What: ICPE Annual Meeting

When: August 20, 2022 from 2pm – 4pm

Where: H. Dean Evans Community and Education Center 8550 Woodfield Crossing Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46240 (Note: the building is under construction, but open for use) 

OR, if you can’t make it, you can also watch on Zoom. Register here. 

The attack on public education is real.

It’s not just the screaming people accusing teachers of Marxism and porn-pushing. (And we wonder why teachers don’t feel respected?) It’s not just the continued opening and closing of charter (and public) schools adding to the trauma of already-struggling children. It’s not just the loss of enrollment in small rural schools and the closing of the doors to their beloved public country school. It’s how all of these events are connected.

After more than a decade of vouchers, charters, and test-driven accountability, we are looking at the fallout of Indiana’s failure to support public education. Public school funding is not keeping up with inflation nor the needs of schools. Teachers are leaving or not entering the field–and schools are harder and harder to staff. Instead of recognizing this, our legislature continues to expand the push to send public funds into private hands with a new program, “ESAs” or “Education Scholarship Accounts” and more. Last school year, with caps/sliding scale amounts lifted, the cost of vouchers went up 44% and we spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in that school year alone.

At our annual meeting on Saturday, former state superintendent Dr. Jennnifer McCormick will join our lobbyist, Joel Hand, to give us a review of the past legislative session and a preview of what to expect in the next.

We also have a panel that will demonstrate that these “school choice” (schools choose) policies have had harmful effects on not just urban, but suburban and rural public schools as well. We have a representative from each of these areas to speak to the way non-supporters of public schools are coming for their school board seats, funding their legislators, and looking to disrupt, dismantle and destroy public education in their areas and all across Indiana.

Panelists:

• Brian Henry, President of Washington Township Parent Council Network
• Christy Wessel Powell, Zionsville parent and assoc. Education professor at Purdue
• Lacy Hawkins, ISTA representative, teacher at Bedford North Lawrence High School, where she is also an alum.

We hope to see you Saturday!

You can also find our event details on Facebook