Despite the fact that it has no purview over the South Bend school district, the St. Joseph County council voted along party lines Tuesday evening to ask the state to intervene in local school politics.
A resolution passed by a 5-4 vote calls for Indiana’s Secretary of Education to conduct a study to determine whether the unincorporated areas of the county should be broken off into a new school district. The vote passed on party lines with Republicans voting for the measure, with Democrats voting against it calling it "a glaring example of government overreach."
Republican Amy Drake submitted the resolution. She represents parts of Clay Township and said she’s heard from constituents concerned about the South Bend school board’s decision in April to close Clay High School.
“This is something that I’m hearing from so many of my constituents. In particular I would say they feel neglected," Drake said at a recent public meeting.
But the resolution is purely symbolic since the process of breaking off areas from an existing school district is a Herculean effort that’s only been accomplished once in state history. First, the South Bend school board would need to give the OK to the new district and then the measure would need state and likely federal approval before going to a referendum vote.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education did not respond to questions from WVPE about whether the agency would consider conducting a study.
Council members heard public comments for over 40 minutes Tuesday evening, with some members of the public believing the resolution actually believing the council had the power to create a new school district. Others argued for and against the merits of private school vouchers, while others said they supported the measure. Before voting, Drake reiterated she was advocating for parents in her district who said they wanted transparency from the school district.
"All we're doing is asking for is a study. We're asking for facts and information to make sure kids have the best educational opportunities they can," she said.
In a statement released after the vote, the South Bend school corporation said the resolution "promotes an unrealistic course of action that would threaten the quality of learning for students in Clay Township, undermine established forms of district governance, and would be without precedent in the state of Indiana."
Though the resolution is symbolic, it highlights how strongly some still feel about the decision to close Clay. The school will close at the end of the 2024 school year, but efforts to preserve the school began in 2022 and have gained the ear of Republican lawmakers like Drake.
Earlier this summer, an organization called Save Clay Inc. asked the council to consider the resolution that is now coming up for a vote. Leaders of the Save Clay group include Robert Smith who ran for a seat on the South Bend school board last year but lost, and Pete Agostino, a longtime attorney for St. Joseph County.
At the council’s Aug. 22 meeting, Drake and other Republicans invited South Bend superintendent Todd Cummings to speak. For around 40 minutes, Republican council members grilled Cummings with questions about why Clay was targeted to close and what will happen to Clay students when they move schools.
In his responses, Cummings emphasized that the district needed to “rightsize” due to years of declining enrollments and that the recently passed will mostly go toward offsetting property tax caps and increasing teacher salaries. He added that Clay is operating far below capacity, mostly because many families in Clay Township chose to send their children to Adams High School instead of Clay.
“Clay High School started closing long before me,” Cummings said. “Students in Clay Township have moved with their feet to go to Adams High School. The building is 42% occupied. The students, long before the referendum, have chosen to go to Adams.”
Beyond the resolution, the Save Clay group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice which has a consent decree that governs the racial balance within South Bend schools. The complaint claims the district closing Clay will upset that balance required by the consent decree, while the district denies those claims. There will be a hearing on that issue later this month.
