The recently-proposed HB 1136 sent shockwaves through the education sector in Indianapolis and beyond as it threatened to dissolve certain districts where the majority of legally-settled students chose to attend non-district options. It’s a ludicrous proposal that I don’t foresee gaining any real traction in this year’s legislative session. But it did shine a spotlight on the concept of enrollment trends, both in Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) and across the state. Meanwhile, fluttering in the background of this conversation is the fact that IPS will be fiscally insolvent by 2026 in the absence of new referendum dollars.

One way to avoid fiscal insolvency is to increase enrollment, which in turn boosts overall funding. IPS’s big bet to consolidate and in turn drum up increased enrollment flopped. Rebuilding Stronger, whatever its possible successes expanding academic opportunities to a wider swath of students, led to a considerable enrollment decline across district-run schools.

So today, I’m going to dig into enrollment trends for IPS alongside Marion County’s other districts and local charter schools.

IPS and Local Charter School Enrollment

IPS and local charter schools are worth examining more or less together since the vast majority of charter schools in Indianapolis operate within IPS boundaries. There are over 43,000 students in K-12 within IPS boundaries who attend a public school, either within IPS or at one of the many charter schools in Center Township. Here’s a quick chart to get us oriented to where those 43,000 students are going (note that I’m just considering K-12 enrollment and therefore excluding some adult high schools that operate in Indianapolis).

	Total Enrollment 2024-25	Total Enrollment 2023-24	Change
IPS	21,055	21,858	-803
Innovation Network Schools*	11,071	10,354	+717
Independent Charter Schools	11,445	11,491	-46

*Innovation Network Schools are a type of hybrid that combines the autonomy of a charter school with some district services through a partnership with IPS.

To put a fine point on it. IPS district-run schools lost over 800 students from last year to this year. Innovation network schools (which operate autonomously yet count as part of IPS’ total district enrollment) gained over 700 students and independent charter schools lost a handful of K-12 students as a sector.

Much of the decline in IPS is attributable to Rebuilding Stronger’s middle school shuffle. In fact, reporting by Chalkbeat Indiana noted that IPS middle schools are down 778 students in middle school grades compared to last year. Therefore, nearly the entirety of their enrollment loss lies at the feet of Rebuilding Stronger’s reconfiguration and middle school overhaul. An interesting beneficiary? Washington Township, which saw an influx of over 250 students in their middle schools, a nearly 11% increase for those grade levels over the previous year.

The financial clock for IPS is ticking. They do not have years to lose. Rebuilding Stronger may be designed for the long-term, but it has thus far jeopardized the short term. I’m not sure how they intend to request a referendum on the back of this as there’s no sustainability coat hook to hang your proverbial coat on if enrollment keeps declining. And what about demographics? Here’s where things stand as of the current school year, which serve to reinforce what has long been true about enrollment demographics at these different school types. (Note that, beyond Chalkbeat’s helpful reporting linked above, I’m relying on the IDOE’s data reports for the following charts.)

	Black Students	Hispanic Students	Multiracial Students	White Students	FRL Students*	English Language Learners	Special Education Students
IPS	38.1%	37.1%	5.8%	18%	59.2%	31.1%	15.8%
Innovation Network Schools	40.6%	39.5%	4.7%	14.5%	72.7%	31.7%	9.1%
Independent Charter Schools	57.2%	24.7%	6%	11.5%	76%	23.6%	10%

*FRL is short-hand for “free or reduced-price lunch,” a typical marker that a student is from a low-income family.

As you can see, traditional district-run schools serve less students of color and less low-income students than do the other public school types. Put crudely, IPS has a whiter and wealthier student body than either the Innovation Network Schools or independent charter schools. Now, it’s relative to be sure. IPS is no Carmel or Brownsburg comparatively to independent charter schools or the innovation schools they partner with. But, to me, it’s clearly unfair to say local charter schools are just choosing certain students as I so often see voices claiming. Finally, it’s worth pointing out that district-run schools do serve a higher proportion of special education students.

Marion County Enrollment Snapshot and Analysis

I already hinted at one enrollment trend in Marion County: Washington Township middle schools benefitting from IPS’ misstep. But it’s worth looking across all 11 Marion County districts to see how enrollment is trending in the wider local landscape. The first chart below looks at total enrollment for all 11 Marion County districts, compares this year’s enrollment to last year, and notes any positive or negative change.

	Total Enrollment 2024-25	Total Enrollment 2023-24	Change
IPS	21,055	21,858	-803
MSD Pike Township	10,674	10,616	+58
MSD Washington Township	11,391	10,735	+656
MSD Lawrence Township	16,747	16,502	+245
MSD Wayne Township	16,146	15,798	+245
MSD Warren Township	11,915	11,439	+476
MSD Decatur Township	6,485	6,654	-169
Perry Township Schools	16,243	16,044	+177
Beech Grove City Schools	2,790	2,757	+33
Franklin Township School Corp.	11,413	11,240	+177
School Town of Speedway	1,776	1,789	-23

From those overall numbers, you can see only two other public school districts in Marion County lost enrollment from last year to this year: Decatur Township and Speedway. Meanwhile, the other eight districts all grew, some considerably. Washington and Warren Townships jump off the screen a bit considering their starting points. Perhaps what I find most interesting is how this squares with the prevailing narrative around public school enrollment, particularly vis a vis the worry about public schools losing enrollment as the private school voucher program expanded last year.

I’m not saying it didn’t hurt some public school districts. But it didn’t hurt the vast majority of Marion County public school districts in its first year. Longer-term trends may emerge, but only one district (IPS) lost serious ground in the past year. And I’d put that down to hiccups with Rebuilding Stronger rather than more families choosing private schools (even if, across the state, more families overall did choose private schools following voucher expansion; though, to be clear, I still think voucher expansion is a bad idea even if it didn’t cause public schools to hemorrhage students as some predicted; you can read more of my thoughts on that policy here). 

Now, the second chart in this section looks at demographics for these 11 districts as of the current school year (for a gauge of how many students are represented in each category, recall the overall district enrollment numbers in the previous chart).

	Black Students	Hispanic Students	Multiracial Students	White Students	FRL Students	English Language Learner Students	Special Education Students
IPS	38.1%	37.1%	5.8%	18%	59.2%	31.1%	15.8%
MSD Pike Township	60%	26.6%	5.3%	6.2%	51.2%	28.1%	14.8%
MSD Washington Township	39.8%	22.8%	6.4%	27.6%	53.1%	21.8%	14.8%
MSD Lawrence Township	44.9%	32.1%	6.9%	15.3%	55.5%	24.2%	7%
MSD Wayne Township	38.3%	34.8%	5.4%	20.6%	66.9%	29.3%	12.5%
MSD Warren Township	54.1%	24.1%	7.8%	13.2%	63.2%	20.9%	15.1%
MSD Decatur Township	30.1%	15.4%	7%	45.5%	60.9%	15.7%	16.6%
Perry Township Schools*	14%	19.7%	5.1%	32.3%	69.3%	31.9%	16%
Beech Grove City Schools	14.3%	13.9%	9.5%	61.4%	51.8%	5.8%	18.1%
Franklin Township School Corp.	12.4%	9.4%	6.5%	53%	50.4%	13%	16.7%
School Town of Speedway	28.3%	22.8%	5.8%	38.3%	61.7%	31.3%	11.2%

*Surprising to me (and likely nobody who lives within Perry Township) is the fact that 28.8% of Perry Township’s student body (4,672 students to be precise) are Asian, which makes it the second biggest student subgroup in that district after White students. It’s also far and away the biggest Asian population of any Marion County school district (though Franklin Township also has a considerable population with just over 2,000 Asian students).

Beyond the mere fact that I find the above chart interesting (and the other mere fact that I’ve never seen such a chart when discussing education in Indianapolis before), a couple things stand out.

1. As of 2024, only two Marion County districts remain majority white.
2. FRL percentages between districts remain within a relatively narrow band (the mid 50s to the low 60s percentage-wise, with Perry nearly touching 70 and Franklin hovering just above 50). Recall that Innovation Network Schools and independent charter schools both serve populations that are above 70% FRL.
3. There’s enormous disparities in the proportions of ELL students served by the different districts. For instance, Beech Grove is just under 6% while multiple other districts are at or above 30%. Across Perry, Pike, and IPS, there’s thousands and thousands of students who classify as English Language Learners.

Circling back to the first chart showing raw enrollment numbers across Marion County districts, it’s kind of astonishing to me how close districts like Lawrence, Wayne, and Perry are in overall enrollment to IPS. I know IPS’ total enrollment is technically over 30,000 if you include Innovation Network Schools. But if you look at just the district’s traditional public schools and compare their enrollment to these other districts, the size difference isn’t nearly as big as it used to be.

IPS still dominates local headlines and they still dominate the thoughts of the author of this blog. But they aren’t the only public school district in town, in more ways than one. And where most of the others grew this year, IPS shrank. My point? The future of traditional public schools in Indianapolis is naturally tied up with the fate and fortunes of IPS. But, if there’s any leaves to read in this year’s enrollment tea, perhaps it is this: it’s not solely tied up with them.