Indiana education secretary chats with NWI principals

Indiana Education Secretary Katie Jenner addresses a group of Northwest Indiana principals gathered at Indiana University Northwest via Zoom. Beside the monitor is Mark Sperling, dean of the IUN School of Education, who facilitated the conversation between Jenner and the students.

GARY — Speaking over Zoom video conferencing, Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner chatted with a crowd of Northwest Indiana principals gathered at Indiana University Northwest's Gary campus Tuesday.

Jenner lauded the principals for their work in teaching literacy and encouraged them to continue these efforts.

"Many of you have taken advantage of the science of reading opportunities to push the third grade literacy," Jenner said, referring to a set of researched literacy teaching practices.

Jenner explained that the state set a goal of having 95% of the third grade students literate by 2027.

Jenner also discussed how schools can tailor their education to better meet students' post-graduation wishes.

"Not every state collects data on what seniors are planning to do when they graduate," she said. "But in Indiana we do."

Jenner explained that 76% of graduates in the most recent cohort said they planned to attain some sort of higher education after high school, whether that be a two-year degree, four-year degree or technical training.

"The challenge is, as many of you see," she said, "that many of our graduates who have the dream don't actually make it, or they make it there but they don't make it beyond the first year or the second year."

The data, Jenner said, shows that only 53% of those high school graduates actually attain post-secondary education.

"We know that educational attainment matters significantly for every student," she said. "Education beyond high school equates to better quality of life, increased wages, healthier lives, better jobs."

However, Jenner noted that this educational attainment can look different for everyone. She commended School City of Hammond for an alternative graduation pathway it created and got approval for in December. That graduation pathway allows students in the district's JROTC program to fulfill alternative graduation requirements that focus on JROTC.

"How can we improve what we're doing to make those four years — or really those 13 years — as valuable as we can," she said. "And I know, as educators, you have lots of ideas because we've heard from you."

Jenner also boasted that the Indiana Department of Education completed its updated Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed dashboard ahead of the July 2024 deadline it was given by the Legislature to do so. The online dashboard allows Hoosiers to view data and information including literacy rates, percentage of students earning college credit before graduation and the number of students completing graduation requirements. The dashboard can be found online at indianagps.doe.in.gov.

Afterwards, principals received an opportunity to ask Jenner questions. One asked why there was pushback in the Legislature to early education initiatives.

"When you're here at the statehouse, all 150 members, just like you as principals, have their key priorities, right?" she said. "And by the way there are some general assembly members that are 100% on board and are doing everything they can to push."

Jenner said the education community needs to "keep our foot on the gas" to promote early education and she encouraged any school with early education programs to share their success stories with her department.

Video provided in partnership with The Times, JEDtv and WJOB. Sponsored by Strack & Van Til.

Another principal said he received an email telling schools to pause curriculum adoption due to potential legislation in the statehouse. He asked if Jenner foresaw schools being able to resume adoption soon.

"I'll tell you, we debated on sending that memo," she said. "But because we knew how much schools invest in curriculum, its really really important and we just really wanted to put it on your radar because I know you don't have time to track these — we had over 1,100 bills filed, you all, in January, many of them touched education ... What we didn't want to happen to any of our schools is that you all are caught flat footed."

She explained she didn't want schools to have invested a lot of money into curriculum only for the Legislature to pass a law that would impact that curriculum.

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