Happy Valentines Day DE DOE Authorized Charter Schools! From the Transparency Cupid!

You didn’t think I was just checking out the Red Clay charters, did you?  I wouldn’t do that to you guys!  I have enough love for all the charters today, since the Delaware Department of Education doesn’t want to monitor your transparency, or in the case of many of you, the lack thereof!

Academia Antonia Alonso-minutes-December, Agenda-December

Academy of Dover-minutes-December, Agenda-January

Campus Community-minutes-November, Agenda-January

Delaware Acad. of Public Safety & Security-minutes-Dec 2014, agenda- “standard” message, don’t list agendas separately

Early College High School-minutes-November 2014, agenda-Jan. 29th mtg.

East Side Charter-minutes-November 2014*** , agenda-January 28th mtg, Didn’t have board mtg in December

Family Foundations Academy-minutes-January 20th, Agenda-February 10th

First State Montessori-minutes-September 2014, agenda-October 2014

Gateway Lab School-minutes-December 2014, agenda-Feb. 17th mtg

Kuumba Academy-minutes-September 2014, agenda-November

Las Americas Aspira Academy-minutes-December 2014 , agenda-January 20th mtg

MOT –minutes-September 2014, agenda-January 28th mtg (states will post agenda 10 days before next meeting)

Moyer Academy-minutes-December 2014 , agenda-January 27th mtg

Newark Charter School-minutes-December 2014, agenda-February 17th mtg

Odyssey Charter School-minutes-December 2014 , agenda-February

Positive Outcomes-minutes-October 2014, agenda-February 18th

Prestige Academy-minutes-December 2014, agenda-February (I already covered their December minutes)

Providence Creek Academy-minutes-December 2014 , agenda-January 27th mtg

Reach Academy For Girls-minutes-January 2015, agenda-February 18th mtg

Sussex Academy-minutes-November 2014, agenda-January 20th mtg

Thomas Edison Charter-minutes-November 2014, agenda-December mtg

Some of you are right on it, but 9 out of 21 of you are behind on your minutes.  5 out of 21 of you are behind on your agendas.  If you have both, you need to get on it.  It’s not hard.  The public school districts do it, and they have A LOT more work than you folks do!  Some of them even record their board meetings!  You should try it sometime.  I have a feeling it may become the law of the land sooner or later!  Some of you are new charters this year and I don’t want to see you get into the habit of non-transparency like some of your contemporaries!  And you would think Prestige Academy would fix their damn website after I posted about their Rubiks Cube website trying to find their board minutes.  I guess they are still trying to figure out how to fix that little itty bitty problem with voting on board items without a quorum at their December tavern meeting!

As for the Delaware Charter School office, I’ve heard you talking about this topic a couple times at State Board of Education meetings.  Is it that the charters just don’t care?  It sounds to me like they just ignore you.  But unless you listen to the digital audio recordings of the State Board meetings, one would never know this information.  I can’t do your job for you!  Well, I can, but then you would have to pay me! 🙂

 

Happy Valentines Day Red Clay Charters: Charter School of Wilmington, Delaware College Prep & DE Military Academy

Happy Valentines Day you wonderful Red Clay Consolidated School District charters!  I just wanted to extend the love since no one at Red Clay seems to want to monitor you guys.  I was looking at your websites, and I noticed something:

YOU HAVE NO TRANSPARENCY OF YOUR BOARD MEETINGS!!!!!

Charter School of Wilmington, last board meeting minutes: September 2014, last agenda posted-January 27th meeting

Delaware College Prep, last board meeting minutes: July 2014, last agenda posted: No agendas posted, just states what the “standard” agenda” is for each meeting

Delaware Military Academy, last board meeting minutes: September 2014, last agenda posted-NONE

And the Wilmington Education Committee wants Red Clay to take over the Christina School District Wilmington schools?  Why?  They can’t even oversee the three charters in their district!  Given the timeframe on when these charters last updated their board meetings, it almost seems intentional.  I wonder who would have planned that…

Longwood Foundation Giving Millions In Grants To Charters, TFA, and ISI

Last fall, I started seeing more and more comments in charter school board minutes (I know, an oxymoron in itself) about charters submitting grants to the Longwood Foundation, the charity arm of DuPont.  After seeing one charter school put in their board minutes how they received $1.4 million dollars, I thought I might want to check the Longwood Foundation out, and I found this on their website:

“The most recent opportunity to emerge is in leadership development. After grants made to Teach for America (TFA) and Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), we have discovered that Delaware has a growing annual cohort of leaders in their twenties (it will grow to be over two hundred people each year) – most of whom are here in short term programs (two years or less) and most of whom will leave us if we don’t make a concerted effort to keep them. We have partnered with the Delaware Business Roundtable, TFA, ISI, Public Allies, and others to develop an annual program called Delaware Talent Live (DTL) designed to attract, develop, and retain these great young leaders. It’s our hope that we can convince many, if not most of them, to stay in Delaware and accelerate their growth into leadership positions in the nonprofit, for profit, and government sectors.

We remain committed to improving Delaware’s educational opportunities — with emphasis on the K-12 system. Specifically, we want to see the academic achievement gap closed and all of our students learn in a system that seeks results that are excellent on an international scale. We are honored that Bank of America chose to work with us to develop the Community Education Building in Wilmington and have designed it to serve low-income Wilmington children – closing the achievement gap for them and pointing them towards international excellence. Separately, we recognize that there are just as many low-income children in Delaware’s southern two counties as there are in Wilmington and seek to support schools there that align with these same objectives.”

Does the DOE have a contract with this Intercollegiate Studies Institute? I’m sure they will soon if they don’t already! I bolded the part about them wanting to see the achievement gap closed. I would like to see that too. But the way I want it is for all this standardized testing crap to end so kids aren’t measure for their proficiency on these horrible assessments.   Close the tests, close the achievement gap!  Cause if I hear one more discriminatory person say all special needs kids can do as well as their peers, they are living in dreamland!  If I haven’t said it today, OPT OUT OF THE SMARTER BALANCED ASSESSMENT NOW DELAWARE PARENTS!

Oh wait, which beloved Delaware charter got the cha-ching from the Longwood Foundation?  This one:

Does the DOE

Say What? Sean Moore and Dr. Brewington Want Their Jobs Back at Family Foundations Academy

In the initial formal review report for Family Foundations Academy, there was a brief notation on the former heads of school, Sean Moore and Dr. Tennell Brewington.  Despite allegations of fraud and embezzlement, as well as a report sent to the Attorney General’s office, they have appealed to get their jobs back.  Yes, you heard that right.  I’m sure it will happen, as sure as I am that Republicans will win every seat in the House and Senate in Delaware in the next election!

There are many very interesting tidbits to read in this report, but two notable absences not mentioned in the report are Monique Dolcy from FFA and Charter School Accountability Committee member Chuck Taylor.

 

Are You Going To The Imagine Delaware Education Forum?

The News Journal is sponsoring an education forum at the Chase Center on the Waterfront in Wilmington on March 9th.  Led by David Ledford, the Executive Editor of The News Journal, the purpose of the forum is to engage in an open discussion about how best to serve Wilmington schools.  Originally the date was on February 24th which drew controversy since that was the date for the referendum on the Christina and Red Clay Consolidated School Districts.

Panelists include the following:

Mike Matthews: Warner Elementary School Teacher and President of the Red Clay Educators Association

Tony Allen: Chair of the Wilmington Education Committee and a Bank of America executive

Mark Holodick: Superintendent of the Brandywine School District

Senator David Sokola: Chair of the Delaware Senate Education Committee

Lamont Browne: Head of School for East Side Charter and Family Foundations Academy

Tizzy Lockman: University of Delaware Public Policy Graduate Student and Mother

The forum kicks off at 6:30pm, but there will be an Education Expo at the location from 4:00-6:00pm where district and charter representatives will be on hand to talk to citizens about their schools.

Governor Jack Markell will give opening remarks at the Education Forum.

If you plan on going, it is free, but you would need to register here: http://newsjournal.upickem.net/engine/YourSubmission.aspx?contestid=164189