What To Watch For At Wednesday’s State Board Meeting

What’s on your calendar this week?

Indiana’s State Board of Education meets Wednesday, and they’ve put together what looks to be a pretty packed schedule. They’ll revisit some recurring issues (school turnaround), look to take final action on others (elements of the pre-k pilot program), and undoubtedly get into some back-and-forth on controversial issues (presumably good ol’ A-F school grades).

Let’s take a look at some of the items on the agenda:

Elle Moxley / StateImpact Indiana

Glenda Ritz and members of the Indiana State Board of Education will meet on October 15.

• Approval of proposed rule language on Pre-K Accreditation. Preparations for the state’s pre-k pilot program are well underway, and a key element of implementation is helping providers in the five participating counties get ready. The board will look at new legal language describing which providers have the proper credentials to actually participate in the program. Remember that providers also have to qualify as a Level 3 or 4, the top two levels on the state’s Paths to QUALITY rating system. Public hearings on the proposed language will be held in late November and early December.

• Approval of Kindergarten Readiness Assessments. Another important component of the pre-k pilot, officials hope the KRA will help determine program efficacy. The Early Learning Advisory Committee reviewed a series of early childhood assessment instruments this summer. They’ve whittled the list of possible tools down from 15 to three, and now they are presenting their recommendation to the state board – a combination of language, cognitive, and social-emotional measurements. Whatever assessment the board approves will be one component of the Family and Social Services Administration’s evaluation the one-year program’s efficacy. Many Indiana communities outside of the five participating counties are also talking about pursuing free pre-k, so this could impact them as well.

• Initiating rulemaking on school accountability. It may feel like we’ve been talking about A-F grades forever, but this particular subtopic falls under the category of ‘just getting started.’ Until now, student test scores factored into teacher evaluations, a crucial part of school accountability grades. But when Indiana dumped the Common Core and adopted new standards, many people expressed concerns about how the transition would affect students’ performance on new related assessments. When the U.S. Department of Education extended Indiana’s No Child Left Behind waiver in August, the feds did not specify whether or not the Hoosier state could delay incorporating those scores, an option they gave some other states. And thus far, Indiana has not decided whether or not they’ll pursue the option. Expect a lot of community input on this topic – the Indiana State Teachers Association has been vocal in recent months about pursuing this flexibility – and perhaps a bit of board back-and-forth – this has been another item of recent tension between Governor Mike Pence and State Superintendent Glenda Ritz. The board will also talk about what else should factor into accountability grades, and how often the system should be revisited.

• School Turnaround Committee update. We’ve been hearing a lot from the board’s Committee on School Turnaround lately. Information gathering has been the name of the game during recent visits to Indianapolis, Gary, and Evansville; at all of those events the three-person committee has promised to bring recommendations based on that communities input to the larger group. Listen for specifics on the situation with Arlington High School, which brings a whole host of education players in Indianapolis to the table, including Indianapolis Public Schools, Mayor Greg Ballard’s Office of Education Innovation, and turnaround operators Tindley Schools and Charter Schools USA.

• NCLB Accountability Waiver update. From the looks of the Indiana Department of Education’s memo on this item, this will really serve as an update on the implementation of and supports in place for the state’s new academic standards. StateImpact got some input at the beginning of the school year predicting how this shift might affect teachers, students, and parents – check it out here.

The board will meet Wednesday at the Indiana State Library.