Separation of schools and experts; Advisory committees are getting left behind.

Image via WikipediaThis article is about the interlocal change over in Perry Township, but it's about far more than that. It's about a movement in Indiana to keep schools and school boards for Special Education schools separate from the vital information they need to do their work.

Parents and advocates are increasingly "disinvited" from participating in official capacities. The RISE Learning Center Stakeholder Committee was dissolved at the first opportunity and replaced with "PTA" interaction, however the PTA has no advocacy arm at that school and less to say on special needs issues than your average goldfish. How was that an even swap?

Southern Indiana's Greater Clark County Schools has a Gifted Ed Advisory Committee. Muncie school districts have parent advisory committees. Yet, in meetings with parents, Bill Dreibelbis and other school officials of Perry Township continually tell PTA members and leaders, "It's just not done". Gentlemen, it is done. Where people want good, actionable intelligence, they find sources. Without it, you're likely to go off-mission.

Parents and advocates are the experts. Teachers are the experts. Yet, increasingly, advisory committees are passed over and school boards are shrinking the influences of regular citizens in the policy making process. This has far reaching impact on the future of all education, but particularly special ed. Frankly, to continue with the metaphor, we may be headed for a Charlie Foxtrot of epic proportions.

RISE Interlocal

This is copied from the report published on RISE Special Services website:

APPENDIX A

BASIC LEGAL STANDARDS FOR AN INTERLOCAL
Mr. David Day, Esq., Church, Church, Hittle & Antrim, offers the following information
dealing with the basic legal standards for providing services through a Joint Agreement
or an Interlocal Agreement.


TO:  WILLIAM DREIBELBIS

FROM:  DAVID DAY

DATE:  JULY 1, 2009

RE:  RISE AGREEMENT

RISE currently operates under a joint services and supply agreement that was last
updated a couple of years ago.  The statute authorizing joint service and supply
agreements essentially allows schools to exercise jointly any power that they could
exercise individually.  

IC 36-1-7 provides an alternative means for more than one political subdivision to
exercise jointly a power that they could exercise individually.  This statute authorizes
Indiana political subdivisions (this term includes school corporations) to enter into what
are called “interlocal agreements” to accomplish this goal. The interlocal agreement, like
the joint service and supply agreement, contains terms concerning the duration and
purpose of the enterprise, the manner of financing and staffing and the methods to be
employed in terminating the agreement.  In addition, the statute provides for a variety of
ways to administer the agreement including the creation of a separate legal entity.

Unlike a joint services and supply agreement, however, which must designate one of its
participating school corporations to administer and supervise the joint program, the
interlocal agreement can either (1) delegate funding authority to the treasurer of one of
its participants; or (2) create its own funding authority.  If the latter option is chosen, then
the agreement must be approved by the attorney general.  Also, because this interlocal
would carry out the authority that is subject to control by the state, the State Board of
Education would also have to approve the interlocal here.  Neither of these approvals
should present significant obstacles.

This poses some interesting questions because we could do this differently than we do now, but will we? Our current JS&S names Perry Township as the legal representative (and I understand why they'd run the other way from that), but it's possible to continue as we have begun. While it seems to be the intention of RISE administration to move to it's own legal entity, it isn't strictly necessary or necessarily the wish of all the townships to do so. 

My understanding was that we would have to become our own entity. That isn't exactly true. SO it makes me wonder who's leaning to what and when it will all be revealed. The politics of the Interlocal boggle the mind.

Don Stinson, looking for love?

Image by lemonad via Flickr

The local blog Had Enough Indy? reports that Dr. Don Stinson of Decatur Township is in the process of changing jobs. I'm pretty familiar with his attitude toward the special ed. students in the townships. We're back at square one when it comes to political jockeying and local interests because the likelihood is that a school board may want to find someone who will follow their own vision. Vision these days seems to be limited to cutting corners.


Special education in the townships is already highly political and contentious. With the interlocal storm brewing, it's a whole new Governing Board on the horizon for families in Perry, Beech Grove, Decatur and Franklin Townships. This is especially true if the school boards wash their hands of the interlocal and allow it to self-govern.