Wide array of Wilmington Educators, Parents and Community Leaders Selected to Serve

Wilmington, DE – Today, Wilmington Education Advisory Group Chairman Tony Allen announced the members of the advisory committee formed by Governor Markell through Executive Order 46. The body was created to advise the Governor and his administration on how best to strengthen educational opportunities for all Wilmington students and to support family engagement.

The group convened for the first time earlier this month, and began to review options considered by earlier groups and commissions to improve access to quality public education options. The group will build upon this earlier work and extend it to meet the challenges now facing Wilmington students and families. The group has tasked itself with putting forward clear, actionable, recommendations that address both structural and programmatic barriers impeding the progress of many Wilmington students, especially low-income students.  These barriers not only diminish student achievement in school, they also limit lifelong opportunities for productive and rewarding lives and work.

Dr. Allen, a long-time Wilmington resident, civic leader and bank executive offered the following on the work of the committee, “The work of this advisory group is important, but it is not new.  There is more than 100 years of evidence suggesting that low-income children – from urban and rural environments – can succeed at very high levels but need more in the way academic and non-academic supports to realize their full potential.  Over the last 20 years, there have been specific, consistent recommendations offered in support of the success and well-being of Wilmington children.   Now is the time to translate agreement on recommendations into actions that are implemented.”

The group’s first meeting took place on November 5, 2014, and information on that session is posted here.  The group includes the following citizens:

• Norma Ivonne Antongiorgi – La Academia Antonia Alonso Charter School board member, retired Wilmington teacher
• Mayor James Baker – Former Mayor of the City of Wilmington, Chairman Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League
• Rosemary Banks – retired Wilmington teacher
• Adriana Bohm, Ph.D. – Wilmington parent and School Board Member
• Melissa Browne – Wilmington parent and Pre-K Lead Planner, Relay Graduate School of Education
• Nikki Castle, Ph.D. – research evaluator and founder, East Side Charter School
• Councilman Nnamdi Chukwuocha – education committee chair, Wilmington City Council
• The Reverend Meredith Griffin, D.Min. – education committee chair, Interdenominational Ministers Action Council (IMAC)
• Henry Harper, Ph.D. – retired superintendent
• Susan Hessling – teacher  at Warner Elementary
• Elizabeth Lockman – Wilmington parent and community advocate
• Chandra Pitts – Wilmington parent, community activist, Executive Director of One Village Alliance
• Marco Ramos – Program Coordinator, Latin American Community Center
• Richard “Mouse” Smith – President, Delaware NAACP
• Shefon Taylor – Wilmington parent and Public Allies Alumna
• Cheryl Trawick – retired Wilmington administrator
• Meghan Wallace – former special education teacher
• Shelia Wyatt – retired Wilmington teacher

The following schedule of upcoming meetings of the Advisory Group in Wilmington:

• Monday, November 24th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at Warner Elementary School
• Saturday, December 6th from 8:00am – 12pm at the Community Education Building
• Tuesday, December 9th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm (location to be announced)
• Tuesday December 16th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm (location TBA)

Students in nine schools have made significant gains, allowing the buildings to exit state support programs for low-performing schools, the Delaware Department of Education announced today.

“I applaud the administrators, educators, students and families of these schools who have worked hard to make progress for our students,” Gov. Jack Markell said. “As we recognize these improvements, it’s important that we remember that the statistics aren’t just numbers. They represent young people who will have better opportunities to reach their potential, thriving in the classroom and beyond. Smart investments in the right programs and the leadership of schools that serve our highest need populations can make a difference and help all of our students succeed.”

Secretary of Education Mark Murphy also congratulated the schools.

“Thanks to targeted resources and support coupled with the hard work of our educators and their school communities, students in these buildings across the state are learning more and performing better in reading and math,” Murphy said. “When schools are struggling, we have an obligation to their students and families to ensure they get the help they need. These school communities should be proud of how their hard work has paid off for the benefit of their children.”

Four of the buildings were part of the state’s second cohort of Partnership Zone schools: Capital School District’s Dover High School and Red Clay Consolidated School District’s Lewis Dual Language Elementary, Marbrook Elementary, and Stanton Middle schools.

Dover, Lewis, and Marbrook each made adequate yearly progress (AYP) at least once over the past two years and did not show any major regressions in student performance, the exit criteria outlined under the state’s federal Race to the Top plan. In addition to performance goals in reading or math, schools must meet other targets, such as participation in reading or math and graduation rate or attendance rate to meet AYP.

Stanton exited based on a second option for targets set under the state’s federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility Waiver. Calculated based on the school’s baseline data, these were year-by-year targets to reduce the non-proficiency rates in the school by 2017 for reading and math.

The other five buildings were Focus Schools: Capital’s Booker T. Washington and Fairview elementary schools, Christina’s Newark High School and Oberle Elementary School and Milford’s Banneker Elementary School.

Both Fairview and Booker T. Washington have improved educational outcomes for their students from low-income families. Since the 2010-11 academic year, low-income students at Fairview have shown strong growth in reading and math of more than 22 points while Booker T. Washington Elementary has seen impressive growth among this group of students in reading and math of more than 37 points. Fairview narrowed its achievement gap from 22.8 points to 10.9 points while Booker T. Washington did so from 36.8 points to 8.7 points.

At Newark High, students from low-income families have shown growth over the same time period of more than 20 points, at almost double the pace of other subgroups. The achievement gap between low-income and non-low income students was reduced by 8.6 points.

Since the 2012-2013 school year, Oberle Elementary School has not only recovered from the drop in performance for its English learner students but the percent of students proficient increased from 23.3 percent to 56.6 percent, showing a one-year growth gain of 33.3 percent. This is a gain of 47 percent from the school’s baseline in 2010-2011.  During the same time period, the school’s subgroups of low-income and Hispanic students made gains of more than 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively.

And at Banneker Elementary School since the 2010-2011 school year, low-income students have shown remarkable gains of more than 41 points in reading and math, and Hispanic students have shown gains of more than 52 points.

The department has provided each school with funding to use toward celebrations at the school sites, recognizing the hard work and commitment of teachers and staff.