In response to a request by the Emerson Heights Community Organization, the IPS School Board unanimously voted in their November, 2006 meeting to alter the IPS school boundaries so that children in the Emerson Heights neighborhood will attend neighborhood schools starting with the 2007-08 school year.

Specifically, children who live south of 10th street who attended grade school #11 (Edgar H. Evans) and school #43 (James Whitcomb Riley) will attend the elementary school in our neighborhood, school #58 (Ralph Waldo Emerson) located at Linwood Ave and New York Street beginning in the 2007-08 school year.

Also next year, middle and high-school students who live in the area between East 19th Street, North Bosart Avenue, East Michigan Street and Emerson Avenue, currently assigned to Forest Manor Middle School and Arsenal Technical High School, will be reassigned to Thomas Carr Howe Academy near Emerson Ave. and Washington Street.

The change in school boundaries gives families in Emerson Heights the option of choosing from a wide variety of high quality, neighborhood based schools including traditional IPS schools, IPS Option schools, Charter schools and Catholic schools. Previously, children in our neighborhood who attended traditional IPS schools were bussed several miles away. Some parents had elected to send their children to the neighborhood private schools or charter schools in order to keep their children in nearby schools. Those parents will now have the option of a high quality IPS neighborhood school within walking distance of many homes.

The change in school boundaries comes out of a larger EHCO initiative that recognizes the connection between good schools and good neighborhoods. The Good Schools, Good Neighborhood Initiative seeks to make both current residents and potential residents aware of the broad range of excellent schools that serve the Emerson Heights neighborhood and to work with education providers to make those choices as attractive as possible. This year, EHCO had several neighborhood meetings in which schools were discussed. Two of those meetings included members of the IPS School Board and our November meeting featured Dr. White as our guest speaker.

Neighborhood schools encourage greater parental participation, community involvement and pride. But not only is School 58 a neighborhood school, it also has excellent ISTEP test results. We greatly appreciate the IPS Board and Dr. White for being willing to have a dialogue with our neighborhood and being responsive to our requests. Also, a big thank-you to the EHCO leadership for making the meetings happen.