Earlywood Educational Services in Franklin will permanently close in 2024 because of maintenance issues.
HOPE – An educational organization that has helped special education students in the Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp. for the past 13 years will shut down permanently at the end of the 2023-2024 school year.
Flat Rock-Hawcreek superintendent Shawn Price says the pending closing of Earlywood Educational Services of Franklin, which helps increase the achievement of students with disabilities in six school districts, will not disrupt services for these children in the Hope-area schools.
“The bottom line is while Earlywood has worked with us for so long, we don’t expect student services to be really modified in any major way,” Price said. “We’ll still be able to care for our kids. We’re working hard to make sure everything transitions as seamlessly as possible.”
Price was one of six superintendents from Johnson, Bartholomew and Shelby counties who voted unanimously to close Earlywood’s service center, citing concerns about maintenance issues that stem from the building’s architecture.
While the FRHC school superintendent says most people familiar with Earlywood think only of its campus on Franklin’s north side, no more than 25 students are physically taken to that facility this school year. They are mostly enrolled in a program called New Connections, which provides children with emotional, behavioral and academic help, Earlywood Executive Director Angela Balsley said.
Over the last 10 years, Flat Rock-Hawcreek has only sent a small number of students to Franklin every year, Price said. In fact, the superintendent says none of the 193 special education students in the Flat Rock-Hawcreek district are going there this school year.
What has had a more positive impact on FRHC students with special needs is that Earlywood provides the Hope-area public schools with qualified personnel who come to the northeast Bartholomew County town to do their jobs, Price said, He specifically mentioned a director of special education, program coordinators and professional development specialists for teachers.
In the six school districts that utilize the Franklin facility, there are thousands of students with Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, who receive assistance from many of Earlywood’s 78 employees at their school buildings. Many specialized in areas such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, visual impairment and mental and behavioral health, Balsley said.
In many cases, personnel like behavior coaches and pre-school assessment teams are shared by the six school districts that make up the Earlywood Co-op, Price said. Besides Flat Rock-Hawcreek, the six are Franklin, Greenwood, Edinburgh, Indian Creek, and Southwestern Consolidated schools.
The next school year that begins in August will be a transitional time for special education programs, the superintendent said. The first step will be sending out letters of intent to current Earlywood staff and other qualified personnel, inviting them to interview for full-time positions with Flat Rock-Hawcreek, Price said.
There will also be personnel who will provide services at FRHC schools only a few times a week, the said.
“We anticipate having a mix of both full-time and part-time employees,” Price said. “There will be some shared services with other schools through another model, but it won’t be the one that’s been used by Earlywood.”
Price admits he doesn’t have all the answers at this time regarding the transition.
“This is all new and nothing has been finalized yet,” Price said. “But with Earlywood continuing on during the next school year, that gives us time to make plans and arrangements to service our kids.”
The building being closed next year in Franklin features landscaping going up its slanted walls. It’s a design originally meant to prevent damage from tornadoes, Balsley said.
But over the years, the design has led to maintenance issues and leaks. Balsley said the cost to rebuild the exterior is too much to justify keeping the building open.
— Reporter Andy Bell-Baltaci of the Franklin Daily Journal, a sister publication of The Republic, contributed to this story.
