ICPE 2025 Statehouse Day of Action

by Indiana Coalition for Public Education | Feb 24, 2025 | 2025 Legislative Session, Accountability, Billion Dollar Bake Sale, Charter Schools, Dr. Jennifer McCormick, ICPE News, Indiana Legislature, IPS, Legislative Alerts, Legislative Priorities, Partisan School Boards, Privatization, School Funding, Special Events, Statehouse Day of Action

The 14th annual ICPE Day of Action was a great success. A huge thank you to everyone who braved the cold and came to the Statehouse to celebrate our public schools and demand that they be funded and continue to be welcoming spaces for all children. We love our public schools and it is so important that we keep education public–for fiscal responsibility, transparency, and for accountability to the communities they serve. Public means for all.

Meetings were held with legislators, folks watched the House and Senate meetings, postcards were written, bake sale cookies—that cost $25 million a piece—were consumed, and we heard from many inspiring speakers.

Check out some photos of the crowd below:

Our President

ICPE president, Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer opened and closed the event. You can read her welcoming words here.

“Why are we creating an entitlement program for the wealthiest families in the state to pay for the tuition of their private schools, while our most vulnerable students don’t have fully funded special education? While we don’t have universal preK?” —Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, ICPE President

Honoring ICPE’s, Vice President, Marilyn Shank, APR

We celebrated an original board member and co-founder of ICPE, Marilyn Shank, APR. She has done so much for ICPE, such as run this Statehouse event every year for many years. Marilyn is a treasure and we were happy to recognize her for all that she has done. Without her, ICPE would not be where it is now. ICPE board member Dr. Jennifer McCormick paid tribute to Marilyn.

Read our full blog post honoring Marilyn with Dr. Vic Smith’s written tribute and ICPE history.

Here are a few photos of Marilyn receiving her award:

The Speakers

We are so fortunate to have so many partners in this state in the fight to keep education public and ensure that its promise is fulfilled for all children. If you were unable to attend this incredible event, you can watch the speakers here.

GlenEva Dunham, President, American Federation of Teachers – Indiana (teacher voice)
Keith Gambill, Indiana State Teachers Association (teacher voice)
Chelsea English, President INSSWA (school social worker voice)
Gwendolyn J. Kelley, NAACP Indiana State Conference, Education Chair (educational equity & social justice voice)
Gayle Cosby, School Board Member– Indianapolis Public Schools (urban voice)
Rahul Sarkar, President – Oriole Advocates Avon (parent voice)
Amy Oliver, School Board Member – Brown County Community Schools (rural voice)
Darrell Brooks, Pastors for Indiana Children (community voice)
Students from Tru Colors Indianapolis – (photo in gallery) (student voice)

“Don’t let them lie to you and tell you that this is about school choice. Because it’s not about school choice. Because if this was really about school choice, why is there an attempt to remove the option of public education from that said “choice”?!”—Darrell Brooks, Pastors for Indiana Children

“ALL children deserve the best we have to offer: gay, straight, Black, Brown, White, She, her, them… EVERY CHILD.” —GlenEva Dunham, President, American Federation of Teachers – Indiana

“[We must] continue to raise our voices and demand fair policies and equitable funding for every public school across Indiana.”—Keith Gambill, Indiana State Teachers Association

The $5 Billion Bake Sale

When we look at the massive amount of our public tax dollars that are being diverted away from public schools into private hands with no guardrails, we question why parents must hold fundraisers like bake sales for essential materials and programs for our students? How many cookies must we bake and at what price must we sell them in order to fill these funding gaps?

At our event, we held a mock bake sale — “Indiana’s Five Billion Dollar Bake Sale!” 200 cookies that were made by local area public school culinary arts students were priced at $25 million each. This helped illustrate the outrageousness of the legislature’s diversion of $5 billion in funding that should have gone to Indiana public schools but, instead, supported privatization policies. While we didn’t actually sell a single cookie, IPS Arsenal Tech and J. Everett Light (Washington Township) Culinary Arts Students’ cookies were enjoyed and the baked goods quickly disappeared. Our bake sale display was located just across from the Governor’s office. Thanks to our many volunteers who helped set up and “sell” cookies! View our bake sale flyer to learn more about the loss of public schools funding due to bad education policies over the last 10+ years.