Three candidates running for Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. board will be joined by Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita and lieutenant governor candidate Micah Beckwith for a fundraiser sponsored by a local political action committee.
The Oct. 25 event at Factory 12 Loft, called “Fight for Education,” is sponsored by the PAC for the three BCSC school board candidates — David Theile, Tom Glick and Samantha Ison.
A promotional item for the event posted on Ison’s campaign Facebook page features a digitized flaming lion on the prowl as lighting bolts zig-zag in the background. It cuts to the three candidates wearing boxing gloves and throwing punches towards the screen before ending on the words “Fight for Education” and “stay tuned.”
“Honestly, I don’t know that much about it,” Glick said in a phone interview with The Republic. “I had nothing to do with it, it was an event planned by the PAC.”
Ison and Theile did not return multiple requests for comment about the event or how they are participating in the event.
The PAC is Your Community Partnership, which is where money from the ticket sales will go. A PAC is defined as an organization that raises money privately to influence elections or legislation.
It’s run by local resident Eric Johnson and its stated purpose is to “focus on school reform,” according to documentation filed with the Indiana Election Division and on file at the Bartholomew County Courthouse. The PAC’s treasurer is listed as Megan Johnson, who is Eric Johnson’s wife. When contacted, Eric Johnson told The Republic that his wife would be the better person to speak with about the PAC.
“We created a mechanism for the community’s voices to be heard and represented,” Megan Johnson said of the PAC and fundraiser. “It’s grassroots-driven and supported by Bartholomew County residents.”
When asked about the PAC’s objective, Johnson mentioned supporting candidates that want to improve school safety, help “parents understand what their rights are” and know “how to work with schools to ensure bathrooms are used based on biology.” Other goals of the PAC, according to Johnson, are putting more of a focus on academics, assisting teachers so they “only have to focus on teaching” and making sure BCSC isn’t spending money on things “we don’t need.”
“We as parents and community members have seen a big disconnect with the school board and these are state representatives that are involved in education, care about education, and they are people we respect,” Johnson said.
While races for school board are purportedly nonpartisan, the dynamics of the contests in recent years have become increasingly filled with political overtones. Legislation filed in 2023 that would have made school board races partisan died on the floor of the Indiana House.
The Columbus Educator’s Association in a questionnaire provided to all six candidates asked whether each supported making local school board races partisan.
“I do not oppose school board candidates declaring a party affiliation, nor being required to do so,” Theile responded. “I do oppose, however, the politicization of school board issues.”
To the same question Ison said, “I think it’s a fine idea to keep school board races non-partisan to unite and transcend politics in favor of what is best for educating our children, but only as long as we can keep the partisan out of the school board races, and schools for that matter.”
Glick wrote that he did not support making the races partisan, saying he thought the push to do so was “because too many voters are voting straight ticket ballots.” He added, “I believe this is a ploy to ensure that most of our state school boards become conservative or Republican, as much of this state is Republican minus the metropolitan politics.”
Glick said he’s heard criticism that the PAC event is further politicizing the races.
“That’s one thing that people have been upset with me, is ‘That’s not very non-partisan of you to have these candidates here.’ I didn’t pick the speakers and those aren’t the only people that they reached out to,” according to Glick. “… Like I said, they reached out to multiple candidates and these two just happened to line up. Because I know (Libertarian gubernatorial candidate) Donald Rainwater had shown interest in it, and he may be there for all I know. I don’t even know the list of people that are going to be there. I don’t even know if I’m going to be there— I may be in the field cutting corn.”
“Let’s face the facts here,” Glick later added. “Todd Rokita is the current attorney general and the way the state votes, he’s probably going to be in the same position. And he’s been big in what we’re talking about, in terms of the Title IX process that just got overturned by the Supreme Court. He’s done things for parent’s rights in terms of Eyes on Education, and just kind of holds schools and education accountable. Micah Beckwith, there’s high probability that he may be lieutenant governor, and so these people are going to have influence on our education system.”
The three BCSC candidates have campaigned on more parental involvement as the crux of their agenda and have continually expressed skepticism about decisions made by BCSC and the school board on a range of issues.
“Samantha and myself and Tom will be speaking, as well as Todd Rokita and Micah Beckwith, they are our headliners,” Theile said in a video posted to his campaign’s Facebook page about the event. “So you have Todd Rokita, our attorney general, and you have Micah Beckwith who’s also running for the Lt. Governor position here for the state of Indiana. Both great men, good men. And they have a lot to add when it comes to education itself, parental rights and things of that matter that are really important to us.”
Rokita and Beckwith have been critical of public schools.
In February, Rokita launched the ‘Eyes on Education’ portal, described by his office as “a transparency portal to empower parents to further engage in their children’s education by providing a platform to submit and view potentially inappropriate materials in their schools.”
“The Office of the Attorney General will follow up on materials you submit to the portal that may violate Indiana law using investigative tools, including public records requests, and publish findings on the portal as well,” the site reads.
One item uploaded to the portal is a picture of a combination Pride and Black Lives Matter flag that was supposedly in a Kokomo classroom. Another is a 24-page PDF that alleges evidence of critical race theory in the curriculum at Center Grove.
There are two items uploaded that are BCSC-related — one being the minutes from a Jan. 22 BCSC meeting in which District 1 Board Member Jason Major appealed a committee’s decision to have the book “People Kill People” by Ellen Hopkins remain in the library at Columbus East High School. The other is a YouTube link to a March 4 school board meeting where Major reads an explicit excerpt from “People Kill People.”
The BCSC board later voted to keep the book in the East library.
Beckwith was described by the Indianapolis Star as “instrumental” in passing a controversial book relocation policy while a board member at the Hamilton East Public Library in December 2022. The board passed a new policy, rescinded the following year, that focused on profanity, violence and crime — even listing specific crimes and curse words that were deemed unacceptable for younger readers. The Indianapolis Star reported that the shelves of the Teen Zone were gutted as librarians and staff conducted a review of thousands of books expected to cost the library system serving Fishers and Noblesville around $300,000.
Beckwith, a pastor at Life Church in Noblesville who has been described as a Christian Nationalist by Democrats, is also the co-host of a podcast called “Jesus, Sex and Politics,” which often covers topics like public schools and conservative politics.
In a video on Micah Beckwith for Indiana’s social media page, he gives reasons why “every follower of Jesus should be a #ChristianNationalist no matter what nation you live in.”
In September, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported that Beckwith was assembling an advisory council of agricultural, legislative and other experts to ensure “alignment with Christian, constitutional, and conservative principles.” The group would provide “expert guidance and operational support” in fulfilling the office’s statutory and constitutional duties, according to a statement of purpose.
In an April 29, 2022, podcast episode about “how morally bankrupt the Indiana State Teachers Association has become,” Beckwith claimed that Marxists strategically infiltrated academia over the course of a few decades “to bring us down from the inside” and “that has trickled down into high schools and into middle schools and now even elementary schools.”
In a June 11, 2021, episode titled “The Public School Chaos,” Beckwith said, “there is just this insanity that is taking over the mindsets of our teachers and administrators and our students, and it just seems like everyone is like speeding off the cliff of stupid really fast right now.” The episode largely focused on books with transgender characters.
In that episode, he also said: “Parents are putting their children into the public schools, and a lot of Christian parents are saying we want our kids to be a light in a dark place. Well, I ask parents this question all time when they come with that kind of mindset: Would you put your child on the Titanic knowing that it was getting ready to set sail? …I’m not going to send my 10 year old, ‘Hey, little Billy, the Titanic is going to sink here. I’m going to put you on there so hopefully maybe you could do some good while you’re on the boat.’ No, you’re sending them into destruction.”
The Republic brought up to Glick some of the aforementioned comments that Beckwith had made.
“My big thing is, I’m here as a candidate to focus on my administration and focus on my corporation,” Glick said. “We are failing and have shortcomings. That’s his (Beckwith’s) opinion. When I look at it, our system is not working. We are failing in the classroom. We’re failing financially. We’re over-spending and what he says is what he says, and I focus on what I can control.”
