The Monroe County Community School Corporation board can avoid sharing money with charter schools if it votes on a referendum next year.
Senate Enrolled Act 1 requires that school districts passing referenda after 2027 must share the money with charter schools starting in 2028. Barry Gardner, director of school services at Policy Analytics, a consultant working with MCCSC, estimates the school corporation will lose about $1.8 million by 2031.
However, he said if MCCSC votes on a referendum before 2027, MCCSC will not have to share money with charter schools. Referendums can only run in even years, giving MCCSC an opportunity in 2026.
Gardner said there will be a slight increase in referendum revenue in 2026, but it will start to decline in 2027. That could result in about $3 million to $4 million lost annually.
“You have fewer dollars, so you can't support as many things across the school district, or have to look for cost reduction,” he said.
Said Jeffry Henderson, MCCSC superintendent of human resources and operations: “It certainly raises the eyebrows to how can we work within our operations team to find efficiencies and save dollars.”
Staffing update
Henderson said MCCSC started the 2025-26 school year with 98 percent of allocated positions filled. But MCCSC is still looking for guest teachers, operations staff, a Special Education teacher, Instructional Support staff and Extended Day staff.
“Some folks may be asking, how, in the midst of budgetary constraints, can MCCSC still be hiring?” he said. “So the positions that are being hired are as a result of new openings that result when employees leave MCCSC for a variety of reasons. Staff members don't just leave this organization during the summer months. It's important to know that that turnover happens all year long. These positions are student facing or operationally essential roles that must be replaced when a staff member has left the position.”
Henderson said in the 2019-20 school year, 10,886 students were enrolled in MCCSC. In the 2025-26 school year, a projected 9,930 students are enrolled in MCCSC. All schools in the district have been submitting weekly enrollment counts to analyze class sizes.
Henderson then has weekly meetings to review current staffing levels, and also meets with Human Resources, Curriculum and Business Office to make decisions based on student needs and enrollment.
“These positions have all run through the rigorous analysis process where HR curriculum in the business office leadership position members review these positions weekly to determine which vacancies meet the criteria for being refilled, and to ensure that we're fiscally responsible,” he said.
‘Deep systemic failure’?
Senior at the Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship Joseph Shing expressed concerns that MCCSC is not properly placing immigrant students into classrooms based on their true academic abilities.
Shing says he and other students have experienced a “deep systemic failure” in the system to place them in the right classes.
“When I first enrolled at Bloomington High School South as a sophomore, I was automatically placed into English New Learners class for months despite being fully proficient in English,” he said. “I was also placed in algebra one despite having a much stronger math background. It took months of persistent self-advocacy to be moved into courses that reflected my true academic level, and the process was unnecessarily difficult.”
He thinks MCCSC Policies 5410 and 5463, which state that the school must place students in the appropriate grade level in accordance with their academic abilities, have not been implemented.
“Many students like myself are being misplaced into classes that don't reflect their true academic ability because the school admin decided that they are not academically capable,” he said. “I believe that assuming someone's academic capability and level based on where they’re from, their accent, their background or country of origin, is a form of discrimination.”
Shing requested that the board create a policy for newly enrollment immigrants that ensure that students are placed in the appropriate classes that reflect their true academic abilities. He also asked for an opportunity for students to provide feedback on administrative experiences.
“This will create a collaboration between students and school administrators who work hand in hand to identify loopholes, improve policy implementation and strengthen the system for everyone,” Shing said. “I truly hope that the school for what stands with me in this journey of making consistency a better place for every single student.”
Board President April Hennessey said the board will consider these comments. An MCCSC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
District updates
The corporation also provided an update on its redistricting study commission. The goal of the commission is to balance socioeconomic status and cost effectiveness. Tim Dowling, MCCSC director of early learning and enrollment, said the commission is working on looking at elementary redistricting scenarios, and will shift to look at middle school and high school scenarios in the winter.
The commission will write a report next spring and bring it to the board for consideration.
Teachers’ contract
MCCSC Superintendent Markay Winston provided an overview of the tentative collective bargaining agreement with teachers, but the board did not vote to ratify it. MCCSC and the Monroe County Education Association have been negotiating teacher salaries and benefits since Sept. 15.
The new agreement does not change the base salary from last year; the starting teacher salary will be $57,750. But it does offer a stipend of $1,000 per year for teachers rated effective or highly effective. Teachers who add an early literacy endorsement to their license will earn a $200 increase in base salary.
Hennessey expressed gratitude for MCCSC and MCEA for working together in difficult times.
“I know that it was not a great year for any of us, right?,” Hennessey said. “We think about all the budget cuts and sort of fiscal realities that we're facing at this moment; we always want to do more for our teachers. We always want to do the very best that we can do, and we have been extraordinarily limited this year in what we're able to offer as a result of some of the cuts that are coming and the cuts that we've already seen.”
The board will vote on the agreement at the next board meeting on Nov. 18. At least four of the seven board members must vote yes for it to be ratified. At least 20 percent of union members must also vote yes for the agreement to be ratified. The contract is for the next two years.
The board also officially adopted the 2026 budget of just over $181 million, $6.2 million less than last year. Declining enrollment and adverse changes in public schools’ share of property tax revenue impact the budget.
The board will send the budget to the Department of Local Government Finance for review in December.
