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The Metropolitan Faculty District of Lawrence Township plans to revive a former center faculty that was as soon as shuttered amid declining enrollment and launch a brand new faculty with an Afrocentric focus in 2027.
Craig Prep Academy for grades 5-8 will carry again 400 college students to the previous Craig Center Faculty that closed in 2010 — one among many facility adjustments scheduled because the district renovates buildings districtwide and adjusts to a rising pupil inhabitants. At the moment, the district has two 7-8 center faculties and 11 elementary faculties that serve as much as sixth grade.
Officers say the varsity, the blueprint for which the varsity board accredited final month in a 3-1 vote, fills a neighborhood want for a small faculty on the center grades. It’s going to additionally make sure the district won’t should give up the constructing to constitution faculties below a state legislation that requires underutilized buildings to be made out there to charters for the sale or lease worth of $1.
The Afrocentric idea will serve a township the place practically half of all college students, or 45%, are Black, in accordance with the newest 2024-25 demographics offered to the board final month. One other 32% are Hispanic and 15% are white.
“When Craig closed in 2010, that basically did one thing to the Lawrence neighborhood when it comes to identification,” mentioned Chief Educational Officer Troy Knoderer. “The dedication is about returning this constructing again to the neighborhood and returning this constructing again to a college, and having college students as soon as once more again on this constructing.”
However the plan has sparked concern from two of the 5 faculty board members over how the varsity can be funded and whether or not enrollment can be steady sooner or later. They’ve additionally questioned whether or not the varsity really suits the need of the neighborhood, which was solicited for enter on the constructing earlier than the pandemic.
The native academics union has additionally urged the board to pause approval of the plan, noting that the varsity’s emphasis on African American heritage and small measurement would attain solely a fraction of the district’s college students of colour.
“How is that this equitable to the numerous college students of colour in our district?” Amanda Rose, co-president of the Lawrence Training Affiliation, advised the board final month. “As well as, with the set enrollment limits, this proposal is perpetuating the category measurement inequity we’re already experiencing throughout the district, and that this board has dedicated to exploring by a district committee.”
Craig Prep to open slowly with lottery course of
The outdated Craig Center Faculty constructing off Sunnyside Highway is now often called the present Lawrence Training and Neighborhood Middle, or the LECC, and homes the district’s central workplace and several other pupil applications.
The district is establishing a brand new central workplace constructing at Fort Benjamin Harrison that it’ll transfer into in June of 2025, when renovation begins on the LECC.
Craig Prep will open in 2027 with 100 college students in every of the fifth and sixth grades. The varsity will add one other 100 seats for seventh grade in 2028 and the ultimate 100 seats for eighth grade in 2029. At its full capability the varsity can have 16 academics, and also will share different employees with Lawrence Advance Academy.
The varsity’s Afrocentric components are nonetheless within the conceptual stage, Knoderer mentioned, however Craig Prep will comply with district curriculum with dietary supplements that concentrate on African and African American tradition and contributions.
One instance could be an built-in curriculum on historic Egypt, the nice pyramids, and geometry, Knoderer advised the board at a gathering final month.
The district collected community-wide enter on the way forward for the LECC in 2018-19 by boards and surveys, Knoderer mentioned. The district couldn’t present information from the neighborhood enter classes on the time.
The varsity’s Afrocentric focus got here from work completed by a committee of neighborhood members, dad and mom, board members, and employees in 2019-20, Knoderer mentioned. That work included journeys to colleges in Kentucky and Illinois.
The Afrocentric curriculum might additionally fill a tutorial want — at the highschool stage, officers say the district has seen excessive demand for its Superior Placement African American research course, which it piloted in 2022-23 and later expanded.
Officers additionally hope the brand new faculty will preserve Lawrence aggressive with non-public and constitution faculties, which they mentioned usually use a small faculty atmosphere as a promoting level to households.
The newest demographic information from October 2024 to October 2025 exhibits the district in the end gained extra college students from constitution faculties than it misplaced to them, with a internet acquire of 161 college students, excluding digital charters, in accordance with an evaluation offered to the board final month. It misplaced essentially the most to neighboring public faculties districts with a internet lack of 192 college students, and had a internet lack of 29 college students to non-public and parochial faculties.
The enrollment course of for Craig Prep can be just like the process used for the dual-language program at roughly a dozen faculties districtwide. Households can apply for a spot within the fall of 2026. If there are extra candidates than out there seats, college students can be chosen by a randomized, computerized course of often called the Alternative Utility Course of.
The present three pupil applications within the constructing — the Lawrence Advance Academy for highschool college students incomes credit at a unique tempo than their friends, a particular schooling program, and the Lawrence Elementary Various Program that serves as an alternative choice to suspension for elementary college students — will stay there. Craig Prep will occupy the second flooring, sharing the constructing’s two gyms and cafeteria with the opposite applications.
The constructing may also add house for college students positioned on residence entry, an alternative choice to expulsion. The district may also discover probably housing grownup schooling courses on the positioning by grant funding and different partnerships.
Craig Prep sparks concern on prices, fairness
Monetary estimates for the varsity are largely based mostly round staffing, in accordance with the district. It estimates a value of $1 million in Craig Prep’s first 12 months and $1.56 million within the second. These prices don’t embody potential wage raises.
Board member Jessica Dunn voted towards the proposal, citing considerations with funding and the brand new prices the district will incur when it opens its new central workplace constructing.
She additionally questioned whether or not the scholar inhabitants might assist such a faculty sooner or later, noting the potential influence that deportation efforts from incoming President Donald Trump might have on the district’s Haitian inhabitants.
The state’s new requirement to retain college students in third grade who don’t go the state’s IREAD literacy examination might even have unknown monetary implications for Craig Prep, she mentioned.
“We’re counting on a rise in enrollment to do the work that we’re asking the neighborhood to assist,” Dunn mentioned. “But we’re not assured that the enrollment will proceed to extend.”
Board member Marta Lawrence echoed comparable considerations and abstained from a vote, noting a necessity for extra info.
However Knoderer mentioned the district has time to work out points that will come up.
“Within the faculty alternative atmosphere that we’ve got within the state of Indiana, there’s at all times going to be a necessity for an additional alternative,” he mentioned. “A alternative that’s totally different than what we at the moment have.”
Leaders of the academics union additionally voiced concern concerning the faculty’s restricted attain.
“Our bilingual college students, college students of different nationalities and ethnicities, our LGBTQ college students, simply to call a couple of different subgroups, equally should study from a curriculum that celebrates their identification and permits them to discover the roots of their respective cultures,” union co-president Eric Marty advised the board earlier than its vote final month.
All college students are uncovered to a culturally responsive curriculum, Knoderer mentioned.
“Craig Prep could be very particular round an Afrocentric strategy,” he mentioned. “A few of that you’d see in different faculties as effectively, however not the immersive kind of expertise that’s envisioned at this level. That basically could be by household alternative.”
Relating to considerations about unfair class sizes, Knoderer mentioned Craig Prep’s class measurement could be about 25 college students per instructor, just like the remainder of the district. College students would as a substitute profit from a small total faculty atmosphere, he mentioned.
Board member Crystal Puckett voted in favor of the varsity, noting that because the mom of a younger Black man she understands the significance of illustration.
“I do know I used to be a mom that checked out different faculties for my baby as a result of I needed my son to have a smaller atmosphere,” she mentioned on the assembly final month. “I needed him to have an atmosphere the place he had a cultural consciousness.”
Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township faculties for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org