Supporting students and helping them succeed are the primary missions of any educational institution and Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township has made those goals its focus at every level.
MSDLT Superintendent Shawn Smith and other school administrators gave a presentation about the district’s achievements during a Sept. 19 State of the Schools luncheon hosted by the Greater Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.
Smith said when kids are successful, everyone is successful at MSDLT.
“Our job is to make sure we get young people ready for the world,” he said. “We want them to graduate, we want them to go into careers and we do want them to go to college. Every single staff member in this district is focused on that right there.”
Smith noted that the district has grown to more than 16,500 students and 2,500 employees and is now the fifth-largest school district in Indiana.
“Yes, we’re larger than Carmel,” he said. “We love that.”
And, he said, they expect to continue attracting more students. With that growth, MSDLT is working toward expanding classroom space at the former Craig School on Sunnyside Road by moving district offices into a new central office building on Lawrence’s Fort Ben campus.
Smith touted the district’s 95 percent graduation rate in the 2022-23 school year, up from the district’s rate of previous years and better than the state average of 86.6 percent.
“We graduated close to 1,200 students last year,” he said. “That is a beautiful thing that we do in this diverse district with great poverty and wealth — it doesn’t matter. The expectation of this community is that every kid will earn a high school (diploma).”
Chief Academic Officer Troy Knoderer addressed some of the programs that help students move toward graduation, such as the district’s Early Learning Center schools that offer preschool services to help kids get ready for kindergarten and beyond.
“We take the ‘Three-E’ workforce readiness approach and the first E is exposure,” he said. “As our students are learning basic literacy, as our students are learning basic math, we’re also engaging them in STEM — science, technology, engineering (and math) — and exposing students to what’s possible beyond their world, what’s possible beyond the experiences that they bring to school in terms of what they can do with their life. So, that’s exposure at the early grades.”
Next is exploration in the middle grades and then expertise at the high school level.
Knoderer said the goal is for students to be ready to attend college or enter a career.
Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education Emily Brown told the audience about the district’s bilingual education program, which starts in elementary school and continues through the end of high school. She said families are moving into Lawrence Township because of that program.
“Businesses want bilingual employees and families want bilingualism for their children,” Brown said. “Lawrence is a very special place as the need and request for bilingual education has grown from our families. We met that request and expanded access.”
The district has bilingual programs in seven of its 11 elementary schools and all its middle and high schools. Curriculum is taught in Spanish and English with the goal of producing graduates who are fluent in both languages.
The district’s Chief Financial Officer Matt Miles provided some financial details about what it takes to run the district. He said the annual budget is about $327 million, funded primarily through per-student state funding and property taxes.
“We’re the second-lowest property tax rate in the county — that’s not taken lightly,” he said. “We’ve been able to do wonderful things across the district over many, many years and keep our taxes low. I think that’s welcome news for all of us who live, work and play here.”
The district’s property tax rate is about $1.07 per $100 assessed value. The assessed value of property within the district’s boundaries is about $7.2 billion. Each student in the district provides about $7,600 in state funding.
Miles added that the district is one of the few in Indiana that has not asked voters to approve an operating referendum to help fund programs.
For more about MSDLT, visit ltschools.org.
School improvement projects
A major school building renovation project at Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township is celebrating substantial completion this fall at Lawrence Central and Lawrence North high schools.
District Operations Chief Rodger Smith said the $500 million, 10-year project covered every school building in the district, starting with the elementary schools, then the middle schools and finally the high schools.
“You see the fruits of your commitment to us and our commitment to you, to turn these buildings into state-of-the-art educational facilities,” he said. “We’ve met our goal. You helped us get there and we’re excited that we have the best facilities in the state.”
The district has a special dedication ceremony planned at both high schools on Oct. 6. The Lawrence Central dedication is set for 1:30 p.m. at the school, 7300 E. 56th St., followed by an open house. The Lawrence North dedication is 2:30 p.m. at the school, 7802 Hague Rd., also followed by an open house.
While most of the school renovations are complete, the district has two outstanding projects remaining in Phase One — building a new central office building on the Fort Ben campus and then renovating the vacated office space at the Sunnyside Road facility to accommodate more students.