I knew things were bad at Delaware Met. I knew things I was unable to confirm officially. But the reality, and other things I didn’t know about…
Below are just a few of the things said during Delaware Met’s final formal review meeting with the Charter School Accountability Committee on 12/1/15. This is a must-read! If you ever want to open a school, I would highly recommend doing the opposite of what Delaware Met did, and you should do great! Below these quotes is the full meeting notes.
Ms. Ogden also noted that the school was not prepared for the unannounced monitoring visit, as there were active files on the table and a flash drive was lost in the first room the DDOE staff monitored. She also added that, during the DDOE monitoring visit, an event occurred which set off the fire alarm and resulted in evacuation from the building and no access to the special education resource room on the second floor where the active special education files were stored. Ms. Ogden stated that “the second floor was condemned.”
She added that the lessons plans are for middle school, more specifically early middle school, although The Delaware Met is a high school.
Mr. Blowman commented that the School Leader should be able to go out on maternity leave without the school falling apart. He noted that these issues point to massive weaknesses in the school’s organizational model.
Ms. Nagourney requested clarification whether the Board took action during meetings that were not publicly noticed.
Ms. Massett said that wanted the record to reflect that the school did not reach out to the charter community for assistance.
She specifically noted that the list stated that a bullet was found in one of the classrooms and asked the school why it did not contact the police in that instance.
She indicated that she was fearful about safety in the school when reading about BB guns and tasers.
However, she expressed disappointment that the school listed two calls for severe student disruption despite seven different instances leading to nine arrests being listed in the information provided by WPD.
She identified several incidents, including a student’s hair being set on fire, an assault, weapons being brought to the school, near riots, and threats toward staff members as severe disruptions.
And when a school fails to meet multiple standards and fails to create a safe and appropriate environment in which students can thrive, it warrants serious action.
The motion carried unanimously.
The Season Of Myths 
Classic DCSN action, steely knife, right in the back.
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Oh Kendall, you are a real piece of work aren’t you?
John Kowalko
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Sadly, this confirms:
1) The difficulties of opening a new school.
2) The breadth of needs of our many Wilmington students and those who need to be served in alternative programs.
3) That the WEIC commission’s plans may not delve deep enough into the root problems that face our children, especially those in poverty and violence.
The closing of any school is a sad thing. The saving grace is that in these families time of need, the district schools (that they chose to leave) are considered by the DOE to be more viable than this new school catastrophe.
4) Confirmation that DOE is must do more in preparing these schools that they authorize for the diversity and intensity of student needs.
We need a more hands-on advisory DOE. Not a “Gotcha” DOE.
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Oh yeah, one more thing:
Is it possible that these will lead to the demise of Innovative Schools? Surely this report shows that they are not equipped to be a Charter Management Company. Since Innovative receives funds derived from the DOE and our education dollars, can we even hope that there will be some sort of recompense for the tax payers who have funded this disaster?
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