07-05-2025
- Politics
- Indianapolis Star
IPS seeks parent nominations for new facilities, transportation advisory alliance
IPS parents are asked to nominate members for the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance (ILEA), which will oversee changes to school buildings and transportation.
IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson addressed what changes are likely to come due to the legislative session and its financial impact on the district, including a $14 million loss due to Senate Bill 1.
Indianapolis Public Schools parents are being asked to send in their nominations for who they would like to serve on the new Indianapolis Local Education Alliance (ILEA), which will help design upcoming major changes to how the district uses its school buildings and transportation.
The district is also asking parents to fill out a transportation survey that asks what matters most when considering how their child gets to school every day.
IPS's Superintendent Aleesia Johnson sent out a video update to parents this week about the district's future and the outcomes of this year's legislative session on the district.
This new alliance was created with the final version of House Bill 1515, which creates a nine-member group that could make consequential decisions on how the district uses its buildings and transportation.
The group requires Johnson to nominate one parent who has a child in an IPS innovation network charter school and one parent who has a child in an IPS-directly managed school.
The district is asking parents to fill out the online form by midnight on Sunday, May 11, 2025, to be considered.
The other seven members of the group will include:
Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, or a designee.
Mayor Joe Hogsett, or a designee.
Four members are appointed by Hogsett, one of whom must be a representative of business.
One member appointed by the IPS School board president.
The member appointed by the board president must live within the IPS district boundary.
The district said that parents should expect to dedicate around five hours each month from June to December to work on the committee.
The alliance is required to file its final report and recommendations by Dec. 31, 2025. The group has until July 1, 2025, to hold its first meeting.
What work is the ILEA charged to do?
The group will work to conduct a facility assessment on all the schools within IPS's boundaries, including traditional and charter campuses.
It will then make recommendations regarding school facility 'structural changes,' as well as come up with a process of approving or denying future capital referendum requests.
It will also create a template for revenue-sharing agreements between IPS and its charter school partners.
The ILEA must also create methods on how the district can increase collaboration with governmental entities, community organizations or local nonprofits on how to transform school facilities into 'broader community assets for residents.'
The group is meant to create a transportation implementation plan that would consider how to best serve all the district's students, in charter and district-run schools.
To best understand parents' needs around transportation, the district is asking families to fill out an online 10-minute survey about transportation.
However, during the legislature's last remaining hours of session, lawmakers added language to the bill that allows the ILEA to not be subject to Indiana's Open Door Law, which gives members of the public the right to attend meetings of governing bodies or public agencies.
The bill's author, Rep. Bill Behning, R-Indianapolis, said that language was included at the request of Mayor Joe Hogsett, and that the group can decide for themselves if they want the meetings open to the public.
The ILEA's final meeting, where the members will vote on a final proposal, is required to be a public meeting.
The fallout of the 2025 session on IPS
Johnson also admitted in her video update that this legislative session was an 'incredibly rocky and difficult' one, but thanked IPS parents and community members for coming out and speaking on behalf of the district.
She said thanks to parents and community member testimony, two bills were ultimately stopped, one that would have converted all of IPS's schools into charter schools and another that would have taken away complete control over the district's facilities and transportation.
However, the district must now deal with the ramifications of Senate Bill 1, which not only reduces the amount of property tax revenue IPS will see in the next three years, but also starting in 2028 will send more of the district's property tax dollars to charter schools.
More on SB 1 impact: The Indiana House passed a complex property tax bill. Here are the biggest winners and losers
'So in other words, not only does this bill shrink the overall pie of funding by decreasing revenue, it then creates a win-lose framework that incentivizes intense competition among schools over an even smaller funding pie,' Johnson said in the video.
Over the next three years, IPS is expected to lose out on around $14 million in property tax revenue due to SB 1.
Johnson went on to say that despite these large, looming cuts to funding, the district will aim to minimize disruptions in students' learning and does not expect any immediate impacts to school operations for the 2025-26 school year.
'We will vigorously pursue savings and cost reduction opportunities, but we will do so while keeping stability for students and families at the forefront,' Johnson said.
Johnson also announced that the district will be holding a series of town halls in the coming weeks to better explain to parents the upcoming impacts of this year's legislation. Dates for those town halls will be announced soon.
Families can find both the parent nomination form and the transportation survey form at
