Tri-County Education Center in Noblesville, IN is in danger of closing it's doors. This may be our last hope to save the school. Below is a letter from one of the parents on the current situation and the school districts response. 
We have been nominated for Extreme Makeover Home Edition and were recently contacted and asked to complete an application and send in video. We mailed the application materials on 04/24 and sent extensive footage of the school asking Extreme Makeover to do what it can to help these children and possibly save our school.
Please take a moment & leave a message on the coporate line 323-785-2262 of Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ask them to help Savannah Ropke, her mother Sheri Reece and the Tri-County Education Center of Indiana.
To learn more about Tri-County and how it serves the needs of these children CLICK HERE. Her school serves special needs children with a variety of therapies that improve their daily lives and goes far beyond the level of a regular school to address their needs. The school is in danger of losing funding and closing it's doors.
Over the winter I appeared on Channel 6 in Indy with other Mothers with students at TCEC.
Dear Ms. Reece,
Thank you for videotaping our Tri County Education Center building for the application to Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Unfortunately, it appears that our children’s school is in imminent danger of being closed within the next year or two.
I was present at the most recent meeting of the Governing Board for the Hamilton-Boone-Madison Special Services Cooperative on Friday, April 17, 2009. As you are aware, the Governing Board is composed of the Superintendents of the seven school districts that participate in the Co-op for special education services, which includes our school (TCEC). A plan for the use of the economic stimulus funds was proposed, which you have a copy of. Despite the fact that a complete, in-depth review of the state of our school facility and the recommended repairs was presented to the Governing Board a year ago, there is absolutely no mention of using stimulus fund money (the ARRA grants) for repairs and renovations of the Tri County Education Center in the proposal, despite the fact that new projects such as the needed repairs would qualify for those funds.
Even more alarming was the proposal to use the ARRA stimulus grants to fix up one building so that one other facility could be eliminated. Here I am quoting the proposal that was presented at the meeting: “Combining facilities and administrative staff: HBM currently maintains two facilities, HBMEC and TCEC. Long-range efficiency could be reduced by combining the facilities during the two year grant period. Successfully combining facilities is contingent upon a commitment to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of HBM programs and programs in local districts. Potential short-term cost: Small scale renovation costs of one of the facilities which could be funded through the ARRA funds or CPF.”
Since the all of the HBM administrative offices (as well as Mosaics School) are currently located at the HBMEC site, guess which one of the facilities would be closed? Certainly not the administrative office site at HBMEC, which the Governing Board, at this very same meeting, just approved a $30,000 technology upgrade for so that there would be wireless internet access at their building!!!!!
Unfortunately, there is not enough room at the HBMEC site for all of the offices that are currently at TCEC, as well as the 5 classrooms, home living center, sensory room, and gymnasium (and of course, there is no pool or playground there, either). I fear that our school is in imminent danger of closure without any workable plans to relocate it.
In addition to these other issues that I have listed is the fact that the Noblesville School District recently lost their referendum for funds for new building projects. They need more school space and have no funds to build with. I know that the Noblesville Schools Superintendent is requesting the use of space in our TCEC school building for at least two Early Childhood classrooms. The previously open discussions about reimbursements for classroom space and nursing staff suddenly went “under the table” at the meeting this past Friday, with the Noblesville Superintendent and the Co-op Administrator agreeing to discuss the issue of use of space at TCEC at a private meeting. I am very disturbed by that, since these are all public facilities that are being discussed and should not be decided upon at a private meeting without public accountability. I have a very strong suspicion that Noblesville Schools wants to purchase our TCEC building for their own use, and need to do so as quickly as possible.
During a phone conversation on Friday, the Co-op administrator told me that there were no plans to relocate the school to the HBMEC site. He said that he could not comment on any plans regarding the TCEC school until after the Program Review is completed. However, his proposal recommends “expanding options for students with severe disabilities in local districts”. Since we are already aware that the special education literature supports the placement of disabled children in community schools with their non-disabled peers, I suspect that the Program Review will support disbanding the TCEC altogether and placing our students into various existing community schools. However, due to the fact that ours is not the only Special Education facility in existence for children with severe disabilities, and it was obviously a good idea for this school to exist in the first place, I have to question the wisdom of not having an alternative to community placement for children who are medically fragile, or (as is the case with many of the children at TCEC) are not adequately served by their community placement in the first place.
I really wish that I had better news about the fate of our children’s school. If the Governing Board votes to close TCEC, which they appear to be taking active steps toward, then our children will very likely not have a school at all. Renovation and expansion of the HBMEC site, which previously was a school building before housing the administrative offices, may be our only chance to preserve the very special, and very effective, educational experience that our children currently benefit from at TCEC. However, with the current climate of budget cuts in all seven of the co-op’s school districts, I suspect that this will not happen, since the Superintendents all seem to be very resistant to using the stimulus fund grants for anything other than trying to ease the shortfalls in their own districts’ general funds budgets. I fear that if they are left to their own devices, the Superintendents will only pay attention to financial considerations and take the least expensive option, which is putting our disabled children into existing community classrooms. But even that is a poor option, considering the fact that our communities have seen a huge influx of new residents and the existing schools are currently unable to keep up with their own expanding populations and will not be able to adequately house these additional special education classrooms to serve our severely disabled students.
Thank you again for your work on the application to Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Maybe there is some way that they can help us to keep from losing our children’s school. Good luck, and thanks for trying to preserve the quality of the education that our very special children receive.
Sincerely,
Theresa Treep, MD, FAAP
President, TCEC Parent Teacher Association
Please contact Extreme Makeover Home Edition and tell them that TCEC needs their help.
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