One month ago, Red Clay officials were moving forward with the plan to establish the McKean Innovation Center, a vo-tech and college hybrid school. Now, that plan is on hold indefinitely.
The change would have relocated Meadowood, a special needs program that in part relies on ADA-compliant infrastructure already in place at McKean.
Superintendent Dorrell Green says a previous Board decided to move forward with the Innovation Center plans, and the current Board is walking that back.
“I'm not wedded to any plan,” Green said. “I'm concerned about what we do for children, how we're preparing them… And so however the Board directs us again, we were given a charge in November 2024 and that's the way we approached it. If there's a new charge, a new stipulation, based on this resolution, we're going to roll up our sleeves and do the work accordingly.”
The postponement will remain in effect until the Board votes to lift it. In order to resume work on the Innovation Center, district staff and board members need to have a new transition plan, communication plan and professional development in place.
Red Clay has educated the same number of high school students over the last 25 years but increased the number of seats. It has also opened new middle schools despite seeing fewer students over the last several years.
Last week’s board meeting featured more than a dozen public commenters speaking against McKean’s transition to the Innovation Center.
Kevin Nai, a special education English teacher at McKean, was among them.
“Knowing how daunting it will be for me, I can't imagine how difficult that adjustment process will be for our students,” Nai said. “Many students at McKean have been able to cultivate networks of support among our caring, organized staff, but this has taken lots of time of effort to cultivate over their high school careers.”
Nai said he supports a pause in this process to find a way to better support students in the transition process if the change goes through in the future.
Board member Devon Hynson said this has been a struggle even on the committee in charge of the project.
“There were multiple people on the committee that said it wasn't ready,” Hynson said. “They said that they voted no. And we continue to steamroll and push forward because there were so many people on the committee from the district that their voice could not be really heard.”
