Honorable City-County Councillors –

I am asking you to postpone the charter school vote Monday night, to allow enough time to sort out the hidden fiscal issue that threatens to harm the existing 40,000 kids in the IPS system next year.

Please ask the Mayor’s office and the IPS Administration to meet with you together, so you can ask tough questions about where the money is coming from to educate the students in the new charter schools. I’m not asking for months of debate – just a few weeks.

Once you discover that, without changes to current state law, IPS will be writing $6,000 checks for each one of those students, out of its current operating budget for next year, then you can vote, equipped with all the facts. This includes kids who home schooled, or who are currently in private schools like Flanner House – IPS was never given money by the state to educate them, but it will have to pay for them regardless. As for those students who will move from current IPS schools into charter schools, the cycle of school closings and redistricting may begin again….just when we parents thought we might have some stability for once.

I know many of you think you have to move forward because change is necessary, but it isn’t fair to balance the impact of this funding on the backs of IPS students who remain in the system; they are left behind again and again and again. They will pay with larger class sizes, or other cuts to their programs. Please consider the irony – 40,000 children are placed at a disadvantage so 1,000 children can benefit from the “choice” provided at the new schools, one of which is being managed by a for-profit institution!

And please, hold a hearing to ask the real stakeholders in this debate – existing IPS parents and children – if they think this is a good idea. I fail to understand why no one thinks we are important.

Remember, $6,000,000 is a drop in the bucket to Christel DeHaan, but it is a significant and adverse impact to existing IPS students. Her new school, along with the other two in the old city limits, will be the beneficiary of our system-wide suffering. As an IPS parent I resent that.

I have no objection to the charters, as long as the money comes directly from the state. It was an oversight, and you are the people who can correct it by calling attention to the issue. Please give IPS kids a Christmas present they won’t forget – your respect and your concern – by placing their needs over a concept that is politically popular, but fiscally flawed. Fix the flaws, then move forward.

Respectfully,

Diane T. Hancock

Parent of Laura and Christie Wilkerson – BRHS and Shortridge Middle School

327 Buckingham Drive

Indianapolis, IN 46208

283-3407 (home) 277-5970 (work)

P.S. About me: My children have been attended IPS since kindergarten. I worked on school board elections during the past four years to elect five people who could get along and do the business they were elected to do – and they have been very successful. As a neighborhood association representative, I sat on the Yellow Ribbon Task Force with business and community leaders to come up with a funding solution for the facilities issue that was palatable for the entire community. I coordinate a tutoring program at the Key Learning Community High School (an IPS Option) for my corporation. Although I follow IPS issues very closely, I didn’t realize the impact of this funding issue until last week. I have spoken with the Mayor’s office and IPS Administration prior to bring you this issue.