Anna Chaney didn’t expect to love School 14. She only sent her daughter because her family became homeless and it was the neighborhood school for their shelter.
But the school soon became an important part of their lives. It has a close-knit community, she said, and there is an abundance of help for families, such as a food pantry, after-school programs, and Christmas gifts.
“Once I was on my feet and able to leave the shelter, we made sure to find a house that was in the boundary,” she said.
But last year, Chaney and other parents at the school got a painful shock: After years of low test scores, Indianapolis Public Schools was considering taking drastic action at School 14 by restarting it as an innovation school. Under the plan, which was approved by the school board last week, the school will be managed by a charter operator, with a new principal, and the teachers will likely be replaced — a seismic shift for a school that has long been a place of stability for students living with instability at home.
School 14, which is also known as Washington Irving, has gotten several failing grades, with a brief period of D grades, over the last six years. But many of its parents were nonetheless surprised that the school had struggled on state tests for years.
“There were a lot of people who didn’t think their school was broken,” said James Taylor, CEO of the John Boner Neighborhood Centers, a nearby community center that works with many families at the school. “From a parents’ perspective, it felt like it was a stable environment that people wanted to have their children in.”
By restarting School 14, Indianapolis Public Schools is betting that the potential for improved test scores outweighs the risk of compromising the supportive role the school has played for families.
“We value consistency but at the same time, we are obligated and responsible for academic excellence,” said Superintendent Lewis Ferebee. “We are not getting the results from the school in terms of performance. It’s one of those situations where we clearly need to go in a different direction.”
For parents at the school, the situation is more complicated. Chaney, for one, said that she was probably blinded to low test scores by everything else the school offered her family, and she now favors the restart.
“We love that school so much that we were kind of scared to step up and say, ‘yeah, we need to change some stuff,’ ” said Chaney, a member of the parent organizing group Stand for Children, which has supported many innovation school conversations.
School 14, a striking brick facade that stands out from the residences surrounding it on the near eastside, sits at a crossroads of Indianapolis’ wealth and poverty. With a boundary that stretches across vast swaths of downtown, its neighborhood includes the picturesque houses of Chatham-Arch and Woodruff Place — and some of the city’s homeless shelters, including the Julian Center and the Salvation Army Shelter for Women and Children.
While affluent families in the city’s downtown often choose magnet and private schools, School 14 has long served many homeless students, at least one time having the largest proportion in the city.
Last year, the school enrolled 456 elementary school students, and it served more children living in shelters — 14 students — than any other school in the district. (The school is expanding to 8th grade.) Federal law requires public schools to continue busing students to their old school if they become homeless, and nearly every school in the district educates some homeless children. There were several campuses with higher overall rates of homelessness, which includes students who were forced to move in with friends or relatives or live in hotels.
But while the challenges at School 14 are not unique, advocates and families say it has been shaped by its unusually transient population, and it has become a hub to connect local nonprofits with families.
When Ebony Turner, who has a 4th grader at the school, was laid off, she would often stop by School 14 to use the computers to look for work, and it was a staffer at the school who helped her find a job as a teaching assistant. “They have helped me tremendously,” said Turner, adding that staff at the school always advocate for what’s best for students.
With the district’s new plan for the school, it could be a radically different place next fall. The board voted last week for the campus to be converted to an innovation school managed by URBAN ACT Academy, a new charter school founded by Nigena Livingston.
As an innovation school, School 14 will still be considered part of the district. But the school will be operated by Livingston without daily oversight from the district. In the four years since the state created innovation schools, Indianapolis Public Schools has restarted four struggling schools with innovation partners. Most of those schools have seen improvements in test scores.
Livingston, who has been an educator for over 15 years, moved to Indianapolis in 2016 after she won a fellowship from The Mind Trust, a nonprofit that has supported many of the innovation schools in the district. She plans to use “place-based learning” at School 14, a philosophy that incorporates the surrounding community into the projects students pursue at school.
When students are struggling, parents, educators, and community groups need to come together to support them, said Livingston.
“These are all of our students and we are all responsible for student outcomes,” said Livingston. “We are all working together.”
Since Livingston was chosen as a potential operator for School 14, she has won support from many of the community partners and parents at the school. Taylor of the Boner Centers said that he believed her vision for the school and her focus on place-based learning could help stitch the school into the community.
But the plan to restart the school has also inspired resistance.
School board member Elizabeth Gore, who voted against the proposal last week, said the district could have improved the school by giving it more support.
“Using outside partners is one way, but not the only answer when we have a good core of principals and staff to work on our own to restore the academic quality,” she said.
Several parents at School 14 — some supporting the restart and some opposing it — seemed to share many of the same concerns about the plan. They said the school would benefit from newer technology, and they would be happy to see a new curriculum. But they also said they would like some current teachers to remain.
When the school restarts, however, many of the teachers will likely leave. Teachers at innovation are employed by the operator rather than the district. In order for current teachers from School 14 to remain at the school, they will need to apply for positions with URBAN ACT Academy. If Livingston hires them, they will be giving up their contracts with the district, and the protections of their union membership.
Because the staff and parents learned in the fall that School 14 would likely be restarted, educators there have already been in limbo for months.
“There has to be a better way,” said Judith Fleurimond, a parent of two children at the school and a member of Stand. “Teachers are important. A teacher who has worked at a school for that many years shouldn’t have to just get up and pack and leave.”