The Delaware Met had their public hearing for their formal review on 11/16/15. Yesterday, the Delaware Department of Education released the transcript. One thing is for sure: the words “blogs”, “blogger”, or “bloggers” were mentioned 8 times in the transcript. I was glad to see two members of the Delaware State Board of Education attended this event. Instead of writing about the public hearing, I’m going to let the people speak.
I feel like three months of my son’s education has been wasted because he hasn’t done much work, not many projects
I’ve tried to contact teachers with no response
…when we hear some of the horror stories that are going on with these kids, a lot of times, schoolwork might be the last thing on their mind, because a sibling was just killed three months ago, or they’re dealing with being displaced, you know, homeless.
For whatever reason, they opened the doors up and let a lot of kids in that probably didn’t fit the model and didn’t really understand what the model was.
Whatever bugs you all didn’t iron out first, go back to the drawing board, fix it. As they say, you got a hole, plug it.
But we don’t get the connection from the people who are in charge, the charter school or whoever is in charge of the charter school, and the parents, there’s no connection.
…the biggest question is who is this management organization, Innovative Schools, and why does it seem that they have been an impediment to this process? We know that starting something new often is a rocky start, but it seems like the people who are supposed to know about education in this case don’t know anything about education.
It is disturbing that some of the things that should have been in place from the first day still aren’t in place, and we’re still struggling to try to get some open communication. I think it’s interesting that a lot of parents are here, but I don’t see too many of the administrators.
So I think we need to look into it further versus basing it upon opinions of bloggers and individuals who have not been to the school to visit firsthand to see exactly what’s going on versus reading the emails that are being sent.
I don’t know who blogs. It has to be somebody in the school. It has to be somebody in the schools that’s giving out certain information that, you know, that I know some of the students is not giving out, I’m thinking it’s probably one of the teachers that don’t like and are trying to sabotage the whole school.
And whoever the blogger is, they need to mind their own business. We already know there’s an issue.
Do you all understand how bad that sounds to a kid when they go to school, the teacher says we don’t have to learn because they’re closing the school next year.
Help us out. Give the school some funding. You all keep talking about you don’t have money, or whoever, they don’t have money to put this in, put that in.
When you open something up, if you put a different animals in one cage, you’re going to have problems until you get somebody in there that knows how to train everybody.
And again, the story writers, the bloggers, whoever is doing this, saying what they want to say to make it, solidify what you’re trying to do, if you’re trying to close the school down, I mean, of course.
What kind of school around here has a mentoring program?
And I went to Mr. A.J. and he told me that, you know, I can guarantee you the school is not going to shut down and everything like that.
I got at least three trays in one day for lunch, and all the meat was bleeding, but I couldn’t get nothing brown bag. I don’t understand. These teachers going out, buying McDonald’s and all that, but we can’t do that because of other stuff.
And we have some teachers that don’t even come to school, and I don’t even know how my report card going to look. I’m not a bad kid. I know my report card going to look okay in other schools, but this school, I don’t know.
Okay, what is up with the “blame the blogger” game for a school going on formal review? Trust me, the Delaware Department of Education is not going to put a school on formal review because of information I write about. By the time I’m writing stuff, they most likely already know a great deal of the information. The things I’ve heard coming from this brand new school, that had two years to work out all the kinks, disturb me on many levels. This is a school that stated their budget for food is going to be over-budget. If they aren’t cooking the meat correctly and students keep going back for non-carcinogenic food that is actually cooked all the way through, I can see why that would be. If teachers aren’t showing up or they don’t know how to teach the curriculum, that is troubling. What kind of school lets other students show up to the school without any type of security system to prevent that? This school has already received plenty of funding, from the state and from the Longwood Foundation. Throwing more money at it isn’t going to solve anything. They will find some way to squander those funds. Plenty of schools have mentoring programs, and A.J. English knows that. I am always suspicious of anyone that may have a financial motive to keep a school open. The school may know about the issues, but parents and the public may not. That is why I blog. Do you want to know the words I was looking for the most in this transcript and I didn’t see mentioned anywhere? Special Education, IEP, and disability. How can you defend a school and not even talk about their biggest problem? Innovative Schools is in way over their head across the entire state. Other new charter schools that relied on them are having issues as well. I don’t want any school to shut down unless it is bad for students in the short-term and the long-term. I believe Delaware Met fits in both of those categories.
I know some people think I just write whatever I want and call it a day. That is not the case. There are things I could write about this school but haven’t yet. The assumption that I haven’t been in the school must mean I don’t know anything about it. Wrong. I know plenty. I went to their first Charter School Accountability Committee meeting. I heard the many questions Delaware Met and Innovative Schools couldn’t answer. These are key and essential questions that need to be answered AND fixed, or they should close. But let’s get one thing straight, unless the school is posing an immediate health risk or students are in danger, the DOE and State Board of Education don’t just shut a school down. They go through the process, and the likely options are: probation, revocation of their charter at the end of the year, or they rule the school is doing just fine. I’ve taken other steps as well in light of things I’ve heard about this school. It is obvious Delaware Met has sent information out saying “Don’t believe the blogger.” That is their prerogative. I just ask folks to keep an open mind and ask the questions.
To read the entire transcript, please read below.
The Season Of Myths 