Indy charter school quietly readies bid, site for new charter in Lafayette

Details emerge as state board prepares to consider Paramount School of Excellence charter Thursday. Plus, Purdue’s Day of Giving, a big detour for North River Road and more

The New Community School site, in a former Pay Less Supermarket on Elmwood Avenue, is slated to a Paramount School of Excellence charter school by fall 2023. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

More than five years after New Community School closed amid big debts and dwindling enrollment, an Indianapolis charter school is looking to move into the same converted grocery store on Elmwood Avenue in time for the fall 2023 semester.

An application from Paramount School of Excellence – which has three Indianapolis campuses with an agricultural bent, along with a virtual school – to start a charter school for kindergarten through eighth grade will go to the Indiana Charter School Board for consideration Thursday.

Tommy Reddicks, CEO of Paramount School of Excellence, acknowledged that the process has been quiet – a public hearing coordinated by the Indiana Charter School Board two weeks ago drew no media and no one from the community, he said – but has been in the works for a couple of years.