Franklin’s Earlywood Educational Services will be permanently closed in 2024 due to maintenance issues.
Submitted photo
Earlywood Education Services, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2024, will cease supporting students.
Earlywood’s board of directors, which consists of executive director Angela Bardsley and superintendents of six school districts in Johnson, Bartholomew, and Shelby counties, cites concerns about maintenance issues stemming from the structure of the building. At that time, we unanimously decided to dissolve the service center.
Franklin’s schools are not part of any particular school district, but have assisted special education students at Franklin, Greenwood, Edinburgh, Indian Creek, Southwestern Consolidated and Flat Rock Hawk Creek schools. While only 20 to 25 students were served in the Earlywood building itself, thousands of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) were treated for physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, visual impairments, and more. are receiving support from Earlywood employees in school buildings. and mental and behavioral health, Bolsley said.
Earlywood operates what it offers in-house through a program called New Connections that provides students with emotional, behavioral, and academic support. The Franklin Community Schools Corporation has 1,034 special education students, 11 of whom receive support in the Earlywood building itself, superintendent David Clendening said.
“This building is set up for struggling children in homeschooling and will be the least restrictive environment for educational services,” Clendening said.
The building itself has a unique architectural design, with sloping walls and landscaping. The design, originally intended to prevent tornado damage, has led to maintenance issues and leaks. The cost of rebuilding the building’s exterior was too much to justify leaving the building open, he said, Mr Balsley.
“It was designed to withstand tornadoes, so bad weather could come in from the west and roll over the building,” Ballsley said. “At the time, there were about 100 students with severe disabilities, and I didn’t think they would be able to go to school safely where they needed to go. Erosion started from the terraces. We had a water problem and water was getting into the building.”
The process of permanently closing Earlywood will begin with Wednesday’s vote and will continue through the end of the 2023-24 school year. For schools to transition services in-house and consider hiring 78 Earlywood employees, including speech pathologists, school psychologists, occupational therapists, coordinators, special education teachers, social workers and mental health therapists. , that period is required. One of them already spends most of her day helping students in the district building, he said, Balsley.
“The needs of these students in the county exist, so the superintendent is working together to provide deployment opportunities for employees in the district,” she said. , will be offered a position to do the same or similar work.”
The school district already funds Earlywood to pay its employees’ salaries, so hiring staff as part of the school district after Earlywood disbanded wouldn’t be a financial issue, Greenwood said. said Terry Terhuen, superintendent of the Community Schools Corporation.
The district has 12 Earlywood employees working with special education students, he said.
“We had an hour-and-a-half meeting with the Earlywood employees and gave them a letter of interest to keep them at the Greenwood house,” Terhun said. “We’re going to have them join us when things end there.”
Greenwood schools currently have approximately 600 students served through Earlywood Education, of whom 3 or 4 are assisted at the Earlywood building. When the time comes to move these students from the Earlywood location, their parents should work with a case conference committee composed of general education teachers, special education teachers or directors, principals or other building managers. We will meet and decide on the next steps for that. Student, said Terhune.
Greenwood officials are considering other outside services, such as the Rise Learning Center in Indianapolis and Damar Services, as alternative means of helping students, he said.
Superintendent Tim Edsel says the planning process is challenging but rewarding at the Indian Creek school, which has about 150 students served by Earlywood.
“It will take a lot of meetings to find out what services we need to provide to which students and how many employees we need,” he said. “It’s a lot of work to plan everything, but I think students will benefit if they can hire their own experts to help them in the company.”
