IPS plans $95 million in overdue upgrades for school rooms, athletics

Indianapolis Public Faculties plans to make use of as much as $95 million to improve athletic amenities, air con items, particular training school rooms, and handle different facility wants at over two dozen colleges. 

The tasks, which IPS officers unveiled Tuesday evening, are a part of greater than $1 billion in deferred upkeep wants that the district recognized in a 2020 amenities evaluation. Nearly all of the tasks can be accomplished by fall of 2024 or spring of 2025, IPS Chief Operations Officer Invoice Murphy stated. A bond repaid over 19 years would fund the enhancements, which might not require IPS to hunt new tax income.

The tasks nonetheless want numerous approvals from the college board, which may approve them in November after finishing public hearings required by state legislation. 

Main highschool investments would come with: 

• Shortridge Excessive Faculty: Enhancements to the college theater, exterior home windows, fundamental fitness center mezzanine, fireplace alarms, subject and press field seats, and the synthetic turf soccer subject.
• George Washington Excessive Faculty: Enhancements to the theater room, observe, synthetic soccer turf, customer’s stand and sidewalk, and a brand new sound system. The varsity may even obtain repairs to its basis and home windows and fireplace alarm upgrades. 
• Arsenal Tech Excessive Faculty: Upgrading the partitions within the east fitness center and Lone Corridor and fireplace alarm upgrades.
• Crispus Attucks Excessive Faculty: Enhancements to exterior partitions and basis, fireplace alarm upgrades, new customer and residential bleachers, new press field, and the substitute of the west fitness center ground. 

Different college upgrades goal plumbing, water heaters, elevators

Arlington Center Faculty, Emmerich Handbook Excessive Faculty (which homes a Christel Home constitution college campus), and Northwest Center Faculty may even obtain enhancements to highschool theaters. 

Meredith Nicholson Faculty 70 would additionally obtain roofing and wall enhancements, in addition to fireplace alarm upgrades, a brand new water heater, and upgrades to plumbing fixtures and exterior home windows. 

The previous Francis W. Parker Montessori Faculty 56 constructing, which closed this yr, would additionally obtain enhancements to its basis as a part of a historic preservation mission. The district is exploring how you can renovate and repurpose the constructing. 

William Penn Faculty 49 and James Russell Lowell Faculty 51 would obtain new water heaters. 

The next colleges would additionally obtain fireplace alarm upgrades:

• Anna Brochhausen Faculty 88.
• Merle Sidener Academy for Excessive Capability College students.
• Faculty 49.
• Arlington Woods Faculty 99, which homes the Sankofa Faculty of Success within the IPS Innovation Community.
• Theodore Potter Faculty 74.
• Clarence Farrington Faculty 61.
• George H. Fisher Faculty 93.
• Faculty 51.

The next colleges would additionally obtain elevator replacements or repairs:

• George Washington Excessive Faculty.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson Faculty 58.
• KIPP Indy Faculty Prep Center Faculty, an IPS Innovation Community college.
• Shortridge Excessive Faculty.
• Phalen Management Academy at Louis B. Russell Faculty 48.
• Arsenal Tech.
• Heart for Inquiry Faculty 84.
• The PATH Faculty at Stephen Foster Faculty 67, an IPS Innovation Community college.
• Robert Lee Frost Faculty 106.
• James Whitcomb Riley Faculty 43.
• Crispus Attucks Excessive Faculty.
• Edison Faculty of the Arts.
• Christel Home colleges at Emmerich Handbook Excessive Faculty, an IPS Innovation Community college.
• Chilly Spring Faculty.
• Phalen Management Academy at Francis Scott Key Faculty 103, an IPS Innovation Community college.
• Heart for Inquiry Faculty 27.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County colleges for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.