Capital School District Loses $330,000 In Title I Funding

David Paulk, with the Dover Post, wrote an article in their newspaper today about how Capital School District is adjusting to the enormous $330,000 in Title I funding cuts.  The article, which does not appear on their online edition, states:

Capital School District officials are dealing with a significant cut in Title IA funding.  The cuts, highlighted in the preliminary budget in June, surprised some educators.

That is a huge amount of money in cuts, and it will affect a great deal of students.  What is the reason for this drastic cut?  It is NOT due to parent opt-outs of the Smarter Balanced Assessment.  It has to do with the poverty rates set up by the United States Department of Education.  According to DOE spokesperson Alison May in the article:

“The change is mainly due to the starting allocations the districts receive for the geographic districts from the United States Department of Education, which is based on their area poverty rate,” May said. “In other words, Capital saw such a big difference because it had a lower poverty rate this year so it received fewer funds accordingly.”

I reached out to May to get more information about why Capital lost so much and if other districts were affected.  She clarified that Caesar Rodney lost a little bit as well, which the article suggested:

Capital’s allocation this year is down about $343,000; Caesar Rodney’s is down about $48,000 from last year.  Capital’s this year: $3,057,381; CR’s this year: $2,496,552. Will have to check on if any other districts had changes and get back to you on that as I don’t have those figures myself.

I checked on the Delaware DOE profiles section of their website, and statewide, low-income numbers for the state went from 37.8% in FY2014 to 35% in FY2015 which somewhat correlates to Capital’s over 10% in funding cuts.  When I looked at their specific low-income numbers, they went from 52.5% in FY14 to 48.6% in FY15.  For their enrollment figures overall, Capital went from 6,526 in FY13 to 6,695.

So what is going on in Capital?  By looking at their enrollment figures by grade from one year to the next, Capital lost a ton of students at the high school level.  In FY14, they had 601 students in 9th grade.  In FY15, they lost 157 students, cause their low-income rate to drop from 52.6% to 40.3% for those two school years.  It is customary that some students will choice out of district and go to other districts or charter schools in the area.  But there are only two charter high schools in Kent County, Positive Outcomes and Early College High School.

Positive Outcomes has been around for almost twenty years, and they have a fixed amount of seats available.  They also start in 7th grade, and most students tend to finish there once they get into high school.  But Early College High School just opened last fall, so this could account for a massive change in numbers.  Oddly enough, Capital’s special education numbers for students with disabilities from 9th grade to 10th grade went from 23.3% in FY14 to 17.9% for FY15, which is a massive change as well.  The DOE website does not show Early College High School’s enrollment figures on their website in the school profiles section.  However, their September 30th count report, which I posted last November, shows 126 students enrolled at Early College High School in 9th grade last year.  But, Early College High School shows only 9th grade for FY15, and Capital actually increased in student enrollment for 8th graders in FY14 of 475 students to 640 9th graders in FY15.  This can definitely be impacted by Campus Community School only going to 8th grade..

Title I funding is a tricky beast as I am now learning.  What could be happening is Early College High School is getting a lot of Title I students from both Capital and Campus Community while Capital retains more non Title I students.  Holy Cross, a Catholic school in Dover, only goes to 8th grade as well.  Holy Cross is tuition-based, so I would tend to doubt there would be that many Title I students in their enrollment.  Poly-tech actually lost a great deal of low-income students as well.  If anyone else can figure this out, let me know!

Two Christina School Board Members Going Rogue & Making Decisions Affecting The District WITHOUT Notifying The Rest of the Board

This story is gaining traction as the day goes on.  Apparently, two Christina board members made a HUGE decision two months ago without notifying the other members of the board.  While this HUGE decision is not illegal, unless they put it in writing under authority of the board, which I don’t think they did, and because it is not a quorum, it still shows a complete lack of protocol in a school board.  This is something that will affect the district for a LONG time.

It is obvious there are major issues going on, not only with the district, but also it’s Board of Education.  One of these board members has been known to cause issues in the past with transparency to other board members.  Power is a very addictive thing, and those who abuse it should be held responsible and all actions should be brought to light.  Especially when it involves the largest school district in the state.

This is a board of seven, not one, or two, trying to curry favor with elected officials, State Departments, and local business interests.  They need to remember what they are there for, to look out for the best interests of the district, which in essence, means the students of the district.  None of the two board member’s recent actions seem to be for the betterment of students and the stability of the district.  Especially since what they did happened almost two months ago and no one else knew about it…until now…

What The Hell Is Going On With Christina School District?

In response to my reblog of a post on Kilroy’s Delaware, someone made a comment on my side of things, and it is very damning to Christina School District.  Meanwhile there are multiple accusations flying all over the place regarding a potential mole on Christina’s board.

I don’t understand. Is this meeting called by the school board or Markell? Is Kilroy saying Markell has minions on the Christina school board who will do his bidding to force Dr. Williams out?

As a CSD resident and parent, I don’t think that it is wrong to evaluate Williams’ competency and ability to lead the district. My question would be, why has it taken this long? Under his watch we have seen an increase in unnecessary spending that has created an environment of financial instability.

I know, I know, cost of running the district have gone up and monies coming in have remained flat. I get that, and I accept it, but Dr. Williams and his henchman, Bob Silber, have known this for the last three years! They have seen this coming, yet they chose to give car allowances to top level district employees…..BMW, Mercedes and Lexus vehicles being paid for with MY tax dollars. Cell phones for hundreds of district employees paid for with MY tax dollars. Travel reimbursement for regular job travel, meaning these people knew they’d be driving a lot when they took their positions, amounts that register in the thousands of dollars. The head of HR begin reimbursed for freight costs. What is the head of HR ordering, presumably for district business, that she has to pay the freight cost personally and then be reimbursed? These are the kinds of things that are going on under Dr. Williams’ watch. And this just scratches the surface! And don’t forget the two failed referendum.

So, should Freeman (there is no “d” in his name, Kilroy) be under review? ABSOLUTELY! The board needs to take a long, hard look at how he has run the district for the last three years. And not only him, but his chief staff members. There is shady business afoot in CSD finance and personnel.

Having said all of that, I hope and pray that there are not Markell-influenced members of the board who are trying to help the governor manhandle the future of this district. The last thing we need is this US DOE want-to-be poking his bald head any further into our business. He obviously does not know, nor does he care, about true education in this state. His veto of HB50 sealed his fate, and how he’s in a panic to try to clean up his name, but he needs to find another way to do it. And he needs to keep his ugly mitts off of our children’s future.

Those are some very serious accusations against Freeman Williams and other administrators within the district.  The next couple weeks should be VERY interesting in Christina.  After failing to pass two referendums, declining enrollment due to parents choicing out of district, and the whole redistricting effort in Wilmington to get City of Wilmington schools out of Christina, this district has some large battles ahead.  Is there dissension on the board?  It appears so, and how it shakes out will be anyone’s guess.  Does Governor Markell have a hand in this?  This I do not know at all and I’m kind of doubting he would tell me if I asked him!

In terms of the legality of the whole agenda issue, the question looms based on the recent Attorney General opinion on Appoquinimink’s school board discussing their Superintendent Matt Burrows’ contract in executive session.  Should Freeman Williams’ “accountability” hearing be a matter of private or public session.  Between here and Kilroy’s, comments are swinging more towards executive session, but the issue of legality should be resolved prior to this meeting, not after.