Concerns about enrollment numbers at Great Oaks Charter School in Wilmington have triggered a formal review by the Delaware Department of Education. The school serves eighth through twelfth grade and has a student body of more than 80% Black students. The review will be conducted by the Charter School Accountability Committee to determine if Great Oaks has violated terms of …
Wilmington Learning Collaborative officials are asking its member districts for a definitive vote by the end of October. “We have asked for a vote in October because we really need to get the board appointed, get the executive director hired, and that’s going to take some time,” said Jon Sheehan, chief of policy and senior advisor to the governor, during …
A look at the test scores of Brandywine School District’s elementary schools shows why the state is focusing only on Wilmington children in its proposal for a program to raise student achievement in the city. Brandywine school board member Kristin Pidgeon this week questioned why Brandywine’s other eight elementaries – all in suburban schools – are not included in the …
A joint meeting Tuesday of the Brandywine, Christina and Red Clay school districts about the Wilmington Learning Collaborative featured a lively discussion, but still no vote. The 21 board members were joined by Gov. John Carney, Education Secretary Mark Holodick and other key education officials. While no one outright opposed the learning collaborative, some expressed concern about …
Caesar Rodney School District students will be the first to return to school this fall, heading back on Tuesday, Aug. 23. Others such as Colonial start next week, but the majority head back after Labor Day. For the first time since March 2020, the spectre of COVID-19 will be shoved into the coat closet and largely left there. “Kids can …
The Delaware Department of Education announced last week it has hired a Virginia consultant to study the state’s public education funding system. As today’s wisecracker would say: Good luck with that. How the money trickles down to the classroom is complex, and it follows a funding system established in the 1940s. The state’s population then was 286,000, compared to …
Brandywine, Red Clay and Christina school districts will meet Aug. 30 with the Department of Education and the governor’s office to discuss joining the Wilmington Learning Collaborative. The announcement came at Brandywine’s school board meeting Monday, where the district once again delayed a vote on whether to join. Board President John Skrobot III said that the date is tentative and …
A Wilmington Learning Collaborative official said Tuesday that the boards of the three participating districts may not approve the operating agreement until September. Jon Sheehan, chief of policy and senior advisor to Gov. John Carney, made the comment while describing how the state expects the project to unfold as it tries to create a new agency to oversee city students …
Delaware’s 2022 test scores were released Tuesday, and they aren’t pretty. Just 30% of Delaware students in grades three to eight met grade level math requirements, while 42% earned a proficient score in English language arts. These scores come from the state-administered Smarter Balanced Assessment, an end-of-the-year summative test that measures the abilities of students in grades three through eight …
First State Educate, a local education advocacy group, held a webinar Tuesday to outline where COVID-19 relief money went. Relief funds were spent on learning loss, educational technology, building and mental health. “As we come through, and hopefully out of the COVID-19 pandemic learning loss and recovery, not just academic, but social emotional recovery is a grave concern of mine,” …
