Indiana School Boards Association

Indiana School Boards Association
Basic facts
Location:	Indianapolis, Indiana
Type:	Nonprofit organization
Top official:	Terry Sprandlin, Executive Director
Year founded:	1949
Website:	Official website

The Indiana School Boards Association (ISBA) is a nonprofit organization in Indiana. It is a membership organization made up of school boards across the state. The organization "empowers school boards with the resources necessary for highly effective governance and advocacy to support exceptional K-12 student learning."

Background

The Indiana Town and City School Administrators' association founded the ISBA in 1949 as an independent organization for school board members separate from the existing group.

As of September 2025, the ISBA's stated mission was "[to promote] excellence in local school governance and [serve] as a powerful voice for Indiana public education."

Leadership

As of September 2025, the following individuals held leadership positions at the Indiana School Boards Association:

• Terry Spradlin, executive director
• Lisa Tanselle, general counsel
• Julie Slavens, senior counsel/director of policy services
• Steve Horton, director of board services

As of September 2025, the following individuals sat on the Indiana School Boards Association's board of directors:

• Rebecca Gardenour, president
• Steve Corona, first vice president
• Wade Beatty, second vice president
• Tom Simpson, past president
• Glenn Johnson
• Heather Reichenbach
• J. Ryan Wall
• Rachel Witt
• Scott Dubois
• Leslie Jacobs
• Stacy Killion
• Jack Russell
• Lynda Glover
• Joseph Basham
• Robert Stwalley
• Joel Rodriguez

Work and activities

Lobbying activities

As of September 2025, the ISBA's executive director and general counsel "maintain a high profile at the Indiana State House as registered lobbyists to attend committee meetings, meet with lawmakers, work toward the passage of ISBA bills, and track other K-12 education legislation."

The organization listed the following as its foundational statements guiding its lobbying efforts as of September 2025:

The Indiana School Boards Association (ISBA) is dedicated to improving the quality of public education and school governance throughout the state of Indiana. ISBA recognizes the role of the General Assembly in enacting legislation that impacts public education and is committed to representing the interests of its member school corporations when addressing legislative initiatives. ISBA has adopted the following foundational statements to formalize its position as it advocates on behalf of Indiana school boards, public education, and students on present and future legislation.
Support Exceptional Learning Opportunities for Hoosier Children
The ISBA supports programs and policies to provide exceptional learning opportunities for Hoosier children. Given that approximately 92 percent of all K-12 students attend a public school, the families of more than 1 million students have spoken and have made public schools the “schools of choice.” ISBA believes that, through local control, school boards have created a rich and diverse public education system that provides a multitude of learning environments, programs, and curricular offerings to students. Through these opportunities school boards must prepare a new generation of students to be college and career ready, helping drive the economic growth and prosperity of the state.
Promote Equitable Funding of Public Schools
The ISBA supports the funding of public schools that is annually adjusted to keep ahead of inflation and that improves Indiana’s national rankings on per pupil funding and teacher compensation. This allows local boards of education to support the ongoing improvement in the quality of public education and ensure adequate resources to address the learning needs of all children. ISBA supports the equitable funding of public schools, recognizing that schools may need additional funding to educate economically disadvantaged students and students with unique educational needs.
Empower School Board Authority
The ISBA supports empowering local boards of education with the authority to govern the educational and financial matters, including health and safety measures, for students and employees of school corporations. In addition, the ISBA supports maintaining the authority to make changes to local reorganization plans, including consolidation and disannexation of school corporations, with school boards and the voters who reside within the particular school corporations affected.
Engage and Involve Families
The ISBA believes that the involvement of all families results in stronger schools and better student outcomes. School boards continually strive to create opportunities for parents, guardians, and caregivers to be heard, including through participation on local curriculum review and development committees. Parents, guardians, and caregivers should continue to have a process or opportunity for input through the classroom teacher, principal, superintendent, and finally the school board. Ultimately, the establishment of student achievement goals and curriculum review and approval rest with the school board, who are elected or appointed representatives of the school community.
Maintain Safe and Supportive Classrooms
The ISBA believes that every child deserves a safe and secure learning environment. ISBA supports local control―with state support, broad policy, and adequate funding―to implement comprehensive school safety plans informed by a threat assessment and developed in collaboration with law enforcement and public safety agencies. ISBA opposes funded or unfunded mandates for implementation of specific school safety equipment, devices, or technology. Policies and funding pertaining to school safety should be holistic and also include addressing the social and emotional needs of students and staff, including resources for guidance counselors, social workers, school psychologists, and mental health therapists to support student and staff wellness.
Promote High-Quality Teachers and School Leaders
The ISBA believes that effective educational achievement outcomes depend on a high-quality teacher and administrator workforce. We support legislation that respects and values the teaching profession. We support state policies and laws that enable “teachers to teach” without burdensome regulation or policies that diminish or demean the profession. ISBA seeks support for teacher recruitment strategies that both address critical shortage areas and attract a pipeline of diverse teacher candidates into the classroom, such as promising “Grow Your Own” partnerships between schools and postsecondary institutions and state pre-service teacher scholarship programs to attract more minority teachers to better reflect Indiana’s student population. ISBA is a proponent of initiatives that improve the retention of excellent educators, including enhanced support for mentoring and leadership development.
Support Professional Development
The ISBA supports professional development opportunities that provide dedicated time for training and mentoring that enhance and elevate the teaching profession. We support state funding for professional development and in-service programs. The ISBA also supports enhanced teacher training on emerging technology advances impacting the delivery of instruction to students, such as the effective use of e-learning instruction strategies and artificial intelligence.
Seek Rigorous and Consistent Financial and Academic Outcome Measures for All Schools
The ISBA believes that the best approach to tracking the academic progress and effectiveness of our schools is through public transparency and availability of multiple academic outcome measures. The metrics used to grade school corporations and individual schools should be transparent and easy to understand. ISBA supports the use of multiple measures in the GPS Data Dashboard to judge the quality of schools to reduce the over-reliance on summative assessment scores.
Regardless of which metrics are used to judge the quality of schools, all schools (public, public charter, and private) receiving state tuition support dollars should adhere to the same academic and financial accountability metrics. The public has a right to expect transparency and compliance with the public notice requirements, record keeping and audits needed for financial accountability, and access to public records from all state-funded schools. Whether an audit is conducted by the State Board of Accounts (SBOA) or by a contracted accounting firm, all audits should be submitted to the SBOA and made publicly available through the state’s Gateway system. In addition, any school or school system receiving state tuition support should post an annual budget accessible to the public and have a public hearing on the budget before adoption. Dollars flowing to each school system type should be itemized separately in the state budget. Taxpayers deserve full transparency regarding how their tax dollars are spent on these programs. The ISBA recognizes and commends the efforts of public schools to fulfill the unique constitutional duty to educate every child.
Maintain Nonpartisan School Boards
The ISBA supports the continuation of the election and/or appointment of school board members on a nonpartisan basis. Nonpartisan elections help ensure that voters choose school board members based on their qualifications, experience, and vision for addressing local educational needs, instead of their party label. School board members are entrusted with deciding what is in the best interest of students in their community. The focus of a school board member should remain on all children. Introducing political party affiliation may cause school boards to feel conflicted with where their allegiances and priorities lie.
Protect School Calendar/Instructional Time
The ISBA supports the legislative mandate to conduct a minimum of 180 student instructional days and believes the local governing body should retain the authority to determine the school calendar. The ISBA supports giving increased flexibility to school boards to determine the length of the instructional day for professional development and student achievement benefits. The ISBA supports the flexibility to use virtual instruction when deemed appropriate by school officials.
Support Career and Technical Education (CTE)
The ISBA believes career and technical education (CTE) should enable students to complete a postsecondary credential during high school or move toward gainful employment upon graduation. All students should have the opportunity to engage in career exploration with support from highly qualified and professionally trained educators and through access to meaningful work-based learning, internships, or modern youth apprenticeships. Secondary CTE courses should create career pathways that lead to transferable skills and certifications to foster life-long learning. Policymakers and state agency leaders must support fiscal and administrative policies to incentivize cooperation between school corporations and employers, as well as to help with the purchase of new equipment, curricular resources and materials, the cost of all credentialing exams, and student transportation.
Expand K-12 Tax Credit Programs
The ISBA supports an income tax credit for charitable contributions to public education foundations. In addition, ISBA supports a tax deduction for parents of public school students for educational expenses, including educational materials not paid for by the school corporation through the state curricular materials reimbursement fund.
Allow Adequate Time and Support for Implementation of Policy Changes
The ISBA supports giving school corporations sufficient time to implement and assess the impact of the changes being made in the field of education. The constant change in standards, laws, and policies makes it difficult to determine whether the changes are resulting in improved educational environments, opportunities, and/or outcomes for students.

Notable endorsements

See also: Ballotpedia: Our approach to covering endorsements

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Finances

Ballotpedia was unable to locate information on the Indiana School Boards Association's finances.

See also

• What is an influencer?
• Public education in Indiana
• List of school districts in Indiana
• Consortium of State School Boards Associations

External links

• Indiana School Boards Association official website
• Indiana School Boards Association on Facebook
• Indiana School Boards Association on X