Indiana officials: South Bend task force assisting school consolidation should meet in public

SOUTH BEND — South Bend school leaders say they will comply with a state official's recent finding that their district's facility planning task force should meet in public.

The state's recent finding comes in response to a formal complaint filed last month with the Indiana public access counselor by The Tribune after school officials offered conflicting information about its task force and maintained its committee should be allowed to meet in closed session.

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The task force was formed as a part of an ongoing effort by administrators and their hired consultants to create a long-term plan for building use in the shrinking South Bend school district.

Ideas broadly presented to the public earlier this month include closing or repurposing Clay High School, building a new career center or athletic complex, and reconfiguring some schools into 6-12th grade centers.

District leaders, however, have provided little information publicly about how much such changes would cost other than to say building additions and facility upgrades could be financed through bonds and part of the district's $54 million capital referendum.

Open access to the South Bend task force meetings could shed light on how administrators developed their current ideas for school consolidation and plans to finance change across the district.

Indiana's Open Door Law sets requirements for public observation and notice of government meetings. The state's public access counselor, a gubernatorial appointee, is charged with helping public entities and the community at large understand and interpret law as it applies to records and meetings.

Given a recent change in legal interpretation, Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt stopped short of saying South Bend's past closed task force meetings violated state law but said he intends to put the district on notice that future meetings should be public.

"They're bringing in externalities — other parents, subject matter experts, consultants … and they are doing the work of the school corporation," Britt said. "It is inappropriate to do that secretly."

The school corporation's facility planning task force has met four times already in closed session, said Amy Steketee Fox, an attorney for the district. The task force's next meeting, previously scheduled to take place May 31, has been postponed and will be publicly advertised once a new date has been scheduled.

"We're absolutely going to comply with the directive in the letter," the attorney said. "We'll post it, the next task force meeting, in accordance with Open Door Law in all respects that we typically do with meetings that are subject to it."

South Bend argues law doesn't apply to task force

The Tribune brought its public access complaint after South Bend school representatives said they didn't believe their task force's meetings were subject to Indiana's Open Door Law.

They argued the law should not apply because their 33-member task force was formed by an outside consultant and not the school district itself and because the committee is not authorized to make any final decisions, like those of an elected school board.

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"Regarding Indiana's Open Door policy, the role of the committee is process and data oversight," a former South Bend spokeswoman told The Tribune in a provided statement. "Its primary tasks involved a comprehensive review of data prior to its distribution, process overview and recommendations for improvement."

Britt, however, in a recently published decision finding a violation at the nearby Penn-Harris-Madison district, said that the law applies to school committees taking any "official action," like deliberation and receiving information.

In mid-April, The Tribune filed a formal complaint to seek clarity on whether the law applied to South Bend's task force. In a response to the complaint, the district argued again that its consultant was responsible for facilitating the group and that the committee had no decision-making authority.

The district also wrote that it was impractical to apply the Open Door Law to hundreds of similar school groups in Indiana and that doing so would "chill community involvement in school committees or similar task forces."

"The Contractor in this matter acknowledges the importance of community and stakeholder involvement that reflects the culture and values of the District in developing a Facilities Master Plan," the letter states. "Community members once willing to share ideas with the School will decline to do so for fear of public ridicule or 'doxing' by opponents in the community."

Public Access Counselor says meetings should be open

Britt responded to the complaint in a letter delivered to The Tribune and the school corporation last week. Citing a similar case of a school committee in Carmel, Ind., Britt said South Bend's task force is subject to Open Door Law.

His finding is the latest in a series of recent opinions more broadly interpreting Indiana's Open Door Law as it relates to school subgroups and committees.

More input: Community pushes for more say in South Bend facility planning

Britt said one of his first related findings came out of a similar consolidation discussion in Bedford, Ind., in 2019 where community members expressed concern for a committee that appeared handpicked for its role.

"It left a lot of parents out in the cold, saying, 'We care about this, too. Why can't we have a seat at the table?'" Britt said.

The counselor said that in South Bend's case he considers consultants to be agents of the school corporation and that he's not seen an example in Indiana where opening up meetings has led to a chill in community involvement.

Britt said it's just as important to acknowledge what his recent findings don't apply to, including internal meetings with staff and groups that discuss non-public items such as PTA organizations and booster clubs.

"That's been a little bit of strawman set forth by schools that they say, 'Surely, if we go down this route, then it applies to every single thing,'" Britt said. "The issues I've addressed are specific … it's a little bit of a hollow defense to say 'We're going to have to completely change the way we operate.' I don't buy that."

Officials say next meeting will be public

Until recently, few specific details had been shared about facility task force meetings, and its creation drew criticism from community groups and organizations, like the district's teachers union, who said they were never invited to join the committee.

The district has organized only three open meetings to discuss facility planning despite an administrator's comments last week that the corporation began this work more than a year ago. Superintendent Todd Cummings has not attended the recent public meetings.

On Friday, the school corporation's attorney provided a list of dates during which the task force met in closed session. The committee convened twice in March — on March 2 and March 17 — and twice in the following month — on April 14 and April 26. Both April meetings came after The Tribune filed its complaint seeking access to the closed sessions.

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Steketee Fox, the corporation's attorney, did not say why a task force meeting originally scheduled to meet May 31 was postponed. She said when a new date is set, the school corporation will provide notice to media outlets and post information at the location of the meeting. The attorney, however, said she did not know where that meeting would be.

A trustee last week said he expected a finished facility plan proposal to come before the school board in late November.

Email South Bend Tribune education reporter Carley Lanich at clanich@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @carleylanich.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend task force should meet in public, Indiana official says