The Christina School District referendum did not pass today. Unofficial results for Newcastle County are showing 5,074 for and 5,968 against. This is a stunning defeat for the children of this school district. Those who voted no must see these children as Delaware’s most unwanted children in the state. It amounted to $4.50 a week for the average citizen. I feel ashamed to live in Delaware right now. Red Clay is celebrated like the second coming, but Christina is the unloved stepchild of Wilmington. Did any of you who voted no ever think about that? What these children will lose? You voted NO for the future of our state. You voted NO for the over 13,000 students in this district. You voted NO on their ability to get the same equal education other districts get. Your vote guarantees more jobs will be lost. And with charters getting shut down left and right or going under formal review or probation, not to mention all the stuff yet to come out, there will be more teachers looking for jobs. Way to screw education in Delaware haters…
The Season Of Myths 
Nice job “nays”. You screwed the kids.
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I feel like crying!
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Reblogged this on Kilroy's delaware.
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The public, society as a whole, whatever you want to call them… They, almost always, without fail, only care about one thing: “Themselves” or “Their own”.
They are either too stupid or too obtuse to see that if being part of a vibrant, successful community requires that we all chip in a little to help everyone, not just try and grab what’s good for us and screw everyone else.
I’m disheartened, but completely unsurprised. Those “no” voters refuse to shell out $4.50 more per week to help keep their local school district afloat but they’ll swing thru the drive-thru tomorrow at Starbucks and order a venti double-mocca-frappachino for $7.00 a pop.
Mankind, voters, etc… Always such a disappointment.
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Not an argument, but actual student count in Christina is just over 16,000. Add the 5500 charter students we also fund, that’s a collective 21,500 children who just had their school system decimated by 6,000 voters.
2,600 employees. Up to 200 teachers, paras and aides are gone. Band programs, art classes, drama programs, library, phys ed. All on the block. Class sizes will balloon. Individual school budgets erased. Sports programs at Middle Schools and JV, gone.
That’s a glimpse of the full scale impact.
There is an Expense Reduction Committee meeting at Gauger tomorrow night at 6:30pm followed by a Board of Education meeting at 7:30 also at Gauger.
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This is ridiculous. 6,000 voters determine the fates of well over four times their number? This is the most f-ed up system I have ever seen in my life. And while the Conservatives and Liberals are fighting over on Facebook about this, Markell and his cronies are laughing their asses off. NO MORE!
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Deplorable outcome facilitated by no effort at all to support the children being expended by some legislators (for shame, you know who you are) and half-hearted spasms of support dulled by constant and unwarranted condemnations of Christina by others (you also know who you are–as do I) Sleep well. You must be exhausted from turning your backs on so many.
State Representative John Kowalko
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Reblogged this on Creative Delaware and commented:
This is very sad. When money is low art educators and the like are the first to go…
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Good. You greedy pricks. This is the second worst district in the state and you don’t deserve a dime more. Not a freaking dime. Get your sorry assed acts together. YOU sacrifice for a change. YOU lose jobs and take pay cuts if you really don’t wan the kids to suffer. You are thieves and your leaders are worse.
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Who are you blaming?
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I know the “moderator” won’t allow anyone who disagrees with this beat down to make any comments. But it is exactly one of the reasons why. You scumbags need to do an investigation into a person named Tim Barchak who works in your district and you will find out why you have lost. An actual communist in your midst…probably one of many. We are on to you and we beat your stealing asses again and we will do it again. This is war and we will continue to win these battles until you people shape up and get with the program
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Tim Barchak does not and has not ever worked for Christina. This is the most ridiculous comment and absolute character assassination I’ve ever read. Who are YOU?
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I normally wouldn’t allow such disgusting comments to go up, but in this case I felt it was warranted to show how uninformed and ugly the naysayers on the referendum can be. The amount of hate and anger shown by that commenter concerns me at high levels Mike. How did it get to this point?
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As well, the “Rob” and “Alex” are the same person. A cowardly way to attack using multiple aliases…
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The true cowards are the “moderators” and writers of this piece of shit blog who are too afraid to let people who disagree make a post. You filthy piece of shit.
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We want your shitty TEACHERS to suffer. Take that kick in the ass you scumbags. Teach better. Churn out good students for once in a century. Maybe then we will vote to give you more money.
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And just like that – the crazies have a turn at the pulpit.
My take : far more people turned out for this referendum than for school board elections. This is not a referendum on Christinam. It was and is a referendum on the archaic way we fund schools, a referendum to hang around the gov’s neck for bleeding education dry and selling our children to the highest corporate bidder. In the very least, you can’t blame the no voters for this failure, you must place blame at the feet of the non-voters. The More than 10000 disengaged and disenfranchised silent minority who choice to forgo their democratic right and their moral obligation. But, really we should all blame Jack.
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Alex, you are a fool. There is no question about that.
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The teachers that they’re letting go aren’t shitty and have seniority. These teachers that they’re letting go and all these programs are probably the best that our schools have to offer. But they keep the shitty teachers and the shitty programs. It’s a shame that the referendum didn’t pass.
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I have to admit that I’m not surprised that the referendum didn’t pass. As a mother of 3 and educator, I’m very disappointed with the CSD system. I have a child that goes to one of the high schools, and made several calls to speak with principal – not once they called me back (i’ve made some calls in the past two years and still not one called back). I’ve gone inside the school when I needed to pick up my child and find that one or several students are high on drugs in hallway or in front of school during school hours – I’m bombarded with how this is neglected. I’ve contacted counselor to see the updates and changes in my child’s 504 plan and got no returns from them. What does it tell you about the public schools? Do we really want to invest more money into it even if there’s been no progress in the education system? Its no wonder that many parents want to send their child to charter or other alternative schooling. My child goes to the public high school of CSD and has to put up with the “bad apples” in class and affects the learning greatly. Then turns out, the students who had disrupted, violated or however you call it the code of conduct and they come back to class (like nothing happened). Does this really teach the students on how the real world works if they had violated the rules/law? I have seen and heard stories about how teachers are faced with difficult students. Then yet, I’ve seen and heard about how teachers don’t really do their jobs – they’re just trying to get by due to various reason (ie. lack of support from administrators regarding to troubled students; lack of support from families in working with the schools/teachers; continuous piling of paperwork demanded by the state/federal on teachers; and so forth). The state can keep recreating state tests and finding better ways to improve our children’s education. How much money is being spent on that? What the state fails to do is what is mandated from parents to become involved in the child’s education? What happened to “zero tolerance policy”? Is this what the taxpayers want to pay on if the CSD doesn’t enforce the rules (as stated in Code of conduct/Student handbook) onto the students, parents, families or administrators? How is the state of Delaware going to advocate families who has single parent or both parents working and trying to get involved in the child’s education; and cannot miss work in order to be involved in child’s education? Why not create a policy with all schools and workplace that parents volunteer and participate in child’s school (since research does show more parent involvement increases child’s academics)?? Its time for ALL of us to WORK together for the sake of our children by NOT recreating the cycle of state testing, etc…. but on how state can enforce parents to be involved? The education system fails to continue working with families/child on morals, values, and so fourth in order to “takes a village to raise a child”. That has gone out of the window.
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