Breaking News: School’s Out For Summer! And Spring Too! But There Is A Twist! And Other Tidbits!

My moles across the state are telling me about emails going out to teachers and staff that schools will be physically closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year.  This unprecedented and historic move is based on the remaining threat of Covid-19 in Delaware.  At a press briefing today Delaware Governor John Carney, when specifically asked, had not determined the fate of the school year.  But just as that was going on, an email was sent out to Red Clay Consolidated School District teachers and staff about the future:

Bombshell Document Shows Massive Amounts Of Collusion With Indian River School District Audit Investigation

It appears there was collusion going on between various Delaware agencies when it came to the Indian River School District audit investigation in 2016.  As a result of that collusion, Patrick Miller walks free and Susan Bunting became the Delaware Secretary of Education.

Can A Superintendent Of A School District Join A Charter School Board?

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. 

Four Delaware School Districts On The BrINC Of Massive Data Sharing

I’ve been meaning to write about this consortium for a while now, but other matters kept pushing it to the side.  BrINC stands for Brandywine, Indian River, New Castle County Vo-Tech and Colonial, the four school districts that are part of the BrINC Consortium.  What is BrINC?  It is a massive personalized learning initiative.  And they are using the very same company that has hundreds of other companies under its data sharing umbrella.  The Delaware Department of Education and Rodel love this little group.  Rodel especially has been pushing personalized learning for a couple years now.  I can see why.  It’s a cash cow for education technology companies.  Especially IMS Global Learning Consortium who delivers all these wonderful toys to BRINC.  Think of IMS as a big huge cloud.  It houses all the data, and members pay a hefty fee to be a part of that cloud.  But it looks like Indian River School District, a member of IMS’ elite group of hundreds of other companies, school districts and universities, pays the bills to IMS.

Indian River loves the DOE, and the DOE loves them.  New Delaware State Board of Education member Nina Bunting said at their State Board Retreat last month “When the DOE says jump, we say how high.”  Current Superintendent Susan Bunting was in the running for Mark Murphy’s slot a few years ago.  So that leaves the other three districts: Brandywine, Colonial and New Castle County Vo-Tech.  Brandywine’s Mark Holodick has been hypnotized by the Vision Coalition (Rodel), Governor Markell loves the NCC Vo-Tech schools like Howard High School, and Colonial…things are fairly quiet with them.  Although I do like Colonial’s Superintendent.  Anyone who tells the DOE he wishes he could just “blow it up” when talking about the DOE’s school report card fiasco is okay in my book!  They don’t make a lot of noise.  Not like Christina and Red Clay.  Just think of the geography with this.  All the Wilmington school districts that aren’t a large part of the redistricting efforts and the biggest tourist area in the state.

To see what BrINC is all about, read their grant application below:

Are You Going To The Imagine Delaware Education Forum?

The News Journal is sponsoring an education forum at the Chase Center on the Waterfront in Wilmington on March 9th.  Led by David Ledford, the Executive Editor of The News Journal, the purpose of the forum is to engage in an open discussion about how best to serve Wilmington schools.  Originally the date was on February 24th which drew controversy since that was the date for the referendum on the Christina and Red Clay Consolidated School Districts.

Panelists include the following:

Mike Matthews: Warner Elementary School Teacher and President of the Red Clay Educators Association

Tony Allen: Chair of the Wilmington Education Committee and a Bank of America executive

Mark Holodick: Superintendent of the Brandywine School District

Senator David Sokola: Chair of the Delaware Senate Education Committee

Lamont Browne: Head of School for East Side Charter and Family Foundations Academy

Tizzy Lockman: University of Delaware Public Policy Graduate Student and Mother

The forum kicks off at 6:30pm, but there will be an Education Expo at the location from 4:00-6:00pm where district and charter representatives will be on hand to talk to citizens about their schools.

Governor Jack Markell will give opening remarks at the Education Forum.

If you plan on going, it is free, but you would need to register here: http://newsjournal.upickem.net/engine/YourSubmission.aspx?contestid=164189