The balance of the Indianapolis Public Schools board of commissioners shifted slightly after the 2018 general election ballots were counted, but it wasn’t enough to unseat the majority of reform-minded members.
Three board seats were up for grabs this election cycle, and newcomers grabbed at least two of them, with 99 percent of precincts counted at the time of this paper’s deadline. Taria Slack, an opponent of the district’s bend toward innovation schools, defeated incumbent Dorene Rodriguez Hoops for the District 5 seat and had an 18-percentage point lead midday Nov. 7. Evan Hawkins, an IPS parent and former charter school administrator who supports innovation schools, easily fended off two candidates for the District 3 seat with 53 percent of the vote. School board members are nonpartisan.
One race was too close to call. By midday Nov. 7, Susan Collins seemed to have won an at large seat with 44 percent of the vote, edging out incumbent Mary Ann Sullivan, with 42 percent of the vote.
Marion County suspended counting ballots Nov. 6 after 90 percent reporting. At that time, Slack and Hawkins were already clear winners.
Hawkins’ win secured the reform-minded majority on the board. He went against the grain of most other challengers during the race to support the board’s direction toward innovation schools, which private managers operate independent of IPS. Hawkins wouldn’t commit himself to the board’s larger plan for the district without first seeing it for himself, but he did not back away from his support for innovation schools.
“I’m definitely one that believes that innovation schools are part of the offering that we should have for families,” Hawkins said.
His closest challenger, Michele Lorbieski, was critical during candidate forums of the district’s innovation school movement.
Collins was one of the most prominent critics of the district’s innovation direction during the campaign. According to pre-election campaign finance disclosures released in October, she received $15,000 from the Indiana Political Action Committee for Education (I-PACE), the political arm of the state’s largest teachers union. Collins’ probable election does not signal an end to the innovation effort, since the board still has a pro-reform majority, but her preference for a more traditional model of school operations will fly in the face of what the board and Superintendent Lewis Ferebee have planned for IPS.
Sullivan, who was elected to the board in 2015, was an ally of the district’s push toward innovation schools. She was one of the biggest proponents of the district’s innovation direction during the campaign. Current at large commissioner Elizabeth Gore has been the only source of consistent criticism for the district’s trajectory.
Slack, who worked as a federal employee for about a decade, was also critical of innovation schools during the campaign and received support from the teachers union. According to her campaign finance disclosure, Slack received $28,500 from I-PACE. Her win over Hoops represents another case of an innovation school critic beating a pro-innovation incumbent. Hoops was running for her seat for the first time since she was appointed in 2016 to fill a vacancy. Slack and Hoops did not respond to a request for comment before deadline.
Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853 and follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.
IPS loses reformers
