Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Last week, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce released a report commissioned from Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research, which found that students in small school districts have lower academic achievement results than students in larger districts. The study’s authors point to resource constraints at small districts – defined as districts with enrollment of less than 2,000 students – that limit their ability to offer a broader array of rigorous course offerings, like AP Calculus and AP Chemistry. 19 percent of Indiana’s public school students are enrolled in districts with enrollment below the 2,000-student threshold, […]

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. As part of our effort to prevent substance misuse among young people, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation today announced a $1.15 million investment to help 29 Marion County K-12 schools implement drug prevention programs. The five grant recipients are the Metropolitan School Districts (MSD) of Warren and Washington Townships and public charter schools Urban ACT Academy, Ignite Achievement Academy and Indianapolis Academy of Excellence. These grants are part of our Prevention Matters initiative, which the Foundation launched in January 2018 as a three-year effort to help Marion County schools identify, implement and sustain evidence-based substance use prevention programs. The […]