House Bill 1423 is now House Enrolled Act 1423. The bill triggers a seismic shift in Indianapolis’ education landscape. The legislation establishes the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation (IPEC) to oversee transportation, facilities, and accountability for both Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) and charter schools. It brings traditional public schools and public charter schools under a single umbrella in an unprecedented way (for both Indianapolis and the country).

The legislation closely follows the final recommendations of the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, which worked throughout 2025 to craft a sustainable, collaborative path forward for IPS and charter schools.

For as many people are cheering the legislation, others are nervous, even outraged over its passage. I get why it’s a tough pill to swallow for many, though the level of misinformation swirling around this legislation hasn’t helped.

Today, I’m going to run through the four structural shifts the IPEC will bring to how education is delivered across IPS and charter schools.

5 Ways the IPEC Will Structurally Change Indianapolis Education

1. A unified transportation plan. The IPEC will develop a unified system to manage transportation for all IPS and charter schools moving forward. All charter schools will now provide transportation to families. That’s long been a thorn in the charter sector’s side. After all, a high-quality school is pretty useless if families can’t access it. And a lack of transportation was a major barrier to accessing some schools for some families. That will no longer be the case.
2. A system-wide facilities plan. The IPEC will also oversee facilities for all IPS and charter schools. The legislation does allow for IPS and charter schools to opt out of the facilities portion of IPEC’s jurisdiction. But I expect only a few charter schools that already own their buildings to opt out initially. A couple ramifications here. One, this eliminates the ongoing furor over the $1 law. Second, it means the IPEC will take facility utilization into account for school closure and expansion decisions.
3. Levying property taxes. The IPEC immediately takes charge of levying property taxes to support IPS and charter schools (which can receive property tax dollars because of legislation passed last year). This is in fact one of the first orders of business for the IPEC after its members are appointed by the end of March. More on that below.
4. A shared accountability framework. Lastly, the IPEC will develop a shared accountability framework that IPS and charter authorizers will have to implement, which will apply to all IPS and charter schools. I’ll say more in a future piece, but I do expect this to result in school closures both within IPS and among charter schools in the very near future.
5. A limit on charter authorizers. While certainly a less radical shift than the other four, the legislation creating the IPEC also puts a limit on charter authorizers in Indianapolis. Starting April 1, only the mayor’s office, the Indiana Charter School Board, and IPS (should they follow through and become an official authorizer) will be allowed to authorize charter schools in Indianapolis. That puts a handful of charter schools that are authorized by Trine in a tricky situation once their renewal is up (including some likely familiar names, like Girls in STEM Academy, Paramount Online Academy, and Dynamic Minds Academy).

What’s the Timeline for All These Changes?

The first order of business is for Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett to appoint the nine members of the IPEC by March 31. After that, the IPEC is required to hold public meetings at least quarterly. A final accountability framework is due in November of this year. Progress reports on the facilities and transportation plans are due in November as well.

Full implementation of all of this will begin with the 2028-29 school year. So we are just over two years away from all four structural changes I mentioned in the previous section being in place (with the fifth hitting next month but not really being a factor for possibly years, with the strange exception of Rooted School Indy, which is trying to switch authorizers to Trine).

Before all that happens, though, there’s one other thing slated to happen this year that will have major implications for IPEC’s ability to get up and running successfully.

IPS Needs a Referendum This Fall

IPS’ fiscal cliff is looming. And the IPEC just took responsibility for levying property taxes. So IPEC now needs to get a referendum on the ballot for this fall. IPS’ current operating referendum, originally passed in 2018, is about to expire.

IPS’ own documentation indicates they will run a $40 million deficit this year and exhaust their entire reserves next year. They will be, in the financial rainbow sense of things, in the red. They need a new operating referendum like someone with congenital heart failure needs a heart transplant.

There’s no doubt in my mind that IPEC will pursue a referendum this fall on behalf of IPS and charter schools. Failing to do so would jeopardize its very ability to begin the work it needs to do and leave IPS with financial ruin at its doorstep. That would be upending the chessboard, not playing 4D chess.

This time around also has a much better chance of passing compared to IPS’ last operating referendum. That attempt never even got on the ballot due to fierce pushback from the charter school community and opposition from the Indy Chamber. Now, charter schools will directly benefit from any referendum. IPS and charter schools are bunkmates, however much they may want to have been assigned to different cabins at summer camp.

Given the contentiousness of the past year, a shared referendum is an opportunity to set grievances aside and push for something that helps students across school types.