Thrival Indy Academy, an Indianapolis Public Schools Innovation Network high school designed to offer students opportunities to study abroad, will close at the end of the 2023-24 school year after failing to meet enrollment targets.
The school’s board voted on Friday not to renew its innovation contract with IPS when it expires at the end of this school year. The high school, located within Arlington Middle School, has 107 students this year who are guaranteed a spot in an IPS high school in 2024-25, according to district figures.
Year after year, Thrival has failed to meet the enrollment targets set in its most recent innovation contract, signed in 2019. This year, that target was set at 300 students.
“When we look at student numbers and enrolment, we have to ask ourselves the question: what kind of student experience can we really provide for our students?” Julius Mansa, Thrival’s chief executive, said during the meeting.
The Thrival board also voted to offer retention stipends of $10,000 for teachers and support staff and $12,000 for administrators who stay until the end of the school year.
“This is always the most difficult decision to make as a superintendent, but I am committed to getting this transition right for Thrival students, families and staff,” IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in a statement. “My promise to Thrival families is that IPS will have your back every step of the way by helping you find a great IPS high school for your child next school year.”
The high school is one of the few schools in the IPS Innovation Network that is not a charter. It is run by a nonprofit organisation and a board of directors.
Thrival opened in 2017 as a small pilot program within IPS, allowing students to study abroad in Thailand for free. It later grew into a one-year school that only enrolled juniors.
However, the school paused operations for a year in 2019-20 as officials figured out how to help students fit the one-year opportunity into four years of high school. Thrival relaunched as a four-year high school in 2020-21, after signing a new innovation agreement with IPS that allowed it to start with ninth-graders and grow by one grade each school year.
Students were unable to travel for two school years after the pandemic, Mansa said. Last school year, students went on a domestic trip. A trip to Puerto Rico is planned for some students this year, he said.
Loki Lavin, a sophomore at the school, expressed concern after Friday’s meeting about the transition of Thrival students to much larger schools.
“This school is small and we’re very close, like a family,” Lavin said. “And I think that’s part of what makes us different.”
Mansa said he was unsure whether the pandemic had caused the school’s low enrolment.
“I know it’s a tough enrolment environment in general,” he said. “There are a lot of options. Students have a lot of options.”
The district will offer enrolment sessions for each Thrival family, IPS said in a statement.
