“Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news. Inadequate transportation. Declining enrollment. An impending financial cliff. These are the challenges that the nine-member Indianapolis Public Education Corporation must tackle as it creates an educational ecosystem that gives district-run and charter schools equal access to resources while holding them to the same academic standards. The new corporation has assumed key financial powers previously reserved for the elected Indianapolis Public Schools board. This includes the power to determine property tax rates for both IPS and charter schools beginning in 2027. In 2028, IPEC will assume responsibility for transportation and buildings for both district and charter schools. The state law establishing IPEC gave Mayor Joe Hogsett the power to appoint all nine members. The law required three to be community members with certain expertise, three to be charter school leaders, and three to be members of the IPS school board. Common themes connecting IPEC’s members include a history of working in or supporting charter schools, and promoting the importance of testing and alternatives to traditional school governance. The IPEC board includes four charter school leaders, including one who founded the prominent Mind Trust nonprofit that has helped grow the city’s charter school sector. It also includes a prominent Republican lobbyist involved in a contentious suite of education policy changes adopted nearly 40 years ago that expanded Indiana’s power to take over underperforming schools, among other changes. The board also includes IPS school board members elected with the backing of school choice supporters , and a founding board member of a charter school serving a large population of English language learners. Asked about the new board’s connections to the charter school sector, Hogsett said through a spokesperson that he selected the members after an “extensive review process.” He said the most important factor in his decision to pick them was their focus on “the best interest of all the families and children living in the Indianapolis Public Schools boundary, regardless of the type of public school those families choose.” Below are key facts about each member. Patricia Castañeda, community leader Patricia Castañeda has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of the city’s public institutions and the communities they serve. She is a vice president at KeyBank’s Community Banking Group, and is a founding board member of Enlace Academy, a K-8 grade charter school on the northwest side. Currently, she is a member of the Goodwill Education Initiatives Board, which oversees the The Excel Center adult high schools. Castañeda was born in Lima, Peru. She briefly attended Ben Davis High School before graduating. Her two sons graduated from Shortridge High School. Patricia Castañeda, vice president of Key Bank, is sworn in as a member of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation at its first public meeting. In 2000, Castañeda became the first Hispanic services coordinator at the Marion County prosecutor’s office — a role built largely on direct outreach. Castañeda also co-chaired the Indianapolis Race and Cultural Relations Leadership Network during the multiyear dispute over “E Pluribus Unum” — a commissioned sculpture of a freed Black slave planned for the Cultural Trail near the City-County Building. The project drew widespread objections and was eventually cancelled in 2011 . “That’s really where you learn,” Castañeda said of debates about the sculpture. “So sometimes it comes with a lot of ire, yes, and it’s OK, that’s how we grow, and that’s how we heal and grow together.” She later worked for the Central Indiana Regional Transportation Authority. Castañeda said her role on IPEC is to share community perspectives. She wants to ensure schools are safe and accessible for all students. Castañeda said the new board’s credibility will rest on what it does, not what it says. “Actions speak louder than words,” she said. “If we’re saying we’re going to be transparent, then we want to make sure that we are transparent.” John R. Hammond III, community leader John R. Hammond III helped former Gov. Robert D. Orr push a sweeping education overhaul through the Indiana General Assembly in 1987. The package known as A-Plus required student achievement exams and created a new accreditation system based on school performance. Hammond said that sort of experience can inform his work with the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation. He also believes IPEC can bring stability to all city schools. “This is really the right approach to really begin to get our hands around some of the issues that have created some of the financial concerns,” Hammond said, “so that we can really serve these kids, no matter where they come from or what school they’re served in.” John Hammond, partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister law firm, attends the first IPEC meeting virtually. Hammond served as Orr’s senior executive assistant for legislative affairs and education policy from 1981 to 1988. He was later a partner at Ice Miller and is now a partner at Taft’s public affairs strategies group. He represented Indiana on the Republican National Committee for 12 years and is a founding board member of Herron Classical Schools, led by fellow IPEC member Janet McNeal. Hammond has lived in the IPS district for 36 years. His wife, Diana Hamilton, served on the IPS Foundation in the early 2000s. “I feel committed to the Center City,” Hammond said, “and that’s what we’ve made our home and our living.” David Harris, charter school leader and IPEC board chair David Harris is the CEO of Christel House International, a global nonprofit school operator that’s the umbrella organization for Christel House Indianapolis, which runs three charter schools and an adult charter school network in Indianapolis. Those schools provide their own transportation and include two schools and an adult high school that operate in an IPS-owned building. When Harris worked in Mayor Bart Peterson’s administration as an assistant deputy mayor, he supported the state’s charter school law that gave the mayor the power to authorize charter schools. He then served as charter school director for the city, a position known today as the executive director of the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Harris later founded the influential Mind Trust nonprofit in 2006, which has helped launch most of the city’s charter schools and recruit many charter leaders. David Harris, CEO of Christel House, is sworn in at the IPEC's first meeting. Harris serves as chair. Harris left the Mind Trust to help found the City Fund , a national education organization that raised millions to promote school reform in several major cities, including Indianapolis. Harris said the city’s quality of education has improved over the past few decades, but that it’s “not anywhere near as good as it needs to be.” “This is an opportunity for all schools to get better,” he said. Harris said IPEC’s work will allow all schools to focus their energy on education without having to be “consumed with operational challenges that are a headache.” Janet McNeal, charter school leader Janet McNeal, president at Herron Classical Schools, knows what it’s like to work in different kinds of schools. After a short stint teaching in South Korea, she spent 10 years as an English teacher at a public school district in southern Indiana. She worked for another 10 years at Cathedral High School — a private, Catholic school near Lawrence. After that, she helped launch a new classical arts charter school in 2006, Herron High School, working closely with Harris of the city’s charter school office. Herron High School quickly cemented itself as a top academic performer in the city , though the school has historically served fewer economically disadvantaged students and English language learners than other IPS schools . Janet McNeal, president of Herron Classical Schools, is sworn in at the first IPEC meeting. In 2016, McNeal started a second high school, Herron-Riverside. The school, located in the former Heslar Naval Armory, serves a student body more demographically and academically similar to IPS than Herron High. The charter network opened its first K-8 school, Herron Preparatory Academy, in 2021. Students attending Herron High and Herron Prep Academy get to school primarily through parent drop-offs or discounted rides with IndyGo. Herron Classical Schools has offered limited transportation in recent years to Herron-Riverside students. McNeal is considering whether to opt her schools into a shared facilities system like one IPEC could create, though it’s unlikely the charter network would want to relinquish its buildings. Herron Classical Schools owns all three of its school properties. “We did not build our buildings on taxpayers’ dollars,” McNeal said. “We built our buildings on fundraising.” Eddie Rangel, community leader Eddie Rangel, founding CEO of Adelante Schools, listens during IPEC's first meeting. Eddie Rangel is the founder and CEO of Adelante Schools, which took over Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School as a part of an IPS plan to improve chronically underperforming schools. School choice shaped Rangel’s life trajectory as a child in California. His parents found a way to enroll him into a different district school — which had a strong music program — than the one he was zoned for. Rangel became the first in his family to graduate college, where he studied music education and performance. He came to Indianapolis in 2012 through Teach For America and taught at Key Learning Community School in IPS. He later became a principal in the Tindley charter school network. Rangel was also a fellow in the Mind Trust’s Innovation School Fellowship, launching Adelante in 2020 as a charter operator that would take over Emma Donnan. As an IPEC board member, he hopes to draw on his experience building back the trust of the Emma Donnan community. “It’s important to approach this work with humility, which is something that we leaned heavily into as we embarked on leading Emma Donnan,” he said. “For the IPEC role, it’s important to recognize that no single model or perspective will have all of the answers — especially in a system as complex as Indianapolis.” Hope Duke Star, IPS school board president Hope Duke Star was elected to the school board in 2022 , serving an area that represents core Indianapolis neighborhoods from Meridian-Kessler to Martindale-Brightwood. She earned the backing of Stand for Children Indiana and RISE Indy, which have supported charter schools. Star grew up in the area she now represents. She attended the district’s former Northwest High School and was the first in her family to graduate college with the help of the Association for Loan Free Education, which focused on helping first-generation college students. Hope Duke Star, IPS board president, sits with members of the IPEC board at the group's first meeting. She later worked for that same organization and served as a dean at North Central High School and a counselor at the KIPP Indy charter network. Star’s past few years on the board have featured numerous battles between supporters of charter schools and IPS . During her tenure, the school board has also called for a moratorium on new schools . As she serves on the IPEC board, she hopes that the city’s education leaders are willing to do what’s fair. “I’m hopeful that we won’t continue to open schools while we try to clean up what we’ve already created and make what we have make sense,” she said. Dexter Taylor, charter school leader Dexter Taylor is the director of Paramount Schools of Excellence’s K-8 Brookside campus, one of five Paramount schools in Indianapolis. He worked for the Carmel-Clay school district for about five years before joining the Paramount network of charter schools in 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile . Taylor eventually became school director in May 2019. The network is known for its rigorous academics. Paramount Brookside consistently reports strong math and reading test scores . But parents have raised concerns about school discipline. Dexter Taylor, director of Paramount Brookside, is sworn in as a member of the IPEC board at the group's meeting. A recent WFYI analysis found that last school year, Paramount schools suspended students with disabilities at a rate about three times higher than the state average. School leaders told WFYI last fall that suspensions are lower than past years due to increased training for teachers. Taylor was not available for an interview before the deadline for this story. Paramount currently operates buses for just two of its Indianapolis campuses — Andrew J. Brown Academy and Girls in STEM Academy. According to property records, Paramount owns all but one of its buildings that fall within the IPS boundary. Its Englewood school shares space in the PR Mallory Campus on East Washington Street with Purdue Polytechnic High School. Ashley Thomas, IPS school board member Ashley Thomas serves as the District 1 IPS commissioner , where she represents portions of the far east and southeast sides. She was first drawn to advocacy more than a decade ago when her son’s IPS school was targeted for a major overhaul . After several years of failing grades from the state, George H. Fisher School 93 was converted into an Innovation charter school — a type of school still in the IPS system but run by its own board. Ashley Thomas, IPS board member, speaks during the first IPEC board meeting. To learn more about that change, Thomas started attending workshops organized by Stand for Children. It wasn’t long before she began facilitating workshop discussions “Our school felt like a forgotten-about school,” Thomas said. “I got to see the picture of what it looks like when parents, students, teachers and leaders all work together collaboratively.” Thomas then spent almost eight years as an organizer with Stand for Children. She worked for another two years with RISE Indy before running for IPS school board in 2024. Thomas was endorsed by Stand for Children . Campaign finance records show she accepted donations from Stand, RISE Indy, and several high-profile leaders in the charter sector. “Stand’s endorsement committee were all parents that had kids in different schools from different public school types,” Thomas said. “I’m honored to be endorsed by parents.” She also chairs the board’s legislative committee and runs an education consulting business. Her children attend Believe Circle City High School and Paramount Brookside. The single mom of three said all of these experiences will inform her work on the new IPEC board. Deandra Thompson, IPS school board member Deandra Thompson is an IPS at-large school board member and founder of A Learning Bee Academy, an early learning center. She previously served on the founding leadership team of Providence Cristo Rey High School, a private Catholic school. She also served as national director of enrollment for the Phalen Leadership Academies charter school network. Deandra Thompson, one of three IPS board members appointed to the IPEC board, listens during the first IPEC meeting. Thompson, who has a third grader in public school, was elected to the school board in 2024 with the backing of Stand and RISE Indy. Thompson has said that she sees the value in having appointed members of a public board who can offer expertise in areas such as business or finance. The three IPS school board members on the IPEC board, she said, will ensure that the community is involved in the corporation’s work. “I think we have to trust the people that were voted for, for one,” she said of IPS school board members on the new corporation board. “And trust that we can come together and make sure we bring community along with us.” Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich . Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org . Eric Weddle is WFYI’s education editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org or follow him on X at @ericweddle .
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