Earlywood prepares to dissolve, employees transfer to area schools

Earlywood Educational Services is on track to officially dissolve and close its doors June 30.

Earlywood’s board, consisting of Executive Director Angela Balsley and superintendents from six school districts in Johnson, Bartholomew and Shelby counties, voted unanimously to dissolve the service center in March 2023, citing concerns about maintenance issues that stem from the building’s architecture.

The school in Franklin provided services for special education students at Franklin, Greenwood, Edinburgh, Indian Creek, Southwestern Consolidated and Flat Rock-Hawcreek school districts. Earlywood has been working intentionally to make the transition process smooth, Balsley said.

“From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to take care of our kids and our families and we knew that we needed to preserve the talent of our staff here in our county,” Balsley said. “And so from leaders here at the cooperative and within the district, we’ve all been very intentional about our work on this.”

A lot of the major decisions have been made, now the schools are tying up loose ends and implementing technicalities to those decisions, Balsey said. Balsley has been taking care of technical items such as connecting employees with their new insurance and transferring documents in Google Drive, she said. Now she is working on transitioning staff to school districts.

Some students will continue to be served at Earlywood right up until closure, Balsey said. Students are still coming for preschool assessments and to attend an autism community connections program at the end of June.

There are already very few employees in the building at Earlywood and employees have until the end of February to respond to employment offers, she said. The number of employees needing to be hired is in flux as school boards meet to extend and accept offers, she said. School boards will have approved all employees officially by April.

“We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing right now, building the capacity within those six districts and making sure that we answer questions that come up of all the stakeholders and make sure to finish strong and hand the baton off to our six districts,” Balsley said.

On the the final day of operations June 30, Earlywood staff will be celebrating their achievements over the last 50 years, Balsley said.

Most area schools will be transitioning Earlywood employees to their payroll. Franklin school officials have been meeting with about 21 employees who will transition to their payroll from Earlywood’s, said David Clendening, Franklin Community Schools superintendent.

“Fifty years of an organization existing and then in a few short months, it’s no longer gonna exist, it causes for a little anxiety, so we’re trying to do the best we can,” he said.

Some teachers who had worked with Franklin students will be shared with Indian Creek and Greenwood, but the goal is to keep as many teachers in the district as possible, Clendening said.

In July, the building will become a part of Franklin’s school district and the plan is to turn it into a preschool. Franklin will also assume business responsibilities such as record keeping and issuing tax statements, Clendening said.

From the Greenwood Community Schools perspective, things are going well, said Terry Terhune, superintendent. Greenwood officials have met with and extended offers to employees from Earlywood who will transfer and become Greenwood employees.

The final step is for the school board to approve the new employees. Everything else will stay the same, Terhune said. Teachers will work with the same students on the same assignments, he said.

“We’re trying to make it as stress-free for them as possible,” Terhune said. The smooth transition has required a lot of collaboration between area schools, Terhune said.

Officials at Edinburgh Community Schools have also spent the last 18 months preparing for the transition and are in the final stages of crossing T’s and dotting I’s, said Ron Ross, superintendent. Officials have been working “diligently” over the last 18 months and feel they are “more than ready” for the transition, he said.

“This is Earlywood’s 50th year in existence. Whenever you take something apart that took 50 years to build, there are going to be challenges, but overall we have collaboratively worked to do what is best for students and the Earlywood employees,” Ross said.