Charter school
Township, but no one came, said Paramount CEO Tommy Reddicks.
Washington Township Schools leaders, who missed the opportunity to speak at the hearing, are now using the rezoning process to fight back.
The district has publicly stated its objection through a resolution passed unanimously by the school board in January. The measure allows the district to take any means necessary to oppose any charter schools opening in or near the district.
“We were not given an opportunity to weigh in on this in those ways, we felt that we had no choice but to come at this through the zoning process,” said Kristina Frey, Washington Township School Board member.
Members of the Highland Kessler Civic League also oppose rezoning the church. At a recent meeting, a majority of the league’s 11-member board voted against the rezoning due to traffic concerns.
“Highland Kessler would probably oppose any change use of that property, whether it was residential or commercial or industrial,” said Monty Hulse, member of the Highland Kessler Civic League.
Reddicks says he’s confident that there won’t be any traffic issues thanks to the long driveway leading up to the school and large parking lot.
Concern over authorizer accountability
Other community members, like Washington Township teacher and parent Carla Schmid, are critical of the fact that the school is authorized by Education One, the charter authorization arm of Angola-based Trine University and not a local entity like the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, which authorized Paramount’s three other charter schools in Indianapolis.
“The school was authorized almost three hours north by a small private university by an appointed board of three and our community, Pike, Washington Township, none of us had even heard about this school,” Schmid told IndyStar.
Education One has approved Paramount
to open five new schools, one of which opened in South Bend last year. This relationship led Paramount to choose Trine to authorize Girls IN STEM, Reddicks said.
The Girls in STEM academy looks to be one of the only, if not the only, public school serving a single gender in Indiana. Indiana’s last remaining singlegender public school was the Frankie Woods McCullough Academy for Girls in Gary, IN which moved to co-ed classes in 2019.
Prospective families want more options
A number of parents have already expressed interest in sending their daughters to the new school. Girls IN STEM will accept students labeled female at birth as well as anyone who identifies as a girl.
Brittany Callahan grew up going to Indianapolis Public Schools and her 11year-old daughter Khi currently attends one. She said she thinks the new academy will provide a more challenging environment than her daughter’s current
IPS school.
“For me growing up, there was just the neighborhood school that you were assigned to,” Callahan said. “So I think it’s great that parents are able to have a choice of what works best for their child.”
Witherspoon Presbyterian Church Pastor Winterbourne Harrison-Jones told IndyStar that his congregation decided they wanted an educational institution to buy their church rather than a land developer. The church has moved to a building on West Kessler Boulevard.
Once Harrison-Jones learned about Paramount’s educational model, he knew the school would continue the church’s legacy of uplifting Indianapolis’s Black community, he said.
“It was in the spirit of Black resilience and in the spirit of education as a tool for liberation, that we support the continuation of that work through the work that Paramount intends to do upon future generations to come,” Harrison-Jones said.
The new academy will bring a new option to students in Indianapolis, Reddick said, adding he does not want this to become a battle between his organization and the school district. He said he will wait to see how the zoning process plays out.
“I think it’s something we want to stay patient with and not be reactive and add fire to fire,” Reddicks told IndyStar.
The rezoning hearing will be Feb. 29 at 1 pm at the Indianapolis City-County building.
Contact IndyStar reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or CBeck@gannett. com. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolineB_Indy.
Caroline’s reporting is made possible by Report for America and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation . Report for America is a program of The GroundTruth Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening local newsrooms. Report for America provides funding for up to half of the reporter’s salary during their time with us, and IndyStar is fundraising the remainder. To learn more about how you can support IndyStar’s partnership with Report for America and to make a donation, visit indystar.com/ RFA