Senate committee advances bill expanding charter conversion options, shortens appeals step

The Senate Education and Career Development Committee on Thursday advanced Senate Bill 239, a package of changes that would expand options for charter conversions, speed appeals of charter decisions, and add parental notification when K–8 students are at risk in mathematics.

Senator Rogers, the bill sponsor, told the committee SB239 “provides more opportunities for traditional public schools to partner with a charter school as an innovation charter network” and would allow a school corporation to convert more than one existing public school and operate two or more conversion charters under a single charter instead of the current limit of one. She said the bill’s provisions are optional and intended to give districts flexibility, particularly in rural areas.

The bill also would shorten the appeal path when a school corporation or charter challenges a Department of Education decision by removing the administrative law judge (ALJ) step and allowing appeals to go directly to the court of appeals, a change Senator Rogers said would save time and money. “We want to make sure that we get things moving timely,” she said, adding the intent is to help get students into schools rather than leaving buildings idle.

Supporters described a range of benefits. Greg Harrell, director of government affairs for the Institute for Quality Education, said the bill would “elevate school choice, grow Indiana’s teacher pipeline, and support student success,” and praised provisions that expand access to the tax-credit scholarship program and extend teacher residency grants to accredited nonpublic schools. Kim Reyer of the Indiana Charter Innovation Center said SB239 lets districts proactively convert a school to charter status without needing two consecutive years of academic failure and would help put unused buildings back into service.

Opponents warned the bill could undermine local control. A representative of ISCA, identified in testimony as John, said the measure “accelerat[es] continued outsourcing of public education while stripping away local control, fiscal responsibility, and basic fairness,” and described the approach as coercive rather than collaborative. Lisa Tansel, general counsel for the Indiana School Boards Association, raised concerns about a provision in the introduced version that would have required a sale or lease to be completed within 10 days and imposed liquidated damages of $10,000 per day; she asked for a longer timeline and for judges to retain discretion to determine penalties.

Senator Rogers said she had removed sections 18–25 of the bill by amendment, noting those sections pertained to ESA and CSA provisions the sponsor agreed should remain unchanged for now. “I am removing those sections,” she told the committee, and said she would continue working with the school boards association and others on language the groups had flagged as problematic.

The committee adopted Amendment 1 by consent to remove the ESA/CSA nonreverting language and then conducted a roll-call vote on the amended bill. The clerk read members’ responses and the chair announced the bill passed by a vote of 9 to 4.

The bill now moves to appropriations with the ESA/CSA language removed; sponsor and stakeholders said further changes, including fiscal-language work in the budget session, could be considered later.