IPS Partners With Indy University To Train Future Principals

Indianapolis Public Schools is partnering with Marian University to train IPS teacher to be future principals. (photo credit: StateImpact Indiana)

Marian University and Indianapolis Public Schools are joining forces to create more school principals. Marian University President and former State Board of Education member Daniel Elsener and IPS Superintendent Lewis Ferebee announced a program to train current IPS teachers to become principals and administrators.

Ferebee says IPS is committing $250,000 over the next five years to enroll upwards of 30 teachers per year in Marian University’s Academy for Teaching and Learning Leadership.

“We knew we needed a strong succession plan to ensure that we had great leaders to step up and go into those positions and what we see today is a realization of that vision,” Ferebee says.

Elsener says properly training school administrators creates a trickle down effect in a district and individual schools.

“If you don’t have great leadership in there it’s hard to attract great teachers, it’s hard to support them and keep them, and at the end of the day the students do not succeed without a great school so it’s a strategic priority,” Elsener says. “If you get the principal right, a lot of things are going to go right.”

Sixteen IPS teachers are already enrolled and pay one-third of their own tuition costs, IPS and Marian University cover the rest. The program is also being funded through an anonymous $1 million donation from an Indianapolis family.

Network Indiana contributed to this report.