SOUTH BEND — The South Bend Board of Trustees say the school corporation is going to have to get creative and explore all revenue opportunities available — including the launch of an innovation network — to avoid drastic cuts in funding and enrollment in the future.
During its special work session Monday, the board reviewed the next year’s $200 million budget and discussed how the city’s district can potentially run on a $19.5 million deficit by 2020.
Schools Superintendent Todd Cummings specifically pointed to private-public partnerships as potential revenue sources.
Cummings spoke on partnerships with Career Academy South Bend charter schools and Purdue Polytechnic Institute, a charter high school with a focus in science, technology, engineering and math, designed to provide a bridge for students to be directly admitted to Purdue University.
Cummings said he met with Career Academy last week to discuss creating an innovation school with Success (Academy for kindergarten through fifth-grade students) and Career Academies (for sixth- through 12th-graders).
Innovation schools are hybrids that are part of a traditional district, but run by an outside organization, such as a charter school.
The model can be found in Indianapolis Public Schools, where the innovation schools are overseen by IPS’ school board and considered part of its district when it comes to counting student enrollment and test scores, according to a Chalkbeat report. The charter networks, however, have almost complete control of management from school curriculum to hiring teachers (who are not part of the district union).
Cummings’ conversation with charter school officials came weeks after the Career Academy, which runs three charter schools in South Bend, announced its intentions to potentially lease or buy — for $1 — Brown Intermediate Center and the former Eggleston schools, which were shuttered two years ago because of enrollment declines.
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