Good evening.

Um I call to order the education committee meeting.

I is Thursday or Tuesday, November 4th, 2025, and we're in the public assembly room.

Um I would like to start with my introduction of my colleagues, starting in the front.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Derek Cahill, District 23.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Dr.

Carlos Perkins, District 6.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you, Madam Chair Keith Graves, District 9.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Dan Boots, Washington Lawrence Townships, District 3.

Thank you.

And I am Jessica McCormick, District 16 on the West Side.

We have one item on our agenda tonight.

We have a presentation from Michael O'Connor from the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, the ILEA.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I hope I don't disappoint since I'm the only item on the agenda.

It's a lot of pressure.

Thank you very much.

My name is Michael O'Connor.

I've been retained by the mayor's office to project manage the work done by the ILEA.

The ILEA was created by House Enrolled Act 1515 was House Bill 1515.

In the voluminous packet of information, I presented a copy of House Enrolled Act 1515 for the record.

Should you want to access it electronically?

But as I said, the uh the ILEA was uh created by the Indiana General Assembly in the last legislative session uh this year, this spring.

Um and I won't I won't bore you with the legislative reading.

The the intent of the legislature, and there's I know counselor boots is well aware there is no such thing as legislative intent in Indiana law, but the the desire of of the speaker and the and the folks who supported the bill and bringing people together was to create um a better working relationship between the charter sector uh uh of education, the public charter school sector in Indianapolis and the traditional public school sector at IPS and urging a group of appointees, and I'll go through them in greater detail to get together and make some recommendations towards that end.

So the legislation created uh a panel, uh Indiana uh local uh uh education alliance, and then made the mayor or his designee the chair and the superintendent as part of that, uh, and and the mayor is sort of uh designated her as her as his vice chair for that group.

So IPS has appointees.

Uh as I said, Superintendent uh Dr.

Alicia Johnson is uh the ad hoc she's serving, been at every meeting and acts as the the vice chair of the group.

Tina Algren is uh is a superintendent appointee.

Tina is a math teacher at uh Harshman Middle School.

Andrew Neal is a uh superintendent appointee, but the the slot created uh that he fills um is for a charter school innovation network charter school parent to serve on the ILEA.

So Andrew Neal is a pastor uh or a minister, he's the CEO of Outreach, a youth homeless mission, homelessness mission on the near east side of Indianapolis.

Barato Britt is the appointee of the IPS board president, and he is the executive director of the Edna Martin Edna Martin Christian Center, pardon me.

And so those are the four IPS appointees to the ILEA.

The mayor, uh, as I said, is designated as the chair.

He could have designated someone to serve in that role either on his staff, uh, but he has chosen to uh fill that slot himself.

He also has been at all the meetings.

Um Angela Smith Jones, former Deputy Mayor, uh, for Mayor Hogsett, currently a vice president of Indiana University, is one of the mayoral appointees.

Counselor Maggie Lewis, you all know Councillor Lewis, she's the majority leader here, uh, serves on the committee.

Um Toby McClamrock, uh, an attorney at Denton's former member of the Indianapolis City County Council, uh, serves as the mayor's designee in the uh Bart Peterson also, uh, a name maybe some of you recognize former mayor of the city of Indianapolis.

So those are the nine members of the ILEA.

As I said, there are particularly on the IPS board.

The the board president had one slot, Borado Britt fills that.

The superintendent had two sort of at large slots to fill.

She put herself in one, Tina Algren in the other, and then a spot specifically designated to it for a parent of students in an innovation network school.

At the June meeting, it was organizational in nature, again, running through what House Enrolled Act 1515 detailed in both a series of shalls by designated by SHAWS that the organization should consider.

There are some Mays within that process, but sort of the work laid out in the in the legislation for the ILEA.

In July, there was a deep dive into school finance.

I would call it School Finance 101, although it's an ever evolving.

You guys understand, having just gone through the budget, there are significant changes because of state law, but school finance 101, a lot of uh time spent on understanding how the referendum or referenda process works in Indiana, where you've got both capital referendums that take place, referenda take place, sorry, I should get my plurals and singulars correct, um, that are typically 20-year in nature, and then in 2008, um the state law changed and created an opportunity day.

They locked in Froes operating fund levels for public school systems at the 2008 level and then allow school systems to uh create a referenda to increase those operating costs uh if approved by the voters.

Um so it's it's an interesting process.

Folks who haven't been immersed in uh school finance sometimes don't understand how operating revenues can then start dipping over a period of time, but that's when that actual referenda starts to tail off.

In IPS's instance, that tails off at the end of 2026.

And so in 2027, and there's some subtleties to this, but roughly it's easy to say that in 27 IPS loses about 40 million dollars if they don't go forward with another referendum on an annual basis and operating revenue.

Um some discussion, uh again, as I said, things you guys have wrestled with, but in a different way, the impact on of Senate Enrolled Act one on both IPS and charter school finances, um, and and a lot of detail again and the volume of things I've sent you on how finances work, the finance across the board City Enrolled Act One, called for property tax sharing with charter schools that are present in the district of the schools that is raised that are raising or using property taxes for operating funds.

In August, there was a deep dive into facilities, facilities load management, planning, operations, and maintenance, a presentation from IPS on how they manage their operations and or their facilities, and then how they manage the facilities for roughly 17 of the 30 uh innovation network schools, 13 of those they don't manage facilities for, some they do, some they don't, and the details of those contracts.

Um Purdue Polytechnic High School, um, high schools I should say, the two that are present in Indianapolis.

There is a third in South Bend, but the two that are present in Indianapolis, Kiana Warren from their schools made a presentation, and they have an interesting model of one building in which they operate, is owned and managed by IPS, that's Broad Ripple High School, one building uh near where I live, uh the district I represented when I was an IPS, the Mallory building that they own and they actually hold uh a lease to an organization on the east side, but they essentially manage their own building there.

So her presentation was sort of how the dichotomy of those two situations work, excuse me, and then KIP schools did a presentation on as an organization that owns their own buildings.

In September, we did a deep dive into transportation, transportation systems and facilities, infrastructure and funding.

Again, there was a presentation from IPS and their transportation folks.

Again, same thing, they provide a lot of transportation for their innovation network schools, all the transportation for their traditional schools.

There are some of their innovation network schools that do not opt into transportation from IPS, many of them do.

Uh what they refer to as a as a uh uh hub and spoke model where they they do pickups at particular locations, usually a large parking lot to take kids to their schools.

Some of them go to one school to have another bus taking another school, but so Victory College Prep did a presentation, and then Paramount Schools did a presentation, and they excuse me, they provide minimal transportation for their students.

So there's a wide variance of how transportation works in all the different models we've been looking at.

In October, uh there was a uh in in this room a discussion on governance models, and that is who runs the schools.

Is it a school board?

Is it a hybrid system?

Is it a mayoral appointed system?

And so we had presentations from Washington, D.C.

schools, pardon me, um, and the Denver Public School System.

Uh Paul Kine, Deputy Mayor for Education for the City of Washington, DC, presented their model, which is a mayoral dominated model.

There are two functioning organizations, uh, DC Charter Schools and DC public schools.

The head of DC public schools is uh, or the chancellor is Lewis Faraby, former IPS superintendent, um, and I'm gonna blank on the name of the head of the DC charter schools, but they both ultimately report directly to the mayor.

There are some elected entities within that, but but it is mayoral dominated model.

Denver Public Schools, which is a school system that really was several years ahead of Indianapolis with regards to innovation models presented, how they run a vibrant charter system and a vibrant traditional public school system under a model of uh school board.

And I apologize, I should have brought a bottle of water with me.

Um so we spent two and a half hours listening to those two models, questions from the ILEA members, um, and so that we have our next meeting on November 19th, kind of subject matter to be determined, uh, probably in this building.

I would um indicate to you that in each of those meetings we've had over an hour, usually an hour and a half of public comment.

So if you think of the span of those meetings, they um we've had well over six hours of public comment during the meetings of the local education alliance.

So, as spelled out in House Enrolled Act 1515, we will report our recommendations to legislative council among others by December 31st, 2025 on a series of recommendations.

You're a good man, thank you.

Uh we will report out by December 31st.

My goal is to not actually work on New Year's Eve, so we may do it on December 30th.

Uh regarding governance facilities, transportation, school accountability.

That report will go to legislative council and to the Secretary of Education.

And I'm going to take another drink of water.

Thank you.

Um lots of information.

I was writing a lot.

Um thank you for the presentation.

I want to open up to my colleagues if there are any questions or I know we don't have we don't have all of the information.

We're not ready for recommendations, but we have questions.

Uh counselor Perkins.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, uh Michael, for uh you know, kind of sharing with us.

Um I know that the committees also engage in currently community conversations, um, one of which was held yesterday, and my understanding from the media, there's at least two, if not three more communications, uh community conversations before the end of the year.

Uh you alluded to what is due by uh the end of year this year.

Um would that be a list of recommendations to the state legislation from this committee?

Um and can you talk a little bit?

I know it's preliminarily, uh, it's preliminary about kind of what are what areas are you looking to to make recommendations in.

So what I would say, the the Indianapolis Public Schools Board is actually uh announced their listening session.

So the listening session that the first one was last night was by the IPS school board from from two their constituencies, which by the way happened to coincide with the ILEA constituencies, except the people that are on that group are appointed.

So they've got, as you did indicate, they've got three listening sessions.

Um they will take that information and present it to the ILEA, I'm sure in due course to say, here's what we've heard from our constituencies.

Um so that that is independent of the ILEA is really what I'm trying to say.

The ILEA, as I said, and I'd refer you to 1515, but I'd go into detail is um instructed by the state legislature to review governance and ask questions and provide guidance to say we think here is you know, having looked at we've looked at multiple cities, but we brought two cities in one is a mayoral control model, one is a school board model, both have vibrant uh charter uh public charter school systems operating, doing well and a vibrant public system, uh public school system.

Denver is a traditional school board model, both of Ham the presentations by both of those said here are the strengths of our models and here are the weaknesses of our models.

Um and we make all these decisions about education, sometimes in a politically volatile environment.

So governance, um, a a question about transportation and how do we provide uh fair and equitable access across the system, both public charter schools and traditional public schools from a transportation model uh as fair and equitably as possible, and facilities and and how do we utilize the facilities to the maximum amount possible.

How do we work together to, if there are questions about co-location, uh if there are questions about occupancy, when we we uh our August meeting was held at Adelante schools, and the the question about utilization of buildings came up, Adelante Schools is a innovation network school and and the leader of that school said if you looked just at the numbers, um we're we're under occupancy, but we're bursting at the seams.

Many of the numbers assigned to school buildings were assigned 20, 25 years ago, and we're making I'm speaking on behalf of the leader of Adelante.

We're making decisions about bringing counselors in and other things.

Sometimes that changes the population of the school to provide services.

So there are recommendations uh about facilities that will be made, both how we run facilities, but then things to consider to make sure our buildings are being utilized to the best possible account, given as one of our ILEA members has said, a revenue-constrained environment.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Uh thank you for the clarity around the community uh conversations.

So uh IPS is having uh conversations with the community.

Uh is it the plan of the ILEA to have any community conversations?

Is it a part of the charge?

Well, the the all of the meetings have been conducted in public settings, um all of the presentations, all the data that the large file folder, that data has has been available both in written paper form, we try to minimize the impact on trees, but also um uh available electronically.

We have uh as we uh the chair alluded to, we're still in some early stages, so we don't have recommendations yet.

Uh I I uh I'm paid to help keep the program uh on time um and and uh and under budget, if you know the mayor, but um uh I'm also paid to not have opinions on things, but to give some guidance.

So I think as we as you see the recommendations to start to come together, that there will be ample opportunity for community to give input.

Uh thank you.

Um having worked in the DC system both on both sides, both as a principal of a charter school, but also as a principal of a public school in DC, and and knowing how that system has evolved over the last 25 years and currently serving the residents of DCA, I I'm glad to hear uh that that was one of the models that you looked at.

Um I know one of the conversations and one of the the concerns that we oftentimes hear from our constituents around the conversation around education and charter schools in Marion County is who is authorized to charter schools in Marion County.

Um and and so the question for me uh is that a part of the discussion at all about the charter and agencies of who has the authority to to grant charters from Marion County?

It is it has been part of the discussion, particularly from a public comment perspective, but isn't it is ultimately part of discussion.

What I would what I would say is as you've heard the ILEA members, and they're right, again, two things.

I'm I'm not a voting member, um, I'm trying to keep the trains running on time, and two, as I said, I'm really paid to not have an opinion.

But but the the words I've heard in forums from ILEA members, other people giving public testimony, other presenters from our two communities, is the ways in which you create cohesiveness rather than chaos in in all these schools.

And so that conversation has come up in almost every meeting, council.

Thank you.

Um, prior to the the legislation um uh making the decision to empower uh the mayor to pull this team together, um, you know, I co-authored a a article to the community to say that I believe that this decision needs to be local.

And so there's a part of me that celebrates the opportunity for those of us that live in Marion County to help to decide a future and craft a future for public education in Indianapolis and beyond.

So I do appreciate that.

And I know that there's some friction there with some of our charter school friends, but I want to state that for the record.

And even as you're considering whatever the recommendations are that will end up going to uh to the state legislators by the end of this year, that that's that's my position.

Uh we'll continue to push forward.

Thank you for your work and thank you for engaging the committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Counselor Graves.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

And uh Michael, thank you so much for the presentation.

So clear and easy to understand.

I've been able to attend some of those meetings uh and it just jive right with what you said.

I have a couple quick questions if it's okay.

Uh first off, uh, we took a look at the Denver uh school system, we took a look at the DC school system.

Um when we when we talk about transportation, do did there was there a real clear uh and and superior method that they used uh to make transportation efficient uh as we take a look at that being one of the bigger parts of this conversation for the creation of ILEA Repeat the question again?

I have a real simple answer, I think, but I want to hear it again.

Did you guys learn a lot about improving transportation between public and charter and the innovation schools?

The the short answer is no, because DC public schools and DC charter schools do not provide transportation.

Um so we had a model, I I don't and I don't mean that it flippantly.

We had one model that says essentially we have a pretty well built out public transportation system in Washington, DC.

And if you I've lived there twice in my life, it's a pretty well built out, pretty reliable system.

Uh and we look to our our children and our families to get their kids, and they have a doctor, you could probably attest, they have pretty walkable neighborhood schools.

Um I mean, they deal with some of the same challenges as us.

Denver, on the other hand, has a pretty vibrant system that that both blends in with their uh Denver public transportation system and their school system, but but while we've had those two organizations come and present, we've looked at 10 to 12 different school systems or school organizations or communities and looked at how their different transportation systems are run.

Um are independent transportation systems, some are run by their school systems, some are are uh that the Denver is a model where it's essentially a service provided to their charter schools that they pay on a per-pupil basis.

Thanks a lot for that.

Um, as having taken a ride and seen some of the redundancy and overlap in our current setup for transportation for charter and public schools, uh it would it would appear that that's a great opportunity for um more efficient uh coordination.

Uh I I believe that you know, with today's technology, I think we can find some solution there.

Uh the other question is after December 31st, what happens to the ILEA uh alliance?

What happens to the alliance?

Well, the the I as I said, the ILE makes a recommendation, actually makes a recommendation to the legislative council and to the head of the State Department of Education.

Legislative council becomes kind of the important function because then the legislature will, and this is driven by the speaker uh significantly, legislature will look at those series of recommendations and then determine whether they want to sponsor uh some language that will then begin implementing the recommendations with with or without modifications for a piece of legislation, then come back uh to the city.

You know, the the I'm not here to speak on behalf of the speaker of the house, but you uh as you as you make recommendations for implementation, and they decide yes, we want to do that, you can envision, I think, an implementation process being established by legislation if they decide to take it up this year.

But the alliance will no longer be a part of those decisions that happen over uh in the General Assembly, correct?

Correct, yeah.

The alliance essentially will go away.

Yeah, goes away as of December 36th.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Councilor Bark?

Two questions.

I just want to underline what this is just a comment um what um counselor Perkins said.

I think the the um authorizer thing is a huge problem.

Um going back to when I first heard on the council and we um approved uh charters.

I could see right then it was a problem because it the mayor should be able to be in a position of setting policy and having the ability to pull levers on uh transparency and goal setting, but instead we're gonna contend with multiple authorizers who don't always have the best interests of Marion County at heart, in my opinion.

So having multiple authorizers is a huge problem.

If we want to have accountability and the accountability goes to the mayor, then the mayor should have accountability, period.

That's um that's a, and I know you don't you didn't do this legislation and you don't know the answer to this question, but I don't understand why when we have these topics all the time, and this comes to us from the General Assembly.

Why is the only area they focus on IPS?

Do you have an opinion on why they don't say other parts of Marion County or other parts of Indiana that have the same pressure to make these changes or to conform with what they're um advocating you might have missed the part where I said I'm paid to not have any opinions?

I know, but I'm I'm I'm paid to try to press you to express your opinion.

You know what I would say is on October 19th, um I celebrated my 29th wedding anniversary, and through 29 years of wedded bliss, I've learned to have opinions and keep them to myself.

Maybe that's a discussion for another day.

Okay, maybe offline, yeah.

Um Counselor Bates.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

O'Connor, for the presentation and discussion.

I too just want to throw my hat in the ring about supporting in indeed Marion County based only authorizing bodies.

I think it's uh beyond explanation to have a small organization like Trine University deciding what's best for Marion County.

Um I I think that's a very poor model.

Um last night at the listening session put on by IPS, there was a discussion of one solution might be restricting the boundaries of IPS and shrinking it.

Does that been come brought up formally in any of the ILEA discussions?

One thing I I failed to mention I should have, and I apologize.

Um in the September meeting, we announced we were breaking the the organization into two task forces, one on transportation, one on facilities, with and and not doing not conducting decision making uh in private, but but those two task forces then fleshing out series of options uh for transportation and facilities in particular.

And so and and even prior to that, so this discussion of can you look at shrinking the boundary?

Does in in this in this conversation, as I mentioned, this this the overarching theme that you all again had to do with again this year of uh a revenue restricted environment, right?

We're we're asking questions about efficiency.

How do we run a more efficient transportation system?

How do we run a more efficient facilities organization across the spectrum, the education spectrum?

And so a question, not even a formal proposal, but a question of does it make sense to look at that boundary and and if you if you were to shrink it, so to say, uh, does it make it more efficient?

The the no one's come up with answers for that.

There's lots of complications, but it has been one of those things that is in the discussion in and out of both of those conversations.

Okay.

And I appreciate that.

And the one thing I guess I would just add, and again, I know you can't have an opinion, but I I'm pretty comfortable saying the opinion of the outlying townships is that would be blasphemy.

And uh people would light torches and grab pitchforks if IPS started just pitching off ballast in the way of students and expecting the townships to absorb them while more money is being diverted away from them to the charter system.

I think that would be a political suicide.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

And and I think that comment goes to what Councillor Barth was saying about how the townships are like, right?

This conversation is IPS only and not the townships, and that goes into there's a broader conversation too, if we are changing boundaries and things like that.

So I appreciate the update.

Oh, Counselor Perkins.

Uh thank you, uh Madam Chair.

Just I I just need to name a couple of things.

Um I I remember a presentation to this committee from the superintendent of uh IPS, uh Dr.

Johnson, that helped us help me uh look backwards um uh to the history of creating this unigov and the intentionality at that time to separate the school system.

Um my colleague asked about why the conversation tends to be focused on IPS and not our neighbors in uh surrounding the IPS boundaries.

Um and I think it speaks to uh the history um of the city in Unigov and how we have embedded within our systems um internal systems of separation um that continues to haunt us now.

Um I interpret from her conversation uh that IPS by its formation doing Unigov was formed to fail.

Um and I and I wonder how much energy we spend thinking and talking about, which is why I believe my colleague just shared about the advocacy that would happen.

I don't know if I agree with the imagery that he used, um, given the reality of what we're facing now as a community.

Um that folks are adamant about not thinking and talking about a combined educational system because embedded in that is some racism.

Um let me also you might not be able to share this because you're you're paid not to have an opinion, uh, but at the end of the day, I think the community ought to brace itself for some recommendations around funding and a funding formula between charter and the public the traditional public school sector around facilities and how facilities are used and around transportation.

Question around governance is still in the air, but at a minimum, I think the community ought to know that at some point before the end of this year, there might be some recommendation, and the state legislature might struggle and wrestle with how we look at funding for education going forward, what we're gonna do about the facilities that are currently on the IPS rule and authority, but are either under enrolled, and we can argue back and forth what under enroll means in 2025 versus 1960, um, and then what do we do about transportation?

Because those things under are the foundation around some of the systematic racism that we see within our community.

Our students deserve to be transported to school, whether they go to school, they live on the east side and go to school in center township, or they go to school on the west side.

They deserve that transportation because if we know that the parents can't afford it, then they don't go to school.

Thank you for the work that you're doing.

We look forward to to the recommendation to the state.

Thank you.

Yes, uh, and thank you, counselor.

That was sort of where my thought path was going.

Was we have from Unigov and from other just systemic um boundaries that have been drawn that we are trying to break those down and we have to figure out the way to do it, and everyone needs to listen and come together for our children, right?

So for the education, because we need to provide them the best opportunity that they can have.

Um does anyone else have any questions this evening?

Uh thank you again for your presentation.

Um it sounds like you have uh 60 ish days of hard work, maybe 55.

Uh 59.

So um good luck with that, and we look forward to hearing, I guess, what you have to say.

And thank you.

We are adjourned.