Public, private schools may soon work together to help troubled students

Indiana school corporations will be able to negotiate with private alternative schools to teach students who have not been successful in a traditional classroom setting.

SB 283, authored by Rep. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, will allow private schools to pay state-supported tuition in exchange for the opportunity to teach troubled students.

“Many of them have been in jail. Many of them have been on drugs and alcohol,” Kruse said. “They’re thieves, they commit crimes, they hang out on the streets, they’re delinquents, and they cause a lot of trouble.”

The bill also requires the Indiana Department of Education to waive accreditation standards for private alternative schools that offer services for students who have dropped out of high school, have been expelled or were not successful in the school
corporation.

Kruse said students who receive education through an alternative program would earn a normal high-school diploma, and the scores they receive for ISTEP, the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress, would not be counted against the public school corporation.

“It’s a special mission, a special cause, and I think it takes the right kind of person to want to do this and the right kind of teachers to want to deal with these kinds of kids, too,” Kruse said.

Currently, there are no private alternative programs in Bloomington. The Monroe County Community School Corporation, which operates Bloomington High School North and Bloomington High School South, has a public dropout prevention program called Bloomington Graduation School.

“I don’t predict that we could have a need to use this option, but it’s nice to have other options to consider,” said Janice Bergeson, the director of Secondary Education at MCCSC.

Waiving accreditations standards for non-public alternative programs would render minimal costs for IDOE.

Chuck Mayfield, a fiscal analyst for the Legislative Services Agency in Indiana, said the funding per student could cost almost $8,200 and depends on what part of the state the program is located and how many students are enrolled.

“We support efforts that help kids who have dropped out of school make it back to a classroom setting,” IDOE Press Secretary Alex Damron said. “This bill aids that process."