Five members of the Wilmington Education Improvement Committee held a second town hall meeting Tuesday night at Cab Calloway School in Wilmington.
The evening started with an overview of exactly what the Commission is and will do – which is to create a plan to redistrict Christina and Colonial city students into the Red Clay School District.
Tony Allen explained to a lightly populated theater that 51 percent of Delaware school children are low-income, that there’s an insufficient revenue base for schools at the state and local level, adding that most importantly this process is not a silver bullet solution.
"Simply redrawing the lines will not change educational outcomes for our children," said Allen.
He also explained that the Commission would submit one package to the state board of education – a resource plan, a transition plan and an implementation plan. Those plans have to be approved by the state board of education, which has until March 31, 2016 to redistrict.
Community members raised a litany of concerns. Rose Asher, a Red Clay resident, said she was tired of her taxes going up after every referendum. Dan Rich, a commission member, said that there wouldn’t be an inordinate burden on Red Clay residents. He added that “onee District is being asked to step up as the lead metropolitan district,” because as it stands, there are 20 school district-like entities to govern 12,000 students. Rich said that Red Clay was chosen because it’s an innovative district and is the only district in the state to have authorized a charter school.
Bill Doolittle and Henry Clampet expressed concerns that whatever carefully chosen road the commission takes, their plans could be changed by the state board of education after they’ve adopted it.
“It’s gonna get played with and the fidelity is going to deteriorate," said Dolittle. "We’ve seen it time after time after time.”
Rich responded that his understanding was the law specified that the Board is restricted by whatever the commission submits. Chandra Pitts told the audience that there would need to be a grassroots effort to make sure that that fidelity be maintained.
Attending to all of those concerns, disparate as they may be, is basically the point, says Tizzy Lockman, a member of the Commission.
And I think for some people, they’ve really only come to the table since redistricting started making the front page of the paper, on a weekly basis,"said Lockman. "I mean that’s really why we wanted to approach this as a chance to listen, as much as to speak.
The next commission town hall will take place next Thursday at Sarah Pyle Academy in Wilmington
