Charter School Office At Delaware DOE Throws Transparency Out The Window

Good luck finding out any information on the many Delaware charter schools that are up for renewal this December.  Turns out the Charter School Office scrubbed that part of their website on Thursday.  This same office has also gone without a leader since July 1st, three and a half months after Denise Stouffer left the role for Providence Creek Academy.

While I’m sure the DOE will call this a simple technical error, that is one big error!  How do you empty a whole webpage?

I checked this page today because I knew the Charter School Accountability Committee would be holding their first meetings with the many charter schools under renewal this month.  The last thing I wanted to see was a blank page.

So which charter schools are up for renewal? Delaware Design-Lab Design Thinking Academy, First State Military Academy, Freire, Greak Oaks, Kuumba, Newark Charter School, and Positive Outcomes.  Maybe when the Charter School Office gets the email tomorrow morning about me writing this blog post they will restore the page.

The Charter School Office leader position has been posted twice for recruitment.  Does nobody want this job or is the DOE looking for someone in particular?  My bet would go to the former.  I’m sure any applicant would know that just having the role would put them in my crosshairs.  Which is fine as long as you are transparent and aren’t doing the shady charter school cover-up stuff that would cause me to write something bad about you.

We saw a charter school collapse this fall while the Charter School Office remained without a leader.  And now we should expect that office to deal with seven charter renewals?  Sounds like Secretary of Education Susan Bunting’s idea of the DOE as a support organization is a bit of a misnomer.  I see it as not-so-organized chaos.

Delaware DOE Responds Positively To My Request For More Transparency On The Assessment Inventory

I emailed several folks at the Delaware Department of Education about more transparency surrounding the current Assessment Inventory initiative taking place in Delaware.  Since then, they have added a tab on their “Announcements” section on their front page calling for public comment on the assessment inventory.  They have also added the minutes, agendas, and other presentations from the Senate Joint Resolution #2 Assessment Inventory Committee on a new page: Delaware Assessment Inventory Senate Joint Resolution #2.  To be sure this wasn’t always there, I right clicked on the page and checked properties which said it was created today, 2/5/16.  Thank you to the Delaware DOE for doing the right thing and making this information more transparent for concerned parents up and down Delaware!