The Indianapolis business community, led by Eli Lilly and Co., has already netted more than half of its goal to support the city’s recently approved preschool program to provide low-income families with early-education programs.
The City-County Council voted Monday night to approve a $40 million public-private preschool partnership between the city, business and philanthropic leaders.
Indianapolis appears to be on its way to launching a $40 million preschool program to serve the city’s poorest children.
On the line is whether the district will continue to move toward cooperation with charter schools and the business community, or instead slow the move toward aggressive reforms.
The school board reversed course and dumped a contract with a national teacher program, as angry board members accused each other of playing politics.
The special meeting sends signals that the board could back out of the $750,000 program, which apparently was launched in IPS before the board formally approved it last week.
IPS board members met this week to prepare a lobbying strategy for the Indiana General Assembly’s session that begins in January. Chief among their goals: reining in the state takeover process.
Challengers to incumbents are collecting the largest checks. Big contributors range from the Indy Chamber political action committee to executives with Facebook and LinkedIn.
The $1 billion budget approved by the City-County Council Monday night included a last-minute amendment that could put $1.7 million toward the mayor’s plan to cut crime and expand access to preschool.
Indianapolis Public Schools board candidate Ramon Batts says he regrets representing work from three national advocacy organizations as his own in his responses to a Chalkbeat Indiana survey.
Indianapolis Public Schools next year could consider bringing a free public boarding school—one of just a few in the country—to the city.
Under the pact approved by the school board Tuesday, teachers who were rated “effective” last fall can earn a $1,500 one-time bonus.
City-County Council President Maggie Lewis and Vice President John Barth said children could be served next year by the state’s much smaller pilot program, which will reach nearly 800 economically disadvantaged four-year-olds in Marion County.
Funding concerns involving the homestead credit have prompted work on an alternative plan that Democrats expect to unveil soon.
The State Board of Education will pay $15,000 to resolve allegations it used email to circumvent legal requirements.
Nearly two years after federal agents raided furniture maker University Loft Co.’s Hancock County plant, the once-fast-growing firm is seeing business bounce back.
Thirty-one reference librarians at Indianapolis-Marion County’s Central Library downtown, stationed at four buzzing reference desks, provide the personal touch even the best Internet search engine can’t duplicate.
Participation at Business Ownership Initiative-led training sessions is up nearly 30 percent so far this year as more Hoosiers start businesses of their own. Executive Director Julie Grice is looking for more counselors and money.
State lawmakers finished their work in Indianapolis this month, but the end of the 2012 General Assembly signaled the beginning of crunch time for a full-time staff charged with sorting out what happened during the contentious short session.
New Southport Mayor Jesse Testruth and Clerk-Treasurer Diana Bossingham are sorting out years of financial woes that plagued the previous administration, including two unsatisfactory state audits that were forwarded to the county prosecutor’s office for review.
