PARTNERSHIPS:
SUPPORTING MUNCIE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS’ TRANSFORMATION
For nearly 100 years, Ball Brothers Foundation has been supporting efforts that improve the quality of life in our community. Across these many decades, supporting education has been a top priority. Today, Ball Brothers Foundation—and other local funders—are building on this legacy by providing funding to support the transformation of Muncie Community Schools, our community’s largest K-12 public school district.
In 2017, the district was on the brink of financial collapse and was placed under an emergency order from the state of Indiana. In a move that had very few national precedents, Muncie Community Schools made headlines when it partnered with Ball State University to establish a new model of leadership for the corporation. At the outset of the historic partnership, Ball Brothers Foundation made an initial grant of $1 million to support efforts to reimagine the district’s future.
Ball Brothers Foundation has long been happy to respond to other requests from the district to bolster its ability to provide a best-in-class education to local students. Since 2014, funding totaling $3.6 million has helped the district to provide enhanced professional development for teachers, reimagine courses and curriculum, support extracurricular activities, and, more generally, provide support for the “margins of excellence” that taxpayer dollars cannot support.
While there is still tremendous work to be done, Ball Brothers Foundation remains an ardent supporter of the district, the university, and the students and families who live in this community. We believe that MCS—in partnership with BSU and the larger community—is charting a course for progress in our public schools that will lead to a bright future for students and that can be instructive for other districts across the nation.
This page takes a look at how our funds have supported MCS through this next generation of education and leadership.
Documentary produced by Ball State Unified Media about the MCS-BSU partnership. Production funded by a Ball Brothers Foundation rapid grant.
“The support of our foundations is second to none. Muncie Community Schools would not be able to implement our Innovation Plan if we did not have the foundations and the community supporting our work.”
Endowments
In October 2019, Ball Brothers Foundation’s board of directors approved grants to start two endowments to support Muncie Community Schools: a $100,000 grant for a newly created endowment for the Director of Public Education/CEO position, and a $50,000 award for the Director of Public Education/CEO to jointly serve as a Clinical Professor of Educational Leadership and Innovation with Ball State University’s Teachers College.
While endowed positions are common at the university level, they are less common for K–12 public schools. The endowments will set Muncie apart from other communities throughout Indiana and beyond, providing MCS with leverage for leadership recruitment and retention purposes.
MCS Director of Public Education & CEO Lee Ann Kwiatkowski, The Community Foundation of Muncie & Delaware County President Kelly K. Shrock, and Ball Brothers Foundation President & COO Jud Fisher
Curriculum Audit
As part of its work to create an “Academic Innovation Plan” for the district, funding from Ball Brothers Foundation aided MCS/BSU in conducting a curriculum audit that identified areas for improvement in the district’s existing instruction.
The comprehensive audit had a focus on math and English, with reviewers critically examining rigor, depth of knowledge, appropriate assessments, breadth of resources, provisions for student differences, and social emotional concerns. As a result of the audit, a team of representatives from MCS and BSU developed new academic plans that met the following objectives:
Objective 1:
Curriculum plans will be comprehensive and inclusive
Objective 2:
Curriculum plans will demonstrate best practices
Objective 3:
Curriculum plans will be adopted by all schools and grade levels
Objective 4:
Curriculum plans will have flexibility to support classrooms, teachers, and students who need additional support to meet benchmarks.
Objective 5:
Curriculum plans will be implemented with fidelity
Objective 6:
Improved academic performance in Mathematics and Language Arts will be documented.
Professional Development School Liaisons
Through Ball Brothers Foundation’s funding, MCS has been able to institute a Professional Development School (PDS) Liaison in every building in the district. Liaisons equip schools with information in nearly 20 areas, including trauma-informed instruction, math instruction, literacy development, creative and meaningful use of technology, intervention strategies for reading, classroom management, student engagement and motivation, and more.
Ball State faculty serve in the PDS Liaison roles to facilitate professional development, place teacher candidates in clinical field experiences, and identify opportunities to meet school improvement goals. The program created professional learning communities in seven schools throughout the district, as well as nine distinct training sessions for 183 MCS teachers and more than 3,000 Ball State students.
Academic Innovation Council Project Coordinator
Ball Brothers Foundation’s funding supports the role of an Academic Innovation Council Project Coordinator, a position that also serves as faculty fellow to Ball State University Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Susana Rivera-Mills, who chairs the Joint Academic Innovation Council.
The Academic Innovation Council Project Coordinator role is fulfilled by Ball State Instructor of Journalism Kate Elliott, who is also an MCS parent. In this role, Elliott has provided instrumental coordination in the planning of the Academic Innovation Summit and in the creation of the Academic Innovation Plan.
Academic Innovation Summit
Ball Brothers Foundation’s support enabled MCS and BSU to bring together stakeholders—for the first time—to dream, learn, and plan at a two-day Academic Innovation Summit. At the Summit, MCS administrators, teachers, and community members met with nationally recognized educators to brainstorm ideas and discuss next steps for MCS. Ideas brought forth at this Academic Innovation Summit inspired themes for the Academic Innovation Plan.
Muncie Community Schools News
