Milan High School senior Evan Smith has limited internet access at home, so he often tries to complete his homework at school. Milan Community Schools is the rare rural school district that invested in high speed internet. (photo credit: Claire McInerny/ Indiana Public Broadcasting)
It’s a special day for the high school students in Alyssa Parr’s advanced art history class at Milan High School.
They are taking a field trip to the National Gallery in London, looking at Neoclassical pieces they’ve been studying. But the class of 30 didn’t need to travel for this field trip. Instead, students are taking a virtual tour of the museum, navigating the marble hallways and viewing gold leaf, vaulted ceilings on their laptops.
“There’s that horse again,” Parr says to the class, as her mouse hovers on a painting of a horse.
Parr says this is a big opportunity for her students, who live in the small, Southeastern Indiana town.
“We live pretty far out in the middle of nowhere, so taking a field trip is an all day thing,” she says.
And before today’s virtual field trip to the museum, Parr asked the class of 30 how many had been to an art gallery in person. Eight students raised their hands.
It takes a lot of money to ensure 30 kids can take virtual tours on 30 laptops, and Milan invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in high speed internet and technology over the last few years. This kind of investment isn’t always an easy choice for small districts, who have been struggling more in recent years.
The current school funding formula is more challenging for rural schools. The money follows the student, and as rural populations decline, these districts with smaller enrollments are disproportionately affected. The property tax caps passed in 2010 also restrict district budgets.
Students in an advanced art history class at Milan High School look at art in the National Gallery in London via a virtual tour. Virtual field trips and guest speakers are two tools classrooms in Milan access through high speed internet. (photo credit: Claire McInerny/ Indiana Public Broadcasting)
But reliable internet access is not just about fun experiences – like a virtual field trip. Online tools are necessary in today’s classrooms.
Educators agree on the importance of integrating technology into lessons, homework and daily activities, so students are prepared for the technology they’ll work with in the real world.
But many small, rural districts are struggling to upgrade to high speed internet. And, as the legislation session begins, many are hoping the General Assembly will allocate money to help them build their internet infrastructure.
Milan is the exception, but their high speed internet and laptops for every student came at a price.
“You push aside some things that you want to do in terms of repaving a parking lot, repairing some doors or windows,” says Milan Schools Superintendent Paul Ketchum. “You say the investment we make in this project is going to have an exponential effect on students.”
Ketchum says investing in high speed internet not only gives students opportunities in the classroom, it is often the only place they can access the internet and online tools.
“There is a digital divide in Ripley County, especially in our homes,” Ketchum says. “Many students don’t have access to high speed internet.”
Evan Smith is one of those students. He’s a senior at Milan High School, and Wi-Fi at his home is slow and limited. With so much of his homework online, he often works in the middle of the night when the internet is faster and available.
“The Wi-Fi is limited data from 5 a.m. to midnight, but midnight to 5 a.m. its unlimited data,” Smith says.
Some members of the General Assembly have talked about allocating money to help more rural districts do what Milan Schools did: Invest in internet infrastructure and devices so students like Smith can explore the world outside their small towns.
But this issue will compete for lawmakers’ attention in the new legislative session.
When Classroom Lessons Are Buffering
Two hundred miles away from Milan, in Morocco, Ind., North Newton Schools Superintendent Destin Haas walks into his office after a morning filled with problems. It’s cold and windy, and the boilers at one of his schools went offline. The boilers operate from a board connected to the internet, and the wind compromised one of the towers that provides the connection.
“With our towers, if we have inclement weather, whether it be ice, or snow or rain or strong winds, it’s going to affect our internet connections,” says Haas.
He’s one of the rural superintendents that hopes lawmakers will see internet infrastructure as a long-term payoff. Over the last few years, Haas spent a lot of money installing towers to increase bandwidth, but he’d rather install expensive, fiber internet to avoid the problem with weather.
He also purchased iPads for every student, but they can’t all use them at the same time because the bandwidth is just too slow.
“Streaming a video, or streaming music, and we’re in a digital age where we’re using those things, it’s almost impossible to do because of that factor right now,” Haas says.
They often stagger iPad use. And when they take the statewide standardized test, they ask teachers who are not administering a test to stay offline, so the internet doesn’t crash.
So, while legislators will have a lot of requests this budget session, Haas says this should be a priority.
“It would just be like them at the Statehouse and they’re not having internet capabilities, or only half of them can work at a certain time, they’re not going to like it,” Haas says.
The 2017 General Assembly began Tuesday. Only the Senate has filed education bills so far. (Photo Credit: Indiana Public Broadcasting)
Tuesday is the beginning of the 2017 legislation session, and the Senate released the list of bills it will consider.
We’ve already previewed some of the major topics on the table this budget session, but we now have a look at some individual pieces of legislation senators are proposing.
Here’s are the first education bills this session:
Vouchers: SB 30 would require the Department of Education to give school districts a report of the number of students at their various schools that qualify for vouchers to attend private school. It would require these reports at the end of each semester.
Teacher Background Checks: SB 34 would require all schools, public and private, to conduct background checks on all employees every five years.
Teacher Evaluations: SB 35 says teacher evaluations wouldn’t be required to include objective measures, like standardized tests, when deciding if a teacher is effective. Districts would still be allowed to use scores, if they choose.
Child Abuse: SB 54 would require the Department of Child Services to inform a school corporation, charter school or private school if an employee is reported for child abuse or neglect.
School Resource Officers: SB 61 would require all school resource officers to report any instance of restraining a student or secluding them.
School Transportation: SB 85 would allow school districts to receive property tax money to be used exclusively for transportation.
The first meeting of the Senate Education and Career Development meeting is Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., where some of these bills will be discussed for the first time.
The Senate’s filing deadline is Jan. 12. House members haven’t released any bills yet, their filing deadline is Jan. 10.
Expanding state funded pre-k is one issue that will take center stage in 2017. (photo credit: Barnaby Wasson/Flickr)
This was the year to tee up changes in public education, including ISTEP+ panel meetings, a new state superintendent and calls to expand public pre-K. And when the legislative session begins in January, the actions taken in 2016 could evolve into real change.
Here’s what we’re already preparing to cover in 2017, and what you want to keep tabs on.
The final recommendation was general and didn’t offer the sweeping changes to the testing system many wanted. Now the fate of the testing system lies with the General Assembly, and lawmakers must craft a new test – a test slated to be in use by the end of the 2017 session.
Recently, Sen. Dennis Kruse, the chair of the Senate education committee, said they may extend that deadline to ensure it’s what they want and done properly.
Jennifer McCormick Will Take Office
After four years of running the Department of Education, Democrat Glenda Ritz will leave the post in January when Republican Jennifer McCormick is sworn in.
As one of the only Democrats in a statewide, elected position, Ritz’s tenure as state superintendent was marked with friction between the State Board of Education, legislators, and often, Republican governor Mike Pence.
Added to this, Ritz and the Republican supermajority were operating from different political perspectives.
It will be interesting to see how a Republican superintendent could change these relationships, and this is something McCormick campaigned on.
McCormick does not currently appear to be remarkably different from Ritz on other issues. She wants to study that state’s voucher system and review its finances, reduce testing and give the school funding formula another look.
How Much Will State Funded Pre-K Expand?
All of 2016, politicians and early education advocates talked about expanding the state’s current pre-K pilot program. And there is some political will to do it – most lawmakers on both sides of the isle have said the state should offer this service to more children.
But what we know for sure, in 2017, the legislature will talk about expanding state funded pre-K. Now we will see how they do it.
Will The State Help Teachers Get More Education To Meet New Requirements?
Indiana high school dual-credit teachers are facing new requirements if they want to continue teaching their classes.
The idea behind dual-credit courses is simple – students can earn both high school and college credits at the same time. But changes announced last year would have required anyone teaching one of these course to have a master’s degree, in the same subject, within two years. So a high school teacher teaching advanced Biology must have a master’s in biology.
A state panel appealed to a federal body, arguing that 71 percent of dual-credit instructors teaching nearly 45,000 students don’t meet that requirement and that the timeline to meet it was too short.
Now, dual credit teachers will have until 2022 to get those masters degrees.
But the state does not cover the cost to the teacher. It didn’t allocate money or require universities to give discounts on classes. This is something we will be watching this session.
Ximena, 4, kicks a soccer ball the IN Region 4 Migrant Preschool Center. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
As the year comes to an end, we’re taking a look back at the best photos from our stories this year. We’re out there with microphones, our reporter’s notebooks and, also, our cameras.
You welcomed us into your schools, your communities and your homes. This is what we saw.
(In order of publish date. Click to enlarge.)
(Peter Balonon-Rosen/StateImpact Indiana)
When first-year third grade teacher Gabe Hoffman became a pitching coach at the local high school, planning and grading moved into the weekends, meaning less time with his girlfriend Chelsea. But she’s a first year teacher too, and he says he’s thankful for that, because someone else wouldn’t understand: teaching is a 24/7 job.
And sometimes school and personal life overlap. Listen here.
Hiroko Murabayashi moved to Columbus, Ind. in August with her husband and two kids for her husband\’s job at Enkei. Yoki, 9, and Rico, 7, both attend Southside Elementary school in the Bartholomew County School Corporation and receive English language services. (Claire McInerny/Indiana Public Broadcasting)” credit=”Claire McInerny/Indiana Public Broadcasting
Believe it or not, Japanese is the most common first language for most of Columbus, Ind.’s english learner students, besides Spanish. As language teachers work to accommodate students from a variety of cultures, it’s also a task navigating American culture for recent immigrants.
Leah Hession speaks to classmates during an Inside Out class at Indianapolis Re-entry Educational Facility. She says the class is more like a family, than a college course. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
Fort Wayne Community Schools will spend about $10,000 on billboards this summer. District spokesperson Krista Stockman says state funding from a gain of two new students would pay for the billboards. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
In Indiana, families can choose where to send their to school — private, charter or public school. The aim behind providing this choice? Proponents say it will force all schools to better themselves. Whether it has done that remains controversial. But it has given birth to a new reality for public schools: with education competition, comes the need for education marketing.
The modified bathroom in the new Carrie Gosch Elementary School. (Claire McInerny/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
After dangerous levels of lead were found in soil next to Carrie Gosch Elementary School, the school moved into an old middle school, the district had to make adjustments to accommodate younger students. Toilets, counters and other structures had to be lowered, but the district didn’t have enough time and money to get all of the work done before school started.
YMCA staff work on swimming skills with preschool students on August 30, 2016. According to a body of research, when kids swim at an early age they gain a number of educational benefits. (Claire McInerny/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
Swimming at an early age can help children maintain a healthy weight, develop better sleeping patterns and aid brain development. Studies suggest that early year-round swimming lessons for young children accelerates physical, intellectual and emotional development. And children who learn to swim at a young age often reach many developmental milestones earlier than others.
Ellyn McCall and her son Seth 8 at the Hear Indiana offices. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
As more and more Indiana children born deaf or hard of hearing turn towards technology, instead of American Sign Language, school are also facing changes. We look at how they’re working to adapt.
The IN Region 4 Migrant Preschool Center, a free preschool for migrant children teaches students, age 2 to 5, in English and Spanish to prepare migrant children for school, wherever it may be. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
In this story from October, we took a look behind the scenes of a preschool for migrant children. Depending on the season, Indiana farms employ between 2,000 and 20,000 migrant farm workers. When workers migrate, often their families do, too. And for their children — many with interrupted schooling, histories of trauma, limited English — preschool can be especially important.
Lorelei Jaffe went to vote with her mom. She brought along the book \”White House Dog\”, and when asked if a dog would make a good president? \”I guess so.\” (Claire McInerny/Indiana Public Broadcasting)” credit=”
A group of solar panels at Sheridan Elementary School. Sheridan Community Schools, in Hamilton County, is now one of Indiana\’s first completely solar powered school districts. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)” credit=”
Facing rising energy costs, one rural district in the heart of central Indiana took a unique approach to manage: They went completely solar. Sheridan Community Schools estimates they can save $4 million to $5 million over the next 20 years.
Shaw, 8, plays an improv game with Erin McTiernan, an Indiana State University doctoral student. Shaw is a participant in an improv class at Indiana State University for children with high functioning autism. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
For children with autism, reading others’ emotions and body language can be like a foreign language. But languages can be learned. And improv comedy classes can serve as a language immersion program. This class, specifically designed for 6- to 9-year-olds with high functioning autism, uses improv to teach social skills to children with autism.
Data from the Department of Education provides a snapshot of civl rights in U.S. schools. Indiana schools use suspension more often than most of the nation’s schools. (Eric Castro/Flickr)
I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a nerd.
Yes, I like math. Yes, I like digging through data sets. So when the U.S. Department of Education released the largest data set it ever compiled on civil rights in schools, unsurprisingly, I was pumped.
I cracked my knuckles and excitedly dove into the Civil Rights Data Collection. This report breaks down civil rights data for every public school and school district in the country. (Full disclosure: the file was actually so big my computer actually crashed on the initial download)
Many suspensions can be for non-violent, non-drug related incidents. Situations that require a judgment call.
“We see the greatest disparities in those categories, like defiance and non-compliance,” Russ Skiba, director of the Equity Project at Indiana University, told us in June.
(Lauren Chapman/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
So I set out to find schools and teachers working to combat these racial disparities and I met Ayana Coles.
Coles, a third grade teacher at Eagle Creek Elementary School in Indianapolis’ Pike Township, was gathering her colleagues after school for open, honest conversations about race. Her goal? Generate conversation about race and power, with the hope that teachers acknowledge and address the ways race plays out in the classroom.
These informal sessions, led by Coles, could get raw. As I sat through one, teachers frankly stood up and said they were raised not to trust black people. Or not to trust white people. And that they felt like this got in the way of relating to their students.
It was a judgment free zone where teachers listened, learned and offered advice.
Ayana Coles sits with her students at Eagle Creek Elementary School. At Eagle Creek, students of color make up 77 percent of the student body. Yet, all but four of the school’s 37 staff members are white. Coles led conversations about race with colleagues throughout the year. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)”
Teachers I spoke with at Eagle Creek said the sessions challenged their beliefs and made them think about how their preconceived notions impact their students’ lives.
“Like what I think is misbehavior,” said Jason Coons, the Eagle Creek music teacher. “I’m not trying to sound like some hippie or something, but like, OK, is this really actually something that needs to be addressed or is this just, because it’s so different from what I grew up with, that I view this as offensive?”
Lynae Gude, 9, works on a class assignment. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
And Coles has similar conversations with her third grade students, too. I asked her who’s easier to have these conversations with: Staff or students?
“Kids, absolutely the kids,” Coles said. “Because they’re honest, they’re just like, ‘This is what I think, so this is what I’m going to say.’”
And Coles’ students that I spoke with, like 9-year-old Lynae Gude, said those discussions helped them think about the world differently.
“You can have power for any perspective that you have,” she says. “Like if you look at the world and you see negativity, you can be an advocate and say something about it.”
Elias Rojas is a first grade teacher at West Noble Primary school in Ligonier. As one of the school’s few bilingual teachers, he volunteered to participate in the school\\’s new dual language immersion program. (photo credit: Claire McInerny/Indiana Public Broadcasting).
At the very beginning of 2016, I wanted to follow up on a school funding change that went into place the year before. A previous school funding formula gave schools more money to educate high-need students, like students in special education, students who are English learners and low-income students. But, in an attempt to distribute school funding more equally, the new formula took much of that money away.
I traveled to Goshen Community Schools to look at how these cuts were affecting a district where a third of the students need English learning services. I spent a lot of time with the district’s Chief Financial Officer, and I didn’t expect it to be an emotional interview. But it was. The district lost a lot of money through the new funding formula, and he worried they might have to scale back services.
This story drew me into a topic I hadn’t covered closely yet – English language learning.
When I looked at the data, school districts with the highest percentageof English learners were mostly concentrated in rural areas, and I saw that this was an issue that wasn’t being covered. I knew small, rural school districts were also facing disproportionately larger budget problems, and English learning programs are expensive. I was also interested in the social reactions to this population, as it is a growing percentage of residents in small towns.
I became so invested that I applied and got a fellowship with the Institute for Justice in Journalism, whose 2016 program was focused on stories around immigrant children. I pitched a series of stories on different school districts serving the growing English learner population in rural Indiana.
One of my first stops was Frankfort, where the schools serve the largest percentage of English Learners in the state. Eight teachers are trying to provide English learning services to 800 kids.
Many small districts face this challenge. It often means the dedicated EL teachers don’t get as much time with the kids as they’d like:
Other teachers say they get pulled away from working with English learning students to proctor ISTEP+ exams or do lunch duty. And they all say the schools need more dedicated, certified EL teachers. But Frankfort’s Director of English Learning, Lori North, says that’s a tough ask right now.
“We had teacher cuts this year so it’s really hard for me to go and say ‘I need more EL teachers when they’re cutting general education teachers,” North says.
Another place this reporting took me to was Columbus, Ind., a larger school district, but one where the English learner population was changing. The EL teachers in the district had typically served Spanish speaking students, but because of foreign businesses moving to Columbus, more and more Japanese students were enrolling in Columbus schools.
Hiroko Murabayashi moved to Columbus, Ind. from Japan in August with her husband and two kids. They came for her husband’s job at Enkei, a Japanese wheel company with a branch in Columbus. Her children, Yoki, 9, and Rico, 7, attend Southside Elementary school in the Bartholomew County School Corporation and receive English language services. When they started the year they didn’t speak any English. (Claire McInerny/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
It is hard to appeal to every student’s language and cultural needs. And this frustrates some parents, who want the teachers to give their children more one-on-one attention.
While in Columbus, I met Hiroko Murabayashi, a mother of two elementary school students. They only lived in Columbus for a few months, and she was hoping her kids would spent more time learning the mechanics of English and not as much in their general studies.
This tug of war between what a school is capable of doing and what is best for a student learning English was a theme. And it’s what made this topic so interesting.
Relative to other states, Indiana’s immigrant population is small, but it’s growing quickly. This tension is not going away.
And this is something I heard so often from teachers in these schools – they don’t feel supported. They say most of the legislators who are able to allocate funds to these programs don’t understand how much work it takes to learn English.
Another thing that came up again and again – once the EL students became proficient in English, they academically outperformed native English speakers.
My last story of this series took place in Ligonier, at West Noble Primary School. This school received a grant from the Indiana Department of Education to start a dual language program. This type of program requires teachers who speak two languages, because they will teach half of their lessons in one languages and half in another.
West Noble’s population is about half Latino, and many of the students were already bilingual.
I loved rounding out the series with this story, because it showed a school that is able to embrace its diversity. When I spoke with the principal and a teacher for the dual language program, their goal is to break down social barriers and encourage all students to be bilingual.
“I want them to feel equipped with and have the mentality to have a diverse mentality,” first grade teacher Elias Rojas said. “To have them not see a minority and not say that’s a minority. That is a person.”
Jennifer McCormick speaks with the press on election night, after defeating Glenda Ritz for state superintendent. (photo credit: Eric Weddle/WFYI)
As 2016 winds down, there’s a lot to reflect on. A lot. While so much happened this year (seriously so much happened, I’m sure we blocked most of it out), we’re going to focus on the milestones of the Indiana education world: the most notable laws, conversations and changes in our classrooms.
The Ever-Evolving ISTEP+
When it comes to Indiana education, 2016 was the year of the ISTEP+. The year started with the 2016 legislative session, where lawmakers passed a bill to get rid of the ISTEP+ as it currently functions. They also created a 23-person panel to craft recommendations for its replacement.
The panel met once a month for six months, and its strategy had a broad frame. Members included teachers, principals, superintendents, legislators and state officials. This range of experience required a lot of discussion on both how standardized assessments function and how they are created.
Narrower conversations about specific changes to the test or testing administration did not take place until the the very end of the process, the second to last meeting before the Dec. 1 deadline.
The final recommendations to the legislature were broad and didn’t offer major changes to the testing system.
The fate of the new state assessment now rests with lawmakers, who will decide how much to reshape the old one. We recently heard from Sen. Dennis Kruse, the chair of the Senate education committee, that he will propose pushing back the deadline for a new test to make sure the revisions are well done.
What’s Next For State Funded Pre-K?
All year, we’ve heard many call for the state to expand its pre-K pilot program and serve more children.
State superintendent Glenda Ritz and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg called for universal pre-K. A group of business leaders called on the legislature to expand the current program to just low-income families, and many candidates brought it up during the election.
Universal pre-K will not be on the table, now that both Ritz and Gregg lost their respective races. But all of the talk from different groups prompted the legislature to announce they will address the issues during the next session.
So… How About That Election, Huh?
Remember that?
It has some major implications for education.
In Indiana, we elected a brand new Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state’s highest ranking education official. The publicly elected office also heads the Department of Education and chairs the Indiana State Board of Education.
In a stunning upset, relatively-unknown-on-a-statewide-level Republican Jennifer McCormick handily defeated incumbent Glenda Ritz. McCormick, current Yorktown Community Schools’ superintendent, agrees with Ritz on key issues – reforming teacher evaluations, pre-K expansion, calling for less testing.
But with a Republican as state superintendent, the change could mean fewer squabbles between the Republican-controlled Legislature and the education department.
And we can’t forget that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is now also Vice President-elect. So, Indiana’s education policies may soon make it onto the national stage. Largely in the form of school choice. Indiana boasts the country’s most robust school choice program, with the state spending $40 million to send more than 300,000 students to private schools. President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of education, Betsy Devos, is well-known for pushing programs and laws that require public funds pay for private school tuition in the form of vouchers.
Indiana Prepares For New Federal Education Law
For those of you who have been following our blog closely, you may have noticed we’ve spent a lot of time on the country’s new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act. Fellow policy nerds (…I mean, you ARE reading an education policy blog right now…) will know ESSA was signed into law in Dec. 2015 and set to take full effect in 2017. So this year was largely – figuring out how to make sure the roll out goes smoothly.
The new education allows states more freedom to design administration and practices for rating schools and teachers, as long as they meet certain federal standards.
State leaders weighed in on it. Experts shared advice. A state panel worked to create goals for various education factors, including English language instruction, graduation rates, and student achievement on state tests.
Much of the debate surrounded a still undetermined, non-academic factor that the state will measure as a way to measure schools’ progress. That factor could include school climate, access to AP classes, chronic absenteeism or disciplinary action.
Although the federal law allows states much more flexibility in test administration, teacher evaluations and school ranking, many of these elements are already written into Indiana state law. So tweaking those things, even though ESSA allows it, would require legislators to change the law.
School Rankings Took A Dip
The 2016 school rankings showed far fewer A’s. It also showed fewer F’s. Schools from the high and low rankings moved to the middle – many more schools ranked as B’s and C’s.
A few factors led to this. A change in the way the state ranks schools now measures students’ growth in test scores from year to year, rather than whether a student passed the test or not. And last year the state held schools harmless for lower test scores. In other words, the school was awarded the higher grade between their 2014 and 2015 scores.
So 2015 scores were higher than they may have been otherwise, possibly leading to a more drastic dip in 2016.
U.S. Rep. Luke Messer is sponsoring a bill that would allow graduate students receiving stipends from grants or fellowships to save part of that money for retirement. (courtesy of Rep. Messer’s office).
Indiana Rep. Luke Messer is sponsoring a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would allow graduate students to save portions of their fellowship and grant stipends in retirement accounts.
Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republican Mike Lee introduced The Graduate Student Savings Act of 2016 in the Senate earlier this year, and Messer, along with Democrat Rep. Joe Kennedy, is sponsoring the companion bill in the House.
Right now, graduate students who have part-time jobs or work as research or graduate assistants can save some of their wages in an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). But students who receive a stipend, whether it is through a grant or a fellowship program, legally cannot save that money in an IRA. If passed, this bill would give graduate students that option.
The senators’ plan would allow graduate or doctoral students to take money from their stipends and contribute toward a retirement plan. And that can mean big savings in the long run. The plan would allow a student who puts away $1,500 for 5 years, or $125 a month, to earn an extra $58,000 through interest by the time they retire.
“Grad students and researchers who are studying to improve all of our futures should have the chance to invest in their own.”
Thursday was the last day of the session, so the bill will not get a vote until after they resume after the holidays.
State issued teacher bonuses are calculated using mainly test scores and graduation rates. The bonuses vary between districts, with teachers in more affluent areas getting a larger bonus. (photo credit: Claire McInerny/StateImpact Indiana)
After state issued teacher bonuses gave thousands more dollars to teachers in affluent districts, some teachers in Wayne Township are donating their bonuses to help other teachers.
The state uses a formula to decide how much money each school district receives to award bonuses to all teachers rated effective or highly effective.
But because that formula is mostly based on test scores and graduation rates, teachers in affluent school districts get a larger bonus – a few thousands dollars. And teachers in less affluent districts, such as Wayne Township in Indianapolis, might get around 40 dollars.
Wayne Township superintendent Jeff Butts says many of his effective and highly effective teachers are donating their $42 bonuses to a district fund that helps teachers and students.
“They’re personally going to make that donation to the Wayne Township Education Foundation so that they can continue doing the work of supporting our teachers in the classroom.”
Butts says, so far, 40 teachers in the district committed to donating the money.
Butts says he has set up meetings with legislators to discuss how this money is distributed, to hopefully change the process in the future.
(Read a letter from some Wayne Township teachers to legislators protesting the formula that distributes bonus pay).
Shaw, 8, plays an improv game with Erin McTiernan, an Indiana State University doctoral student. Shaw is a participant in an improv class at Indiana State University for children with high functioning autism. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
When he gets excited, he gets really excited.
And for 8-year-old Shaw, tonight he’s excited for the warm up. From the moment he walks in, he can’t wait. The blonde boy, in his gray and black zip up sweatshirt, is eager to to shake his limbs. Scream a countdown.
And then, he’s ready.
Like the other children gathered beneath the bright fluorescent lights at Indiana State University’s psychology clinic, Shaw’s here for a class specifically designed for 6- to 9-year-olds with high functioning autism. He’s here to practice a skill that, until recently, seemed reserved for comedians and actors.
Improv theater.
But, instead of entertainment, tonight it’s being used by one of a growing number of groups that use improv to teach social skills to children with autism.
For children with autism, socializing can be hard because it involves things like taking turns.
“And waiting is very, very, very hard for people with autism and anxiety,” says Janna Graf, Shaw’s mother.
She knows. Two of her four children are diagnosed with autism, attention deficit disorder and anxiety. When Shaw was young, it was hard.
“When he was 3, man, he screamed every day for eight hours a day, for six months,” Graff says. “And he’s just awesome.”
These days, once a week, Graff takes Shaw to the social skills group in the form of an improv theater class.
The improv theater class at Indiana State University’s psychology clinic. Rachel Magin, center, created the class to help children with autism learn social skills and practice reading others’ emotions. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
Rachel Magin, an ISU doctoral student in psychology, designed the class. Her aim is to help these children focus on the different ways people communicate.
“Through our facial expressions, through the way our body language shows it or just the tone of our voice,” Magin says.
Over the course of the seven-week class, Magin is gathering feedback on how children, like Shaw, interpret these things, the modes of communication that are not words.
“Children with autism just are not able to read those cues as well,” Magin says.
For children with autism, those cues can be like a foreign language.
“And they haven’t necessarily learned that language,” Magin says.
But languages can be learned. And improv classes can serve as a language immersion program, of sorts.
Shaw, 8, looks on as his sister Silas, 6, participates in an improv game. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
“OK, here’s what we’re going to do,” says Erin McTiernan, Magin’s co-teacher, as she gathers the class.
They proceed with a fairly typical improv game: Shaw and classmates pick sentences out of a bright white envelope and randomly choose a card with an emotion on it. Their task: say that sentence, in that emotion.
It’s a child-friendly version of Whose Line Is It Anyway’s “Scene From A Hat.”
Sometimes it runs smoothly. McTiernan helps a 6-year-old student with her combination.
“Say ‘it sounds great’ in a happy voice,” McTiernan says.
“Yay! It sounds great in a happy voice! Yay!” the child responds. “Yay! Yay!”
But – like in real life – the way you say the words changes their meaning. So when emotions don’t obviously line up with the words, it can be more of a challenge for these children.
Like the phrase “it’s over.”
“It’s over!,” says Jake, a 9-year-old. Now, the others have to guess the emotion.
“Umm, sad,” someone guesses.
“No.”
“Scared.”
“No.”
“Happy.”
“Yes!”
Magin, the teacher, uses it as a teaching moment.
“What would have helped him to show that he was happy?” Magin asks the class.
Silas – Shaw’s 6-year-old sister doesn’t have autism, but comes with her brother – she knows.
“Yay! It’s over! Yay, it’s over! Yay!” Silas says, jumping in her blue and black striped sweater.
“OK, so jumping up and down, having the voice get a little higher and a little louder,” Magin says. The children nod.
Erin McTiernan (left) looks on as Rachel Magin leads a class exercise. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
And they improvise other situations, too.
“We’re gonna role play how to deal with anxiety,” McTiernan, the other teacher, says.
Perhaps, it’s something we all could use, but for these children it’s especially important. Children with autism can experience anxiety more intensely and more often than other children.
In an improvised scene with his sister, Shaw plays someone nervous about going to a new school.
“I think it’s going to be scary,” Shaw says.
In the scene, his sister has advice.
“Take deep breaths and you will not be scared,” Silas says.
The idea of the class is pretty straightforward – if children act out different situations, think about their emotions and how they show them — they’ll communicate more clearly in real life.
“[Improv] is being recognized as kind of a technology for human connection and communication,” says Jim Ansaldo, a research scholar at Indiana University.
Ansaldo also runs Camp Yes And, an improv summer camp for teens with autism and performs improv himself. He says improv-specific programs for children with autism are rare – he knows about a half dozen – but their number is growing.
Jim Ansaldo, a research scholar at Indiana University, in his office. Ansaldo also runs an improv summer camp for teens with autism. He says improv-specific programs for children with autism are spreading. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
“What improv really does is create a safe and fun and authentic environment in which to practice, where mistakes really don’t matter,” Ansaldo says.
And Janna Graf, Shaw’s mother, says the change is real. She saw it when the 8-year-old – who, she says, can ramble – introduced himself at a church group.
“When he learned about ‘how to stop and pause and take a moment,’ he said, ‘My name’s Shaw, I’m 8-years-old,’ and then he actually took his hands and waved it to the next person,” Graf says. “And realized it was his turn.”
She felt wonderful.
And it’s this kind of feedback that the researchers are using to see how this improv class transfers to real social skills. So far, they’re encouraged by the early results.
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