Ariel Stilwell’s son loves soccer. He went to camp this summer and played on his school’s soccer and futsal teams during the year. But at the small K-8 school, team sports weren’t that competitive.
So when IPS leaders pursued a citywide redistricting effort called Rebuilding Stronger, Stilwell grew excited for the possibilities her eighth grader could experience in a bigger school.
IPS hopes to keep and attract families like Stilwell to the district with the changes it’s making under Rebuilding Stronger. The plan reintroduces sixth through eighth grade middle schools across the district and reopens two former IPS high school buildings as middle schools. It’s backed with a $410-million, taxpayer-funded investment in new and renovated facilities.
It also comes as a part of a plan to downsize the district’s footprint, with the closure of six schools in 2023 following years of enrollment loss, and reinvest in expanding educational opportunities that haven’t always been offered equitably across IPS.
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District officials are looking to strike the right balance between expanding access to low-income families while retaining affluent families happy with their chosen schools. Stilwell, who has watched as some of her neighbors moved their kids to nearby Washington Township, said she sees the good that changes can bring for not just her kids, but children across Indianapolis.
The resulting effect, administrators hope, is increased access to high quality programming — such as music, athletics and world language classes — for all students.
“I believe in what they’re trying to do with Rebuilding Stronger,” Stilwell said. “So, I definitely want to do what I can to support it and part of that is keeping my kids in school here.”
Principal Tiffany Robinson, July 19, 2024, at Broad Ripple Middle School. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy 
Principal Tiffany Robinson, July 19, 2024, at Broad Ripple Middle School. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy 
A laboratory under construction, July 19, 2024, at Broad Ripple Middle School. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy 
Surplus desks sit piled in a hallway awaiting a new classroom, July 19, 2024, at Broad Ripple Middle School. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy 
Gymnasium, July 19, 2024, at Broad Ripple Middle School. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy 
Gymnasium, July 19, 2024, at Broad Ripple Middle School. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy
The new Broad Ripple Middle School
Broad Ripple High School closed unpopularly during a districtwide restructuring in 2018. The decision left Broad Ripple families reeling over the loss of their neighborhood school and initiated a yearslong debate over what would happen to one of the district’s most visible and valuable pieces of property.
Though closed, the building never sat empty. IPS used it over the years as a central meeting space for teacher training and administrative offices, and Purdue Polytechnic High School moved its Broad Ripple campus into the building under a temporary lease in 2022.
Purdue Polytechnic — which has an agreement through at least June 30, 2027 — will continue using the third floor for high schoolers. Under Rebuilding Stronger, hundreds of IPS middle schoolers now occupy the first and second floors. It’s a welcome change for some in the Broad Ripple community for a building that just several years ago was eyed for redevelopment.
“It’s a good thing,” said Jeanne Kaplan, an alumna who owns Artifacts Gallery in Broad Ripple Village. “The Village is better when there’s more diversity of ages and people.”
The district broke ground last spring on an athletic field replacement behind the school and is converting several second-floor classrooms into updated science labs. The new turf field and resurfaced track are expected to be done in time for the spring sports season.
School leaders said IPS has set its sights on a long-term goal of enrolling 1,000 students at the middle school and the Broad Ripple team appears well on its way. Two weeks before the start of school, IPS officials told Mirror Indy that Broad Ripple had signed up 862 students, far surpassing its goal of 400 to 500 students in its first year.
Staying with Indianapolis Public Schools
Stilwell said her son has a group of three or four friends moving over to Broad Ripple Middle School together this fall, but not all families in her neighborhood are making the transition.
The part-time pediatrician said she watched during the planning stages of Rebuilding Stronger as families around her pulled their kids from IPS in search of stability in other places such as Washington Township.
Stilwell said she initially chose to send her kids to Mary Nicholson School 70, a Center for Inquiry school, because of its close proximity to her family’s Meridian-Kessler home and its strong reputation among neighbors. She decided to stay with IPS and send her son on to Broad Ripple because of the strong relationship she built with teachers at School 70 and a trust that that will continue at the new middle school.
Nadia Krupp, whose seventh grader is starting at Broad Ripple after going to IPS’ Rousseau McClellan School 91, said the middle school’s specialized International Baccalaureate curriculum was a draw.
It’ll be a change in learning style from her son’s background at the north side Montessori school, but Krupp, who sat on a middle school transition advisory board last school year, said she’s confident in the Broad Ripple administrative team’s efforts to make sure kids are on the same page.
She said she’s also excited for new classes being offered at the middle school, including Spanish, Mandarin and high school biology. It’s a part of a broader push to ensure all middle school students have access to rigorous classes.
For example, last school year, only 34% of middle school students had access to band, orchestra and world language classes and only 41% had access to Algebra I. This school year, the courses are offered districtwide.
“We felt strongly that the opportunities for one school need to be available for others,” Krupp said, “So, with how they structured it, we felt that this is something that we really wanted to be a part of and be involved in.”
Creating a school culture
Principal Tiffany Robinson knows she’s got work to do bringing together kids who started in IPS under different teaching styles, such as those used in Center for Inquiry, Montessori and Butler Lab schools.
That means finding ways to help all students learn the International Baccalaureate way of instruction, which is an inquiry-based model that encourages students to explore multiple subjects at a time from a global perspective.
To do this, Robinson said she worked with district leaders to recruit strong educators to join her staff, including some who are moving over from Broad Ripple’s feeder schools. Those staff were then trained on IB techniques before the start of the school year.
The first week of school, students participated in multiple orientation days and were assigned to a daily, half-hour advisory period that will be used as a touch point for helping kids adjust to middle school life, practice soft skills and participate in other social-emotional learning exercises.
The school also had touch points before the start of the year to bring in families. Events to meet teachers and spring field trips to the school helped students envision themselves in middle school before their first day. Robinson organized a staff mixer, too, recognizing that teachers, like students, would be new to the school.
The school’s parent-teacher organization plans to continue this work as the school year picks up. Stilwell says the group wants to sell spirit wear and help fundraise for eighth graders’ Washington D.C. field trip. They’re also putting together a social calendar with events like Movies on the Green, Fall Fest, Spring Fling and continuing a longtime tradition from the Broad Ripple High School days: an annual homecoming parade.
Stilwell says she recognizes change won’t be easy. But, once her eighth grader finishes up at Broad Ripple and moves onto high school, her fifth grader will follow in his footsteps, and that means every small step forward this year is a step forward for future Rockets.
“We’ve gotta keep building it up,” Stilwell said. “We have to try to make sure that it’s just as supportive and available for them as possible.”
Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.
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