IPS HIGH SCHOOLS
THEY PRESENTED A SCHOOL CLOSING REPORT WITHOUT ONCE EVEN USING THE WORD “RACE”
Last night I attended the IPS board meeting in which the facilities report on closing possibly three IPS high schools was presented.
However, they did not name the high schools to be closed. Over the next month or so, there will be four, maybe five, public meetings for the community to express its response to the closings. Where and when those will happen is at the bottom of this post.
In June, the IPS school board says it will make the decision on which high schools to close. Then, in July and Aug., there will be community meetings at each of the high schools that have been chosen to be closed. Finally, on Sept. 19th IPS board meet, they will vote on the high schools they will close.
While this may already be mostly a done deal for the school board, if the community is to have any impact, it will be at these upcoming community meetings listed below.
Again, our only opportunity to have impact is at these community meetings over the next month. Thus, if you want the community to have any voice at all, you will need to attend one or more of these meetings.
On the other hand, if we sit by in silence, they will do whatever they want without regard to what the community wants.
Remember, the Stand for Children-Mind Trust network spent over one million dollars over the past two elections to control who is on the school board. The money they used, which is hidden behind Stand for Children’s 501C4, has overwhelmingly come from wealthy conservative white people across the country and in Indy. (Why would wealthy conservative white folks who will likely never step foot in Indy want to commit thousands of dollars to IPS board elections?)
What all of this means, though, is that we cannot assume that this IPS board has the best interests of our children in mind with their decisions.
The only people we can really trust in this situation is ourselves. If we care, we must go to these community meetings and speak.
If you are interested in my critique of the facilities report, it is available on a prior post.
In addition, I was able to present last night at the board meeting. I raised the points I had covered in my post. Most importantly, the report did not address race at all, including how various closings would relate to re-segregating schools and undermining Black community areas. Indeed, they did not once use the word race anywhere in the report.
The board ignored everything I said, though I think the audience, which was largely Black, did support my statements. The board only focused on the “technical” issues of the potential closings. Clearly, they are trying very hard to ignore any of the hard issues. Some might call this a “whitewash.”
School Closing Community Meetings.
You may have to sign up to speak. You can probably find this out on Chalkbeat, Chalkbeat.org or on the school board’s website or on wfyi.org or keep an eye out for my posts.
ATTEND THESE MEETINGS!
Wednesday, April 26
Glendale Library
6101 N. Keystone Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46220
6:00 – 8:00 pmMonday, May 1
Ivy Tech Culinary Center
2820 N. Meridian Street
Indianapolis, IN 46208
6:00 – 8:00 pmThursday, May 11
Zion Hope Baptist Church
5950 E 46th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46226
6:00 – 8:00 pmMonday, May 15
Haughville Library
2121 W. Michigan St.
Indianapolis, IN 46222
6:00 – 8:00 pm
See WFYI’s coverage of the meeting here.