Most private schools getting vouchers in Indiana are religious. One school is bucking the trend

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Myra made a doll dress during a sewing class at the School for Community Learning, one of just 7 secular schools receiving vouchers from the state in 2017. PHOTO: Dylan Peers McCoy

BY DYLAN PEERS MCCOY - 15 HOURS AGO

Seven-year-old Fallon breathed a sigh of frustration.

Her classmate, 11-year-old Myra, looked across the small round table where they were working. Fallon, sewing a pin cushion, was bent over her needle, struggling to slip thread through its eye.

“Here’s a tip,” said Myra. “You see how this is frayed at the end? … You’ve got to ever-so-carefully snip that frayed edge.”

Fallon and Myra are students at the School for Community Learning, a progressive private school on the north side of Indianapolis, where kids not only take math and reading but also study less conventional topics like sewing, birding and Hogwarts — classes that bring together children from kindergarten through middle school.

The School for Community Learning is unusual among Indiana private schools for not having a religious focus: More than 90 percent of the state’s private schools are religious, compared to 68 percent on average in the U.S.

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/in/2017/05/09/almost-all-the-private-schools-getting-vouchers-in-indiana-are-religious-heres-how-one-school-ended-up-bucking-the-trend/