The Indianapolis Public Schools Board of School Commissioners voted unanimously recently to appeal a May 11 order by the State Board of Education to withhold tuition funds from the district.
Under the order, $13.9 million will now flow to two special management teams that will oversee four IPS schools starting in July.
Charter Schools USA, which will manage Emma Donnan Middle School, Emmerich Manual and Thomas Carr Howe high schools, and EdPower, which will oversee Arlington Community High School, will benefit by more than $5 million that should stay within IPS, according to Superintendent Eugene G. White.
“The State Board of Education wants to use the September 2011 enrollment of these four schools as the basis for funding,” said White. “At that time, there were 3,810 students at the schools. Today, only 2,138 students have either selected to attend a turnaround academy in 2012-13 or have defaulted to the turnaround academy because they did not choose to attend either IPS or the turnaround.
“Based on IPS’ current per-pupil funding of $7,331, the turnaround operators should only receive $7.8 million in state tuition support to serve the students from July 2012 to December 2012, as opposed to the $13.9 million awarded by the State Board.”
IPS argues that tuition support should be recalculated in September 2012, using the actual number of students attending the turnaround schools. In Indiana, schools are funded based on the enrollment – or Average Daily Membership – on the second Friday in September after Labor Day.
School Board members were united in seeking litigation, noting that providing the inflated tuition support to the turnaround operators would hurt IPS students.
“It’s not fair that our children should receive less financial support based on faulty numbers,” said Commissioner Elizabeth Gore.
IPS is under a tight 30-day window to respond to the state’s action. The vote came during a special called meeting.
