A bill filed in early January stands to change the way tax dollars, buildings and transportation services are overseen for Indianapolis schools.
Rep. Bob Behning introduced the legislation this week. The Indianapolis Republican chairs the House Education Committee.
The House education committee will hear public comment on the bill at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 12, in the House Chamber on the third floor of the Indiana Statehouse, 200 W. Washington St.
People who want to speak on the bill can request to testify online on the day of the meeting.
House Bill 1423 will be the only bill heard during the Monday meeting, Behning told reporters.Â
Behning said he planned to have the education committee vote on the bill Wednesday, Jan. 14. The time and location of this meeting has not yet been posted.
Updates on the status of the bill will be listed on the Indiana General Assembly website. You can also look up your local representative and how to contact them on the assembly’s website.
How we got here
The bill contains many recommendations put forward by the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance.
The alliance was established by lawmakers last year to study ways the public schools within IPS boundaries could share facilities and transportation services.
Get the backstory
But the alliance’s final recommendations, presented last month, were met with anger and frustration from IPS advocates who decried the group’s ideas as antidemocratic.
Those advocates took issue with proposals that would remove control of school buses and buildings from the IPS school board and place it with a newly created corporation overseen by mayoral appointees.
Charter advocates, meanwhile, celebrated the recommendations. They said the ideas would create fairness for public school families in a system where some charter schools fail to provide free transportation or have encountered difficulty acquiring their own school buildings.
Behning’s bill carries language similar to the alliance’s recommendations. You can read the group’s final report on its website. And, you can find the latest version of House Bill 1423 on the Indiana General Assembly website.
New IPS group meets
The IPS Board Legislative Committee will convene for the first time in public at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13 at the John Morton-Finney Center for Educational Services, 120 E. Walnut St.
The group will discuss which legislation is important to IPS this year and how to follow bills at the Statehouse among other topics.
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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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