A buy-one-get-two deal is a bargain at a grocery store, but not so ideal for teachers looking to exchange days off. A new law could even the scales. Senate Bill 20, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, removes the requirement that a public school district employee who donates leave to another employee must donate two days of leave …
WLC needs three more months to set performance reqs
The Wilmington Learning Collaborative says it needs three extra months to set performance requirements for the schools it’s overseeing. That means the organization will have to go back to the Brandywine, Christina and Red Clay districts for permission to move the deadline from March 31 to June 30. The performance requirements include setting goals through written agreements with the three …
WLC building 9 community councils, strengthening partnerships
Partnership was the word of the night in the Wilmington Learning Collaborative’s January meeting Tuesday night. Dorrell Green, superintendent of Red Clay Consolidated School District and a member of the governing council for the group, said they need to make sure they spend the millions of state funding wisely while strengthening community partnerships with groups that provide help, such as …
5 school districts to hold tax hike referenda in 2024
Five of Delaware’s 19 school districts are asking their residents to head to the polls in 2024 and vote for a local tax increase. In the First State, districts must hold referendums if they want to increase their local school tax in order to increase local revenue. They include the Brandywine, Red Clay Consolidated, Colonial, Smyrna and Appoquinimink. Schools get …
WLC leader details initial work, school reports
Data on some of the high-needs and underperforming schools of the city of Wilmington was shared Wednesday night. In the Red Clay Consolidated School District’s monthly board meeting, Laura Burgos, executive director of the Wilmington Learning Collaborative, presented assessment highlights on the nine schools involved in the agency. The Wilmington Learning Collaborative, a state agency created in November 2022 with …
WLC hires 2, completes school assessmentsÂ
The Wilmington Learning Collaborative has hired two directors and completed one element of school assessments needed to begin implementing programs to improve student outcomes. Laura Burgos, the executive director of the Wilmington Learning Collaborative, shared updates of recent work at the governing council’s monthly meeting Tuesday night. “I’m very excited to say that all nine of our WLC partner schools …
Colonial details Feb. 29 referendum to raise revenue
Colonial School District is the latest to detail an operating and capital referendum to be held early next year. In the district’s school board meeting Tuesday night, the board voted a phased approach to a local tax increase, with a spike of 25 cents per $100 of assessed property value in fiscal year 2025, 10 cents in fiscal year 2026 …
WLC will focus on tasks at hand, not expanding to other schools
The new head of the Wilmington Learning Collaborative pushed back Tuesday night on suggestions that the new agency expand to include more city elementary schools. “This is a long journey, this is going to take many years to get our schools where they need to be,” said Laura Burgos, the group’s executive director. That’s not going to happen by adding …
Colonial, Red Clay biggest winners in state funding requests
The state Department of Education has made some school districts very happy by deeming their requests for state funding necessary to fulfill building projects. For fiscal year 2025, the Department of Education approved 50 certificate of necessity requests, 44 of which involved state funding. They were concentrated in six districts. Districts submit certificates of necessity each year to the department, …
Here’s what parents dealing with school choice say it’s like
As Mia McIntyre navigates her first rodeo of school choice for her daughter, she’s found it fairly easy, but with some surprisingly stressful points in Delaware’s process. Xavia Davis finds the process burdensome and said she was treated rudely by district employees who seemed entitled to know why she wanted to choice her children away from the district. Nicole Kowal, …