Gary Community School Corporation’s takeover from another perspective
By Nellie Moore, former GCSC Board of Trustees
Are we intelligent enough in Gary, Indiana in the year of 2023 to elect leaders for our city?
Can people in Gary elect seven people to govern our school district? History says yes. I was amazed that Senator Ryan Mishler thinks that we cannot. Senator Mishler’s Bill 327 would have the State Superintendent of Education select all seven board members – have the authority to select five and having final approval of selecting the remaining two from a list of six submitted by the Mayor. I guess he does not think that anyone we elect as Mayor is capable of selecting two people on their own without an overseer.
When I say history says we can, it is because there is nothing that says we cannot. The MGT team gave a grim state of affairs when they made their report before DUAB last month. It was replete with misstatements of facts.
I served on the Gary Community School Corporation Board of School Trustees from July of 2006 until December of 2018. The State Board of Accounts was very diligent in auditing our records, making sure we dotted every ‘I’ and crossed every ‘T’. They have never recommended criminal charges for any Board member for misappropriation of funds. Senator Liz Brown’s statement that the state stepped into Third World conditions when it came to Gary demonstrates the ignorance of those who only know one side of the story and refuse to hear the rest of the story.
Consider legislative actions of the state in approving the funding of choice options for the parents of the state not by providing new funds but by taking the already insufficient funds of public schools, the state that approved capping property taxes that primarily funded public schools, and the state that allowed the citizens to remedy the financial strain they found themselves in by increasing their taxes with a referendum.
Consider a state that did nothing for an area of the state with declining revenue; due to changes in industry that provided their main source of tax income as well as losing over fifty percent of their population while the city collected only seventy-two percent of their property taxes. This community voted ‘No’ on the referendum twice; believing that it was not needed because the state told them that they were incapable of electing good leaders who could manage their schools.
This was the story told when they brought Edison Learning into Roosevelt and later when they hired Martin and Associates and later MGT to manage our finances.
The legislative actions just stated are the facts that placed GCSC into the financial debt it was in when MGT took over.
The Board of School Trustees was keeping the doors open, providing teachers and staff to educate the students in our schools. We sold schools, we reduced staff, and we were blessed to have people willing to continue working without raises and parents who continued to support their children.
When MGT took over, our operating debt was less than thirty million dollars and appeals to the state for relief were ignored. We had long term bond debt of around seventy million dollars for the two elementary schools built, renovation for our high schools, and for McCullough Academy.
Every district that has built new schools or done major renovations has long term debt in the millions of dollars. We have ALWAYS paid our long term debt on time. Gary’s financial woes occurred because we were underfunded and because the state did not provide the financial support needed. If the state had money to pay for outsiders to come in and run our schools with the same options we were seeking from them, our academics would not have dropped, our graduation rate would not be so low and with the final approval of the community for a referendum, we would be financially solvent.
We have waited patiently to see what the DUAB takeover would do both academically and financially in the last five years. They have NOT improved us academically; in fact they have done the opposite. With support from the state, citizens support with the referendum and the three years of additional funds from the federal government due to COVID, we are back to stability financially.
With this same support, I believe an elected board and a locally selected superintendent; we would not only be financially stable but academically better. It is time to end the experiment; our children’s future depends on it, return the schools back to the community in Gary, Indiana.
Gary, we are intelligent, thoughtful people who can determine who we want to govern us and have authority over our schools. We deserve to elect our school board members like every other district in the state of Indiana. Yes, there are times we get elected officials that demonstrate they are intelligent and capable but can make us wonder about their leadership skills. Senators Mishler and Liz Brown are prime examples.
We will elect School Board members who have integrity and righteousness; who will govern with justice, fidelity and honesty. Let us not allow members in control of the Indiana General Assembly tell us that we are not intelligent or capable of voting for local representation. Their goal is to make you believe that your problem is not of their making but who you elected, not who they hired. This is nothing but voter suppression and we should not stand for it.
