As the Indianapolis Public School system begins another year, many things have changed, including its leadership.

This summer Children's Express spoke with former IPS Superintendent Shirl Gilbert about his superintendency and some of the controversies that surrounded his resignation.

During 1993, Select Schools was the plan that Gilbert implemented to allow parents more choices in the schools they wanted their children to attend. There were some problems with the program including kids who didn't get the schools they wanted, siblings who were sent to different schools, and buses that were not on time or did not come at all.

Gilbert acknowledged those problems (the busing situation is much more satisfactory this year) but pointed out another benefit - natural integration of the schools.

"We were able to get a federal judge to modify a desegregation order and accept Select Schools such that we can allow parents more involvement in what's going on in the schools and in choosing the school that their youngsters go to," he said.

Too costly?

Some critics argue, however, that the plan cost the school system money that IPS did not have and resulted in school closings.

Gilbert believes that this is not true.

"What we did was change the assignment process and used the same money that we would have used for that to pay for Select Schools. So we didn't spend one dime more that we would have spent."

Another controversial move during Gilbert's tenure was the proposed closing of nine IPS schools. He says the closings were necessary because the student population decreased by more than 7,000 kids in the last four or five years, so the district needed fewer classrooms. In addition, state funding of education has diminished.

"The only other option I had to save that same kind of money is to reduce teachers, and I'd have to reduce more than 100 teachers," he explained.

"So I had to decide: Is nine schools, brick and mortar, very small schools that were not very efficient in terms of the whole operation more important than hundreds of teachers I'd have to lay off if I didn't do that."

Washington High School

One of the schools to be closed under the proposal was George Washington High School. When Gilbert heard the angry responses from the Washington students interviewed by Children's Express, he responded, "It's not a popular decision for me as a superintendent.

"I understood that they felt that way and (I) had plans to make sure that we had extra counselors to work with them . . . to help them get over the trauma of losing their school, (to) try to do what we could to preserve some legacy for Washington High School, maybe by putting the mascot or some plaque or something at another place in town that would always commemorate what used to be one of the high schools in the city."

Gilbert told us that even though he knew it would not be a popular decision, he had to decide what was in the best interest of all the kids.

"I'm kind of an aggressive administrator who wants to make a difference and that means making changes, and when you make changes you step on people's feet."

Despite the many bad feelings people have about Gilbert, others still have confidence in him.

"Many people have come out in support. People stop me in the streets and say, `You've done a great job. Hang in there. We're going to try and see if we can get you back.' "

Gilbert's assessment

Gilbert feels that he has accomplished over 100 positive things as superintendent of IPS. Three things stand out:

"The three things that I think are the most important are that Number 1, (we decided) what the expectations of the organizations are. I think we did that through our curricular framework, which, for the first time, said to the system, `This is the body of knowledge that mandatorily teachers must expose their youngsters to and that we expect that youngsters will know and be able to do as they go through the grades in IPS.'

"Secondly, we worked real hard to make sure that the system was sensitive to the many cultures and the diverse population of students in the system. Unfortunately, in the past, we have not addressed all of the cultural needs of all of the kids in the system. We worked very diligently to implement a multicultural education program and to make sure that teachers understood the learning styles of different races of youngsters and of different cultural backgrounds of youngsters so that they could take advantage of that as they teach youngsters.'

"Finally, we took initiatives to assure that we had a safe and secure environment for the youngsters. The school system is nationally recognized because of some the safety and security measures we took to make sure that drugs were not in the school, that guns and knives and other intimidating weapons were not in the school, and to help parents and youngsters understand that we were serious about youngsters behaving themselves at school so they didn't disrupt the education environment."

Gilbert told us that this summer he has been sleeping in, traveling, and as everyone may know, was a candidate for a job as superintendent in Davenport, Iowa, which was not offered to him. As he leaves his Indianapolis position, he has one short message of thanks to all the people that have supported him:

"I want to finally say `Thank you' to the youngsters in the city for working so hard to make the track record that we've been able to make and to their parents, and to the thousands of teachers and principals and other workers in IPS. We were very successful and the track record was very good and I didn't do it by myself. . . .

"I didn't quit, but I was smart enough to know that it was time to move on."

EDITED BY: Tony Dale, 14; Catherine Erickson, 16