Before joining Indianapolis Public Schools in 2013 Dr. Lewis Ferebee served as Chief of Staff for Durham Public Schools in North Carolina where he reduced to zero the number of schools designated by the state as "low performing." His extensive experience in attenuating the impact of poverty on academic achievement boasts strategic turnaround for struggling Title I schools, double-digit gains in End of Course Assessments (ECA) for Biology, Algebra and English, and aggressive reductions in the dropout rate with concurrent increases in the graduation rate as compared to state performance. Dr. Ferebee is credited with improving IPS graduation rates 4 percentage points to 71.5 percent, and reducing the number of graduating seniors using waivers from more than 25 percent in 2011 to 7 percent this year. (February 2, 2016)
