LAFAYETTE, IN — Tippecanoe School Corp. Superintendent Scott Hanback said he had no idea TSC had made its way onto the Indiana attorney general’s “Eyes on Education” portal until a fellow school superintendent told him.
The Eyes on Education portal, launched by Attorney General Todd Rokita in February 2024, serves 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.”
But the violation for TSC wasn’t for anything taking place inside a classroom. It was for an alleged flagpole violation.
“They’d sent me a note and said, ‘Hey, congratulations, you’ve made the portal.’ So, he sent me a picture of it, and I mean my first reaction was, ‘What?'” Hanback said. “There’s no flag on (the flagpole) and you can tell there is a dumpster in the background. It’s a construction site now because we’ve moved offices.”
After the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump ordered flags be flown at half staff until sunset on Sept. 14.
On the IAG’s website under “Charlie Kirk Submissions,” both TSC and the Lafayette School Corp. were cited for “Failure to Comply with US Flag Half-Staff Order.”
The photo submission of TSC’s alleged violation, posted anonymously to the IAG’s website, offers no time stamp for when the image was taken. Gray skies and wet pavement can be seen from the windshield of a vehicle, taken from the parking lot of the newly built TSC administrative offices at 20 Elston Road.
The photo offers a view of the former administrative offices directly across the street, which Hanback said the corporation vacated on Aug. 1.
The photo submission of LSC’s alleged violation, also posted anonymously to the IAG’s website, offers no time stamp for the image, either. Similar to the TSC photo submission, gray skies hover over the LSC administrative offices at 2300 Cason St., while water droplets speckle the windshield of a vehicle from which the photo is taken.
In the photo submission for LSC, both the U.S. flag and the Indiana state flag are seen at full staff.
LSC spokesperson Cindy Gerlach said the corporation has not heard any communication from the IAG’s office about the alleged violation.
“There is no day or date indicated in the photo, so it’s hard to know when it was taken,” Gerlach said. “It was not an intentional violation and was not done with malice. We have not received any communication regarding the post.”
Hanback said the TSC staff who oversee flag protocol are meticulous in their care of the flagpoles across all of the corporation’s properties.
What is puzzling Hanback about the portal submission for TSC, he said, is that the flagpole seen in the photo is empty, leading him to wonder how there could have ever been a viable violation in the first place.
“The photo someone posted of TSC’s empty flagpole alleging that it is not in compliance with the half-staff order … I would say, tell me more about what is noncompliant, because there’s no flag on the poll on a rainy day,” Hanback said. “It’s our understanding that on a rainy day or in inclement weather, you typically don’t fly a flag. I mean, that’s true for any private citizen or government offices.”
On Friday afternoon, a U.S. flag and a state flag both hung on the flagpole outside of the former administrative offices, as well as the new offices across the street. Hanback said TSC has not heard from the IAG’s office on the alleged violation, either.
After the portal submission, Hanback said it’s now his understanding that the public submissions are not fact-checked, leading him to wonder what the purpose of the portal is.
“It seems like anyone can make a submission about anything … curriculum, flags, social media posts,” Hanback said. “So, I guess I would have a question for the attorney general’s office: How do you get off the portal when there’s no violation?”
A request for information about the time and date of the portal submissions for TSC and LSC to the IAG’s office, along with a clarification on how corporations could see alleged violations removed from the IAG’s website, were not returned as of Friday afternoon.
Hanback said out of this experience, he wishes the concerned citizen who submitted the photo to the IAG’s website would have contacted him directly.
“If the public has a concern about the TSC, they have access to me, and I wish they would tell me what their concern is,” Hanback said. “In any case, we will seek to understand and seek to remedy whatever their concern may be.”
Jillian Ellison is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. She can be reached via email at jellison@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: AG Todd Rokita’s portal accuses schools of failing to lower flags for Charlie Kirk
Reporting by Jillian Ellison, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
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