An east side charter school successfully switched authorizers on Thursday and avoided a looming decision that could have led to its closure.
The Education One board approved Rooted School Indianapolis for two separate charters. One charter gives Rooted the green light to continue operating its 7-12 school within Eastern Star Church in the Arlington Woods neighborhood. The other gives Rooted permission to launch a K-6 school, starting with sixth grade in 2028.
Thursday’s decision is a lifeline for the school of roughly 150 students, which aims to give students a path to financial freedom with high-wage careers. The approval comes just weeks before Education One will lose its ability to authorize schools within Indianapolis Public Schools borders.
Authorizers grant charter schools permission to open and operate, and can revoke or not renew their charter at the end of its term for various issues.
The approval came despite concern from its current authorizer — the mayor’s Office of Education, or OEI — that the school was trying to change authorizers in order to avoid accountability. In a letter sent to Education One last month, OEI Director Shaina Cavazos said the office was preparing not to renew the school’s charter, a decision that could have led the school to shut down.
Education One director Emily Gaskill took a different view.
“The proposed transfer to another authorizer should not be interpreted as an effort of the school to avoid accountability,” Gaskill said at the meeting. “If anything, when someone moves to us, there is going to be an automatic increase in accountability.”
Rooted’s founder, Ma’at Lands, told Chalkbeat last week that the school had been considering a change in authorizers since October and was attracted to Education One’s support systems and frequent in-person school visits.
Education One disputes concerns about Rooted charter school
The charter school and OEI haven’t seen eye-to-eye on a variety of issues.
In 2022, for example, OEI put Rooted on notice for failing to comply with laws for English language learner students, including providing a teacher of record for English language learner students. The office also took issue with the school’s teacher licensure rate of 50%, which is below the state law requiring a 90% rate for charter schools.
Lands said the school later addressed the teacher-of-record requirement, and OEI later confirmed with the school that it boosted its teaching licensure rates.
OEI also took issue with the school’s enrollment, noting that Rooted missed enrollment targets for 2022-23 and 2023-24 by over 10%. The school has grown from 58 ninth-grade students in 2020 to 153 this school year, according to enrollment records.
In a letter to Education One, Cavazos also noted concerns about Rooted’s academic outcomes.
Roughly 21% of Rooted’s seventh- and eighth-graders reached proficiency in English on the state’s latest ILEARN exam and roughly 10% reached proficiency in math — although other schools in OEI’s portfolio show lower results. The most recent SAT results indicate that just 1 of 20 students met the state-designated benchmark in both the English and math sections.
But at Education One’s Thursday meeting, Gaskill noted that the school met or exceeded most standards, based on a recent site visit from OEI. And she said the office was only looking at enrollment targets the school filed in their application, not the figures the school based its budget on.
“They are so strong financially that it’s very clear that whatever their enrollment is currently, it’s serving itself on an organizational and an academic playing field,” Gaskill said.
Cavazos told Chalkbeat that OEI does consider how a school’s actual enrollment compares to what it budgeted for.
And the school’s launch during the pandemic means there is only a few years’ worth of data by which to measure academic progress, Gaskill noted. She also pointed to an increase in proficiency on the ILEARN from last year.
“It’s reflecting that academic improvement is there, rather than stagnation or decline,” she said.
Rooted’s current charter school will switch to Education One beginning next school year. The board approved its second charter for the planned K-6 school with a few conditions, including that the 7-12 school meets Education One’s standards for growth.
The existing school must also demonstrate full compliance with laws related to special populations, including students with disabilities and English language learners.
New law restricts charter school authorization in Indianapolis
A new law that overhauls control over resources for district and charter schools in IPS restricts charter authorizing to OEI, the Indiana Charter School Board, and the IPS school board, which has expressed interest in becoming an authorizer.
Schools authorized by other authorizers like Education One before April 1 of this year can continue operating through the term of their charters. But after those charters expire, the new law requires the schools to seek authorization with one of the three approved entities.
Education One had objected to losing its power to authorize schools in IPS borders, arguing that high-quality authorizing is not determined by the location of the authorizer or its type.
Trine University is located over two hours away from Indianapolis.
This story has been updated to include a comment from OEI on how it considers enrollment in the context of budgeting.
This article was written by Chalkbeat Indiana reporter Amelia Pak-Harvey.