A bit of clarification

I appreciate the GCDW for giving me the opportunity to provide a little more clarity into the HB1005, SB412, SB413 debate. I can’t speak for all of the Greene County or Sullivan County superintendents, but I can speak for my own school district and my own Board of Education. At WRV, we value the fact that parents have the opportunity to send their son or daughter to any school. Competition is not a bad thing; we see competition as a positive thing. As a matter of fact, we see competition and school choice as an opportunity.

Last year, 18 percent of our district enrollment came from outside of our own school district.

Our problem isn’t that parents have choices. Again, we value competition; our problem is that we, the public schools, and those private schools who are getting public funds, are not playing on a level playing field. Public schools have high accountability. Our budgets are scrutinized — as they should be — by the State of Indiana through the Distressed Unit Appeals Board, which can be accessed at www.in.gov/duab/2386.htm.

Charter school or private school budgets are not forced to be made public. Private schools are receiving voucher money, which is fair, but where is it being spent?

We can argue about the merits of standardized testing all we want, but we are held accountable for test scores. Charter and private schools don’t have to take those standardized tests. Public schools cannot discriminate against children; we cannot or wouldn’t want to turn away students within our districts who have special needs or disabilities. Private schools have selective enrollment. Charter and private schools are not bound by the same rules and regulations regarding have appropriately licensed teachers.

We recently participated in the ROI Ready Schools grant process. As a part of that opportunity, we conducted 1,100 interviews consisting of students, parents, business owners and patrons.

Those interviews told us that our schools, teachers and staff were doing some great things for our students; it also gave us feedback for opportunities to improve. There is no perfect school or perfect school system, but we can always strive to be better. We believe that constant evaluation of what we are doing helps us develop the strongest academic programs.

We have brought in many great new programs and have refined many of our existing programs due to this program of consistent systemic evaluation, which was fostered by competition. Our goal is always to provide the best possible programs for our students and families.

The pandemic continues to ravage the social and emotional health of our students. We have added Trust-Based Relational Intervention behavioral programs to help students, parents and staff deal with trauma — traumatic home situations, community situations and stress-oriented situations.

We have added Advanced Placement opportunities for our students through our involvement with the University of Notre Dame’s AP-TIP grant, a grant that provides professional development training opportunities for our teachers in order to give expanded course offerings to our students. We have built a strong dual credit course offering selection through partnerships with Indiana University, Ivy Tech State College, Vincennes University and IUPUI.

This program helps students get a jump on college and assists with the financial burden that comes with a college education.

We have added STEAM opportunities (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) for students at all three of our schools, including the hiring of a STEAM coordinator and increased ‘Project Lead the Way’ course offerings in engineering, biomedical science and computer science. In addition, we have added Career Exploration, which helps educate students about the opportunities for employment in Greene County and in the Indiana Uplands region.

We launched the Wolverine Enterprises LLC, a student-led businesses program. Students have the opportunity to learn the soft skills that businesses covet, but we’ve been told Greene County students lack. Students have opportunities to build entrepreneurial skills in business logistics, advanced manufacturing, precision machining, food production, print services, agriculture production and power and artistry. This program at the high school has also been accepted into the Conexus Hire Technology Internship program. Starting in June, 2021, our students have the opportunity to get paid while they learn particular skills. We offer students the chance to earn industry certifications in many business areas prior to graduation.

Competition doesn’t scare us. In fact, it forces us to refine and continually examine what we do. We don’t have a problem with school choice. We do have a problem with the lack of accountability for academic program results and financial oversight. We want to compete, and we want to compete on a level playing field.

HB1005, SB412, and SB413 divert public funding into private and charter schools without any accountability, academic or financial. Public schools have worked hard to add programs to compete not only with other public schools, but with all schools. These bills do not keep the playing field level, but give unfair advantages to the privatization of education. With 94 percent of the state’s students in public education, we believe that funding public schools equitably is not only necessary, it is the right thing to do.