Columbus City Council members approved a $1 million workforce grant the redevelopment department is giving the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp to fund three of the district’s workforce development initiatives.
Redevelopment has been providing the grant annually to BCSC since 2017, granting $750,000 every year until the amount was raised to $1 million in 2022. The funding has impacted 13,545 students since 2017, according to BCSC.
Council members approved the grant 7-0, with Councilman Jerone Wood, D-District 3, abstaining because he is employed by BCSC. Councilor Chris Bartels, R-District 1, was absent.
The council had to give the grant final approval because it’s a city expenditure greater than $500,000.
The grant includes $330,500 for i-Grad, $267,397 for transitional programs for students with disabilities and $402,103 for STEM initiatives.
i-Grad, formerly a partnership with the Ivy Tech Foundation, provides students in grades 7-12 who are identified as at-risk with academic support and mentoring.
The program came completely under the BCSC umbrella this year after Ivy Tech gave up control and ownership of the program, now working in partnership with the district’s team cohort model. The $330,500 primarily goes towards paying i-Grad coaches.
Last school year, all of the 674 students in i-Grad were able to obtain their diploma.
Superintendent Chad Phillips referenced a slide showing a nine point improvement in graduation rates between 2022 and 2024 to 90.1% as a reflection of the continued impact of both i-Grad and the district’s team cohort model.
The success of both programs has contributed to what is projected to be a 92.4% graduation rate for the class of 2025, the highest for BCSC in at least 20 years. Graduation rates are projected to climb even higher, based on preliminary data, to 95.5% in 2026, 95.7% in 2027 and 93% in 2028.
“We’re particularly proud of the results of the investment in both i-Grad and our cohort model that has dramatically increased the number of students graudating in high school each year,” Phillips told council members.
BCSC’s transition programs have the aim of helping students with disabilities transition into either the workforce or post-secondary opportunities.
The transition program money will also go towards the Empower Program, a collaboration between BCSC, Ivy Tech, IU Columbus, the Community Education Coalition (CEC) and Purdue Polytechnic to provide students with disabilities aged 18-22 the ability to take part in the one- to two-year transition program on the AirPark campus.
There, the students are able to gain adult skills and live independently, while also developing skills that will help them in the workforce.
The $402,103 for STEM primarily goes towards the district’s STEM labs, where students K-6 take part in a hands-on STEM lab taught by a certified teacher one day per week, just as they would do for art, music or PE. The funds pay about 50% of the salaries for BCSC’s 10 elementary STEM teachers.
The STEM dollars also fuel special events such as the recent “Girl-Up” night to inspire fifth- and sixth-grade girls to pursue careers in STEM, along with the district’s fast-growing VEX-robotics program.
The funding also supports another Ivy Tech partnership for CSA New Tech students, who can choose an information technology pathway that could allow them to leave the school already equipped with more than 30 college credits.