It’s a first for Indianapolis Public Schools. This fall School 57 on the city’s east side will become a fundamental school. It will require students, teachers, and parents to have a more active role in education.

Karen Whitehurst and Amy Goldsmith both have children at IPS School 57. They recently traveled to Florida to see what a fundamental school is, and if it was worth bringing to Indiana.

“Parents I sometimes think need to be taught how to be involved with their children’s education,” said Karen. “When I saw things in Florida that they signed the nightly homework, I thought oh, well I can’t say I always make sure my kids have the homework completely done. Well you know what? I need to get on the ball on that.”

That is part of what fundamental schools require. Parents sign a contract saying they will check their children’s homework nightly and sign to verify. The educational system goes back to older values and traditions. Parents make sure their kids get to school on time and behave in the classroom.

After seeing the positive results in Florida, parents like Amy fought to bring it here.

“I just love seeing children really actively learning, and really involved in that learning process. I think it’s so exciting to see the looks on their faces when that ah-ha moment comes, and it was really special to me to see how involved the kids were with the learning process there,” said Amy.

Along with the more active involvement by parents, new curriculum will also be introduced including Spanish classes, music and fine arts.

“That’s the beauty of this program for the Irvington community, is the new opportunities that will come to this school with the Spanish language instruction, and the focus on fine arts and additional music. So it’s exciting,” said Mary Louise Bewley, IPS spokeswoman.

“I’m really hoping that an atmosphere of mutual respect and responsibility among the staff and the parents and the students will give the school a new feeling than it’s ever had before,” said Amy.

Parents can learn more about the changes in two public meetings. One is Tuesday night (January 15th) at 7:00 at Irvington Presbyterian Church at 55 South Johnson Avenue.

Parents must sign the contract by March 3rd, or their children will be reassigned next fall to Christian Park School 82.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 7:14 am and is filed under Education, Local News. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.