Dr. Lewis D. Ferebee, who handled tough problems as chief of staff of the Durham (North Carolina) Public Schools, is the new superintendent of the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS).
The son of educators, Dr. Ferebee was unanimously tapped by the IPS School Board during an executive session on Saturday and was formally announced as superintendent Monday.
Dr. Ferebee, 39, is the youngest and the third African-American to hold the position in IPS.
Ferebee’s selection caps a six-month long search process, which began in January when the IPS Board and former Superintendent Dr. Eugene White agreed to part company. The board then embarked on a series of community meetings and surveys to gather input in a national search for the next leader of the 29,000 student district.
The search resulted in some 40 individuals applying for the position. The board selected eight for preliminary interviews and invited three to visit last week for final interviews and an opportunity to meet the community.
Several IPS Board members told the Indianapolis Recorder that during Saturday’s meeting, Ferebee quickly emerged as the strong favorite of a majority and after additional discussion, the board unanimously agreed to offer Ferebee the job.
After the board’s decision, President Diane Arnold told the Recorder that, “We selected a tremendous candidate who will do great positive work for our district and our children. We worked hard. He is very excited.”
Board member and former hospital executive Sam Odle, told the Recorder, “Although a young professional, (Ferebee) has experience actually doing the work that needs to be done at IPS.”
“He’s been a teacher and inspired great results from students,” Odle continued. “He has been principal and turned around failing schools. He has worked to right size a district that has lost student population involving the community in the process.”
Odle feels strongly, as do other board members that Ferebee “will be a steady hand, a collaborator and will work to re-establish IPS’ positive role in a complex educational milieu in Indianapolis.”
A state law that took effect last year requires that before a school district can officially hire a superintendent, the content of their contract must be publicly released and a hearing held.
Because of that, the IPS Board hasn’t set when they’ll publicly affirm Dr. Ferebee’s hiring.
Ferebee spent a whirlwind day in Indianapolis last week, along with the other finalists for the superintendent’s job, meeting formally and informally with board members and meeting with community members and media.
During last week’s community meeting at the IPS Education Center, which attracted an overflow crowd of more than 225, including City-County Council President Maggie Lewis, Deputy Mayor for Education Jason Kloth, state Democratic Reps. Greg Porter and Cherrish Pryor, Baptist Ministers Alliance President Rev. Ray Ware and many others, Ferebee talked about his family’s influence on his life, then about his career. Ferebee became a principal at age 25 – youngest ever in North Carolina.
Ferebee said he wanted to be assigned to lead one of the low performing schools in his then North Carolina district. Under his leadership, he said, his students outperformed the state.
For the past three years in Durham, Ferebee oversaw the day to day academics and operations of a school district with more than 32,000 students in a community of 273,992.
Like IPS, Durham faced budget cuts mandated by a parsimonious North Carolina Legislature and well as enrollment declines.
Ferebee told the media that the biggest chunk of the budget savings “came from personnel. We closed two schools, we did reorganize our central services and we did eliminate some central services personnel as well.”
In Durham, Ferebee said, they did some outsourcing, specifically janitorial services.
Ferebee also told media that Durham had “a growing charter (schools) movement” and had lost enrollment, like IPS. But they’ve reversed that trend; Ferebee said by “create(ing) a plan to market ourselves, to be competitive among the other institutions in our community. Then we saw more students wanting to be a part of the Durham Public Schools.”
Ferebee stressed his belief that his background and experience has qualified and prepared him to lead IPS. During the community meeting and a live WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos” interview, Ferebee said that he wants to partner with the larger community.
In talking with board members, they said that Ferebee stressed that his first priority would be to engage IPS’ families, parents, teachers and support staff. Ferebee told board members that he wants to know the strengths in IPS and where to improve – to work as a team, to work proactively to improve education for every child in the district.
As he told community members last week, “I’ve been a turnaround principal, a teacher in a high poverty school. I’m ready. I’m committed and ready to serve as your next superintendent.”
The two other finalists for IPS superintendent were Millard L. House, chief operating officer of the Charlotte/Mecklenburg N.C. Schools and a longtime Tulsa, Okla., educator with experience in traditional public schools and charters; and Indianapolis native, Tech High School graduate and business executive Thomas E. Darden Jr. They also met with the community and media.
Speaking at the community meeting, House took people “back 41 years” describing his upbringing in a family of educators. House admitted he was a special needs child with a reading comprehension disability which he overcame. Like Ferebee, House became the youngest principal in Oklahoma history.
After five years in Tulsa schools, House went and worked five years at a KIPP charter middle school he founded in Tulsa.
House talked not just of preparing students for college but making sure that IPS had programs that prepared those students for careers that didn’t require college. He promised close collaboration with all parts of the community, including charter schools and other educational institutions.
House said “the job doesn’t scare me.”
Darden stressed his community ties growing up in Martindale-Brightwood, attending IPS School #38 and Tech High School. Despite his extensive business career, Darden said he “wanted to devote the last third of his career giving back to the community by working in education.”
Darden stressed his work in Philadelphia where he turned around the academics at 17 low performing schools.
“All kids can learn at a high level,” said Darden, who stressed the importance of high quality leadership, clear and consistent discipline and behavior standards and the importance of finding a robust approach to improving parental engagement.
Darden told the meeting, “I’m home-grown. I will be steadfast and passionate.”
But Darden was dogged by concerns about the failure of his venture capital firm (Reliant Equity Investors in 2008), and lawsuits by the U.S. Department of Labor concerning one of Reliant’s owned companies that went bust.
There were also issues surrounding Darden’s tenure as a top administrator in Philadelphia’s schools.
When he met with media and questioned by the Recorder and Indianapolis Star, about these issues, Darden became testy, defensive and argumentative.
