To my knowledge, this is a first. A New Castle County school district Superintendent has been nominated to join a charter school board. I know board members from a traditional school district are not able to join a charter school board, but I don’t believe there is anything in Delaware state code that would prevent a Superintendent from joining. With that being said, I believe this would be a HUGE conflict of interest for both the charter and the district.
So which Superintendent in one of the five school districts in New Castle County is under consideration? Here are a few hints. He is related to a former state representative. His district’s board had a tiff with WEIC over their students. Yes, Dusty Blakey, the Superintendent of Colonial School District is being considered to join the Aspira of Delaware Charter Operations, Inc. Board of Directors…
From their December 2015 board minutes:
ADCO Board Nomination
Dusty Blakey, Superintendent of Colonial School District
And the actual board minutes:
Updated 2:51pm: I looked in Colonial’s board minutes for December and I didn’t see any mention of this nomination for Blakey to the LAAA board. I did find a letter from their board president, Joseph Laws, with the following part of it concercing LAAA:
Speaking of visitors, another first for the district was requested group tours for students from Kuumba and Las Americas ASPIRA Academies. Charter schools are now recognizing that WPHS, with its 20 college degree programs and enrichment programs, is the next best step for their students!
The Season Of Myths 
It’s my understanding that Aspira sends a number of students to Wm Penn HS in Colonial. So not completely crazy. I don’t know how many Aspira K-8 students live in the Colonial district.
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I would actually love to see the Christina Super on the NCS board! If he maintained his CSD loyalty, that could spur some long overdue conversations about impact of large charters on surrounding schools. I see your concern, but I’m not certain this is a bad thing.
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as if NCS would EVER let this happen…
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No, they wouldn’t.
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Have to agree with Eve. To involve District representation only opens the opportunity for collaboration between the two. I think it is a better more sustainable model. Possibly good things to come?
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This left me wondering if he was trying to get his kids into the school…I suppose I am more suspicious than Jenn and Eve. So I guess agree that is makes some sense especially if he sees some educational deficiencies from students coming to his district from that school. A few years back my child’s high school science teacher at told us on parent night that kids from NCS needed extra work around creative and critical thinking and CSD kids needed more work on rote memorization. But since there is no relationship between the schools, there was nothing to do except for the HS teachers to fill the gaps. Now that doesn’t matter so much with NCS but still does for Aspira kids. I’m still not a benefit of the doubt kind of person when it comes to Charters though…there is almost always something nefarious!
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