Chuck Hockema, anti-‘woke’ crusader on LSC school board, steps down
Hockema, who fought LGBTQ, diversity support in schools, resigns due to health. Plus, SK hynix's new construction plan comes at its ‘own risk,’ one neighbor suing to stop the project tells court.
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CHUCK HOCKEMA, ANTI-‘WOKE’ CRUSADER ON LSC SCHOOL BOARD, STEPS DOWN
Chuck Hockema, a Lafayette school board member who became a lightning rod as he targeted what he considered woke curriculum and signs of support for the LGBTQ community in classrooms, stepped down with nearly a year left on a four-year term.
Hockema’s resignation was effective Jan. 31, according to an announcement during Monday night’s Lafayette school board meeting.
Hockema, who has been absent from a majority to board meetings and work sessions in recent months, was not at Monday’s meeting and did not immediately respond for comment.
But during Monday’s meeting, Julie Peretin, LSC school board president, read a resignation letter Hockema sent to the board Jan. 30, in which said he needed to resign due to health issues.
“I’ve enjoyed my tenure and wish everyone the best in your future endeavors,” Hockema wrote.
“I think we want to wish him a speedy recovery, thank him for his service and wish him well,” Peretin said during Monday’s meeting.
The LSC school board, according to state law, will select a replacement to fill a term that finishes at the end of 2026. Peretin said Hockema’s replacement would need to come from LSC school board’s District D, which includes parts of the district’s east, north and central areas.
The school board had not set a timetable for taking applications or selecting Hockema’s replacement, as of Monday. The seat will be up for election in November 2026.
Hockema was elected in a district race in 2022, when he campaigned on a slogan of “education not indoctrination.” In his first year on the board, Hockema called for reviews of school libraries and classroom materials for what he called “pornography” and to root out anything he considered part of an LGBTQ agenda. In an interview with BiL in 2023, Hockema said he was still going to stick to that theme during his four-year term: “They can be gay, if they want to be. But they don’t have the right to influence other people by their gay ideology.”
In early 2024, Hockema made a public apology during a school board meeting for a post he made to his personal Facebook page in December 2023, in which he took on critics empathetic with the LGBTQ community– many of whom spent months during public comment portions of school board meetings to stand with students and staff they said were marginalized by Hockema’s stances – comparing their views with those of “child groomers” and “dung” on the bottom of a shoe. He proclaimed he had been elected “to protect … children from the ideologies of individuals who felt they had the right to drop their dung into your children’s arms.” After that apology, which came after private meeting with LSC administration and school board president, Hockema told BiL he wasn’t backing away from what he wrote, though: “Those were my words. And I stand by them.”
During the first years of his term on the school board, Hockema made waves when he asked for libraries to inventory materials – “the only way that we can make John Q. Public believe that everything’s all copacetic with our school system,” he said – and for teachers to catalog all books and materials in their classrooms, so he and others could go through them.
But he did not gain much traction on the board, and in the past year had grown quieter during board meetings.
In other action …
LSC TAKES ‘STEP ONE’ ON NEW ONLINE HIGH SCHOOL: The Lafayette school board voted unanimously Monday to take Lafayette Virtual Academy, on online high school separate from Lafayette Jefferson, to the Indiana Department of Education for approval in time for the 2026-27 academic year.
LSC Superintendent Les Huddle called the move “step one” in the process but that he hoped for a timely decision by the state.
According to a presentation given to the school board during a January work session, Lafayette Virtual Academy would build off an online pilot run the past two years at Lafayette Jeff. If approved by the LSC board and then by the Indiana Department of Education, the online option would be its own school with its own graduation. The idea to help LSC keep students in its district, even as they look for available online schools elsewhere.
Barb Payton, assistant principal and director of guidance at Lafayette Jeff, said that since enrollment started in July 2025 for this school year, through December, 47 students who would be in Lafayette Jeff had withdrawn to go another online school. She said those students landed at seven online options, including Tippecanoe Online Academy, with the largest percentage going to the Indiana Digital Gateway Academy, an online program offered by the Clarksville Community School Corp.
For more on the proposal, this is from a Jan. 30 BiL edition: “LSC considers Lafayette Virtual Academy, a new online high school.”
SK HYNIX CONSTRUCTION BEFORE LAWSUITS ARE SETTLED IS AT COMPANY’S ‘OWN RISK,’ ONE NEIGHBOR SAYS IN NEW COURT FILING
One of the West Lafayette residents behind a pair of lawsuits looking to overturn a rezoning vote that cleared the way for a $3.87 billion semiconductor facility in the city confirmed in new court documents Monday that she’s not backing down, after SK hynix signaled Friday in court and in notices with the city that it plans to start construction activity later in February.
An attorney for Lora Marie Williams late Monday filed a notice in the court of “caveat constructor” – essentially “let the builder beware” – “to ensure that no inference is drawn” that she has acquiesced as the South Korean company moves forward.
