State gives mayor control of 4 schools

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The Indiana Board of Education has given Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard control of four low-performing schools.

All four are Indianapolis Public Schools.

Because four IPS schools performed so poorly, the State's Department of Education took away control from IPS and brought in private companies last year.

Now the Mayor’s office will take control of the schools.

The schools are:

• Arlington High School
• Emmerich Manual High School
• TC Howe Community High School
• Emma Donnan Middle School

The four are run by turnaround operators that report to the state.

Under Mayor Ballard's proposal, the turnaround operators would report to his office instead; his office would then report to the state and to the public.

The Mayor's Office would hire a director to make sure the four schools are making academic progress.

Mayor Ballard has support, including the state’s new Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, who said school based decisions are best made locally.

The private operators and IPS are also in favor of the change.

The city will assume oversight at the end of this academic year.

The Mayor's Office says staff and students won't notice any changes; day to day decisions would still be made by the private operators that run the schools now.

There would also be no change in funding to those operators.

The change was approved in a Wednesday morning meeting.