▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:7:26 – 0:15:43

   1. • Morgan Dukes (McKean staff member & alumni): Emphasized that dismantling a successful comprehensive high school does not solve enrollment challenges;

      • Mary Cole (parent): Urged the board to consider the human impact on students

      • Jenny Howard (parent): Raised concerns about equity and district-wide planning; 

2. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 1:27:27 

   1. • Board Member Susan Sander provided an update on the Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee that met February 5, 2026 including upcoming dates and meeting topics. 

3. Board Discussion
   ⏯ 1:37:22 

   1. • Board members debated the role of the community in Innovation Center committee meetings.

Morgan Dukes: Hello. My name is Morgan Dukes. I'm a McKean staff member and alumni. I want to be really clear. I don't claim to have the perfect solution to our enrollment challenges. It's a complex problem and it deserves a lot more thoughtful and collaborative work. But what I can say is that dismantling one of the district's comprehensive high schools that is performing well is not the answer. You don't fix one problem by creating another. And repurposing a stable, successful school does not strengthen our system. It destabilizes it. What is most troubling is not just the plan itself, but how consistently the concerns about it have been ignored. Staff, parents, community members, and students have spoken out repeatedly. They've shown up to meetings. They've emailed. They've shared thoughtful questions, real fears, and practical concerns. And yet, those plans have gone unanswered, not addressed, not incorporated, just acknowledged, and then set aside. Public schools are already losing students. Trust is fragile. Families are paying attention. Right now, parents with children in elementary and middle schools are watching this process unfold. They're watching how concerns are handled. They're watching whether voices matter. And many of them are asking a very reasonable question. Is this a district that listens to its community? If the answer appears to be no, they will choose to leave public education. That's how enrollment declines accelerate. Not because families reject public education, but because they lose faith in the process behind it. Finally, I want to address a hard truth. A plan without buy-in will fail. It doesn't matter how detailed the rollout is. It doesn't matter how enthusiastic district leadership or board members might be. If staff don't believe in it, if students don't support it, and if families don't trust it, the plan won't succeed. Implementation requires cooperation, morale, and shared purpose. You can't mandate those. They have to be earned. Right now, buy-in is not just low, it's actively eroding. and continuing forward without addressing that reality risks wasting time, resources, and goodwill that this district can't afford to lose. I urge you to pause, reflect, and reconsider the path forward. Engage the people who will be most affected. Strengthen what is already working. And remember, sustainable solutions are built with communities, not imposed on them. Thank you. 

Mary Cole: Good evening members of the School Board. I come here tonight before you not just as a parent, but as an advocate for stability, security, and fairness for our children. In the fall of 2027, Thomas McKean High School is set to be restructured into an Innovation Center. While I understand the intent behind this change, I need you to understand what this means for students like my daughter and for so many others. My daughter will be a senior that year. Instead of celebrating her final year with the teachers, the counselors, the coaches, the friends who have supported her for three years, she will be uprooted and sent to a completely different school. New teachers, new administration, new sports teams, new support staff. And for her and for many students, this isn't just a change. It's a disruption of everything that gives them confidence and security. Students with special needs and learning disabilities thrive on consistency. They need to feel safe and supported to succeed. McKean has given my daughter that environment. It has molded her into a confident, independent young adult. To rip her away from that in her senior year would be devastating. It could set her back tremendously, not just academically, but emotionally. And this isn't just about my child. Every student deserves a chance to finish their high school journey where they started, surrounded by the relationships that they've built with the teachers and counselors, coaches, and peers. These bonds aren't just connections. They are lifelines. They are what help our kids grow into strong, capable adults. Senior year is supposed to be a celebration, a time to reflect on years of hard work and look forward to the future. Forcing these students to start over in an unfamiliar environment during this critical year is frankly unfair. It would be a sin to tear them away from the place that they call home. So tonight, I'm asking the board to consider the human impact of this decision. Please work with the district to create a transition plan that allows current McKean students, especially those entering their senior year, to graduate at McKean. Grandfather them in. Give them the stability that they need and deserve. Because when we prioritize their well-being, we set them up for success not just in school but in life. Thank you for listening and considering the impact this will have on the current students of McKean High School. Thank you.

Jenny Howard: Hi. Good evening members of the School Board and Dr. Green. My name is Jenny Howard and I almost wasn't going to speak tonight but at the last second I thought you know what - I need to say this so that you all can understand. Over the past two years my questions have been dismissed or reframed as adversarial. And I'm aware of the chatter, but I want to remind everyone of something I said the first time I spoke. I'm here for one reason and one reason only and that's the kids and that means all of the kids which is why I want to talk about the fiscal and structural implications of the proposed McKean Innovation Center. We're discussing major redesign of three comprehensive high schools but we currently have five high schools in this district - two of which are selective magnet schools with enrollment criteria that many students can't access. Those two schools consistently offer the broadest range of sports, extracurriculars, advanced coursework, and CTE pathways. So, if we're talking about structural change, why are we not examining the full high school ecosystem? Why are only the comprehensive schools being restructured? If we're serious about equity, shouldn't we be evaluating whether resources are equitably distributed across all five high schools, not just redesigning the ones that serve the highest need populations? This isn't an attack. It's a systems question. And before moving forward with the innovation center, I really think we need to see the full fiscal impact analysis, a comparison of per pupil expenditures across all five high schools, and a clear explanation of how this plan advances equity districtwide, not just structurally reshuffles three buildings. And finally, I just want to say to the parent that just spoke about the bus concern back in October, the Director of Transportation promised that there would be some type of portal or Google doc or some method to contact transportation and get a written response back to them back to the parents because parents have transportation concerns all the time. It is very difficult to call transportation. Most of the time someone doesn't answer. When they do answer, they are very short. Obviously, they are busy and it is not the best way to get in contact with somebody from the transportation department. There needs to be a system and we were promised that and parents are still waiting for that. So, we're just asking for more transparency across the board. Thank you for your time tonight. 

Susan Sander: I can give that report. This was our initial meeting. As you know, this committee was approved of just recently. So we had our initial meeting. We went over meeting norms. Basically be respectful of everybody's points of view, be respectful of time. We went over the committee's charge from the Board, which Mr. Pruitt reviewed. We went over the history of how we got to this point which was appreciated by a lot of people who were on the committee just to have a refresher on the entire history of this Attendance Zone Restructuring Committee. We then went over the team and the topics. I believe the steering committee information can be found on the website so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on that. We did go over the calendar and I do want to bring that up to the Board. It was proposed that we have a meeting on March 25th, which is a Wednesday. The reasoning for the days of the week is though that we would not be heavily concentrating our time on just one day of the week in case that was a conflict for parents and administrators and people that serve on the board. 

So we have a Wednesday, March 25th. We'll go over communications, student services, the Meadowood program, attendance zones, and school choice. 

May 28th is the next scheduled meeting. Thursday and that will go over finance, facilities, transportation and staffing. 

August 25th, which is a Tuesday, we will go over professional learning, the my to skyline program, nutrition, and state community supports.

last meeting is scheduled for October 28th, which is a Wednesday, when we will go over the McKean Innovation Center rollout and student life activities and athletics.

And the one of the reasonings for these dates is going to also coincide with Board Meetings. So, we will do every other month that the board will be meeting.

Jose Matthews:  I just had a comment overall, just a public service announcement for the committees. This is always a reminder to the community that our committee meetings are open to the public and we encourage participation. The reason I mentioned this specifically I know that there's been concern - about the amount of what's being referenced at least - community engagement for the McKean Innovation Center. We had the AI Task Force which was open and available to the community. We had the AZ Committee and now we have this committee. So I just want to reiterate and I can't stress enough that everyone's welcome. But looking at the minutes... I can't tell how many people were in attendance from the public but there were only two public comments so… 

Susan Sander: In person, we had, I believe, two adults and two children. On Zoom, I cannot, I don't have that information. 

Jose Matthews: Right. So I just want to stress, you know, if the concern is that there isn't ample opportunity for engagement I just can't stress enough that this is your opportunity. This is your chance to engage and participate and have your voice heard. So I just want to just stress our welcome for those who would like to participate. 

Devon Hynson: I did want to note though, that remember we had a disagreement about what role the community can play in those committees. It was decided that those are just informational sessions where they don't really get an opportunity to participate. I hear you, but the way that it's set up now is that they don't have that opportunity. 

Jose Matthews: With the public comment. 

Susan Sander: The public comment and discussion is allowed definitely. We're not putting any holds on discussion. I believe questions can be asked to the committee. The committee members are able to respond. So I don't believe that I also just---

Beth Twardus: I was one of the people that was online and I was able to join virtually and I really appreciate I had some questions going into it and they were actually answered. 

Susan Sander: Oh, good. 

Beth Twardus: Through the presentation, the spreadsheet was really helpful as far as like the questions of what the District is thinking of and having shared that screenshot of the spreadsheet. Yes, the District is thinking of like that was really helpful to be engaging. Even though I didn't give public comment or I wasn't there in person, that information is being shared and I think that's what Mr. Matthews is getting to is that it’s a way that that information is out there for our community members.

Devon Hynson: Am I imagining that we had this discussion the previous month? Do I have to go back and pull the tape? I imagining that? Do you think? 

Jose Matthews: No, I don't think anyone's sharing that. I just, this discussion is more so to reinforce that the meetings are happening. They are public. People are welcome to attend.

Devon Hynson: I think we would have to repackage the ask because previously it was understood that there wasn't an opportunity for engagement. So what I'm saying is if we're saying now we do want you to come, we do want you to engage, we do want you to participate - then that's a new ask. 

Jose Matthews: If it wasn't stressed before, I'm making the stress now to make it. 

Devon Hynson: Ok.

Susan Sander: The next meeting is March 25th. 

Vic Leonard: Will you be available on March 25th? 

Devon Hynson: On what? 

Vic Leonard: You're on that committee, right? 

Devon Hynson: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. If the community is allowed to engage. Absolutely. Yeah.

Vic Leonard: You weren't at the last one, right? The first one.

Devon Hynson: Because the community wasn’t allowed to engage. Let me be clear. If our position now as a Board is that the community is allowed to engage, I would be more than happy to participate. 

Vic Leonard: Okay, thank you all. 

🌐Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee Webpage

📁Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee Rolling Slides

📹 Attendance Zone & Restructuring Review Committee February 5, 2026 Recording

📋 Attendance Zone & Restructuring Review Committee February 5, 2026 Meeting Minutes (draft)

▼Meeting materials below

1. Najma Landis: When you say enrollment will be "distributed equitably," what does that look like in practice? Are we considering special populations, or is this strictly a numbers game based on neighborhoods?

2. McKean Teacher: If students have a strong preference for one school over the other (e.g., Dickinson over A.I.), how will you decide who gets in? Is the enrollment fixed, or is there flexibility?

3. Vic Leonard: Are the pathways at the Innovation Center strictly data-based and tied to market opportunities?

4. Morgan Dukes: Was there actual data collected from students regarding their interest in these specific pathways?

5. Doreen Wojciechowski: Which schools were polled for student feedback? Were students from the MYP (Middle Years Program) at Dickinson included since this affects them too?

6. Najma Landis: Which specific CTE programs overlap between Dickinson/A.I. and the current McKean offerings?

7. Najma Landis: What happens to the physical space at Dickinson (like the auto tech section) once those programs move to the Innovation Center?

8. Doreen Wojciechowski: Will the pool at McKean stay as is? (Pruitt confirmed it’s "too valuable" to change and will remain a shared resource).

9. Doreen Wojciechowski: Is the goal of adding more AP classes at A.I. and Dickinson to make them more competitive so parents don't "choice out" to charters or magnets?

10. Najma Landis: Is there a professional learning plan to train staff on how to mesh the cultures of these formerly rival schools?

11. Najma Landis: Are students actually members of the planning workgroups, or is it just administrators?

12. Morgan Dukes: How are counselors supposed to handle course selections in the next month when the master schedule for the Innovation Center hasn't been built yet?

13. Najma Landis: Will the board presentations happen in the "off months" when the committee isn't meeting?

14. Najma Landis: Why isn't the committee meeting in June and July?

15. Vic Leonard: Will these meetings be recorded and made available to the public?

16. Najma Landis: Can we get better microphones for future meetings so the audio on Zoom isn't a struggle?

Mark Pruitt:  All right. We are going to bring our first meeting to order. And it goes without saying that this weekend I had a cold, was under the weather. As of about Monday or Tuesday morning, everything back to 100% except my voice which had a delay. And so bear with me. If you've never heard me speak, we may have met yet officially. This is not how my voice always is, but this is how it's going to be tonight. So my name is Mark Pruitt. I am the senior director of secondary education here in Red Clay. I am going to be facilitating us through this series of meetings. For the time we have members of the district, members of the public on here. But before we even go through introductions, Dr. Green, our superintendent, was at a meeting, stopped by before he got to another event here. I'm going to let him welcome us.

Dr. Green:  I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank members of the public and community for answering the call that the board put out to have members of the community and our staff engage in this important work. You know, this is transformational work that we're looking to do for the district. And so having the committee and oversight and working with our board and district to get this all-important work done is important. There are a lot of things that all of you could be doing and the fact that you're giving time to continue work is important. So greatly appreciate it. I do have to go. Fortunately for me, I get to go watch the middle school championship games, part of the job and responsibility. So I will give you an update because AI middle girls are in the championship. I’m sacrificing that to be committed to this work. But thank you all again for your work and looking forward to continuing.

Mark Pruitt:  Right at this point we are going to take a little bit of time to move forward. I believe two slides left. Agenda, which is in writing, so next slide. I think we introduce ourselves, do we? Oh yeah, right there. I'm sorry. Yeah, that slide right there. So why don't we start with the members that are on Zoom this evening. A couple of them, obviously sickness is going around, sick children, those types of things. So we’ll start off by introducing ourselves, our role on the committee, principal, teacher, I work at this school, I'm a parent, or I'm in the community in the Red Clay community. We'll start with our three folks that are on Zoom if they can hear me.

Beth Jefferson: Miss Godwin might have to interpret.

Kaitleen Troller: Hi, my name is Kaitleen Troller. I am a district student services coordinator. And I am one of the RCEA members on the committee.

Georgia Matoulas: Thank you. I am one of the parents on the committee. I have two students in Red Clay and I actually work as a Para in Christina.

Kristi Geschwindt:  Hi, I'm Kristi Geschwindt. I am a sixth grade English teacher at Skyline. Also one of the RCEA members. I do have two stepsons in the district as well.

Mark Pruitt:  Anyone else that you notice online? Okay. Obviously we'll follow up. There's a few folks not here. There's 18 of us all together. The committee is assembled according to school board policy. You're going to meet a few of those school board members here momentarily and we'll start.

Mark Pruitt:  I introduced myself, Mark Pruitt.

Heather Godwin:  I'm an education associate in the student services department here at district office. I'm representing district office.

Brian Mattix:  Brian Maddox. I'm principal of HB duPont Middle School.

Cristina Kalesse: I'm Cristina Kalesse. I'm the principal of Alexis I DuPont middle school 

Doreen Wojciechowski: I'm Doreen Wojciechowski and I have an 8th grader at MYP.

Anthony Gray-Boulden: I'm Anthony Gray Boulden Dean Cab Calloway School of the Arts

Najma Landis:  Hi everyone. I'm Najma, here representing the school board and I am a teacher.

David Hogan:  Good evening. David Hogan. I'm a teacher at Thomas McKean High School and one of the members of the committee.

Morgan Dukes:  Morgan Dukes. I'm one of the special education coordinators at McKean High School and I'm an RCEA rep.

[Unknown]:  I teach at McKean high school. I'm a [ ? ] and I'm a [ ? ] coordinator.

Allison Hunter:  So I'm Allison Hunter. I'm a parent representative. I have one fifth grader at Linden Hill. I have a high schooler who goes to Delcastle and went to Linden Hill and HB. And I also am a teacher in Christina School District.

Susan Sander:  Susan Sander, school board member.

Mark Pruitt:  I would like to introduce our school board president who is not one of the three members by policy on the committee but Mr. Victor Leonard is the school board president.

Victor Leonard:  Hello.

Mark Pruitt:  Okay. The agenda everyone has that in front of them or has either seen that via email and we get paper copies here. Next slide. Now we're to public comment. Public comment from 6 o'clock to 7:30 in the evening can be difficult. People are getting off of work, coming late. So my rule with public comment is you can give it now, you can give it at the end, you just can't give it twice. So you're going to get your three minutes now, max three minutes now or at the end, but not both. We will start in person this time. Is there anyone in person that would like to give public comment? Miss Howard, you are up.

Jenny Howard:
Hi everyone.I actually don't really have anything prepared today. I just wanted to say I do have some concerns about the plan as it's described. I also hope that everyone who's making decisions, not everybody has actual stake in the game, that they don't have kids in school maybe, but just consider that there are some in the us that do. I actually have two of my kids here and I thought it would be nice for you guys to hear from them since everybody I'm sure is sick of hearing from me. Seriously though, it's not that I don't support innovation. I definitely do. I just want to make sure that we are doing what's best for all of our students and making sure we have equitable programming and not having to necessarily go get the programming. So I think you're gonna go next.

Student 1:  Hi, my name is Gianna.

Jenny Howard:  You guys might know Gianna because she's on one of the Red Clay wrestling videos. We have to promote girls wrestling while we're here. Go ahead.

Student 1:  Hi, my name is Gianna. I'm seventh grade. I feel like the people who are making decisions for us are not taking into consideration what I like. I like my feeder school but I don't want to go there because I want the same opportunities as my friends. I don't think I should have to ride a bus in high school in the middle of the day to be able to study animal science just because I didn't want to see at fair that the district wants some kids to travel to opportunities and other kids to get the same opportunity in their building. I told my parents I'm not going to AI and doing the 20 minute shuttle bus drive to an innovation center. None of my friends like this idea either. A lot of them are applying to charter, magnet, or going to a private school. If I don't get into Conrad, I'm not really sure what I'll get. Not only does Conrad have the most advanced sports team, but they also have the only all girls wrestling team in our school district. Girls wrestling is really important. Last year there were only two girls on the team at my school, including this year we grew to six girls, but this is just another example of how we don't get equal opportunities across schools. This plan doesn't open any new doors for me as a student. If I don't get into Conrad, my only hope may be getting a scholarship to apply to school. The students want equal opportunities for the program. This doesn't feel equal to me. It feels like more of the same just with a different name. Thank you for your time.

Mark Pruitt:  Thank you. Would anyone else like to give public comment in person?

Student 2:  My name is Jillian and I'm fourth grade. I want to tell you about how stressed I am about this year. I went to all of the open houses. I've always wanted to be a singer. And when I recall, I have to study really hard to audition. My school doesn't have chorus but one of my best friends goes to and she has it at school. I feel like this really isn't fair for the kids who don't get it but who have to try out versus kids who have it. I just want the grownups to understand how unfair this is. The middle school vocal audition requires the following: one, warm up exercises. Two, pitch matching. Sing back the instructor. Three, sing from memory. Be prepared to sing a song. Four, sing measures of a Broadway show. Five, singing exercise in three notes and rhythm. This is a lot for someone who doesn't have it first. My grandmother is going to get me extra money for classes. Please consider.

Mark Pruitt:  Thank you. Very well done. Would anyone else like to give public comment in person? Do we have any public commenters online?

Beth Jefferson: I have asked them to put their name in the chat and so far no one has. Stephanie has joined us.

Mark Pruitt: Okay. Thank you. All right. Meeting norms. We can add to these or adjust these. There are norms. Pretty standard here. You know, one is keep the vision in sight. When you come to a committee like this, there’s a tendency to have a lot of discussion, make right turns. We want to be tight with our time. So we want to make sure we know what our purpose here is. You’re going to see that momentarily. Respect various points of view. We’re not all going to have the same point of view at all times during these meetings. We don’t all have the same perspective. That’s how the committee is designed. So it’s important to know. I’m also sending these slides out first thing in the morning. What I’ll do every time is send the slides, send the video of the recording, and anything else pertinent to our meeting that night. Assume positive intent. Assume everyone’s here for the right reason, doing what they think is right by kids, right by our school district. And we’re going to be respectful of time. These are our draft norms. I’m going to open it up. Would you like to add anything or edit anything? Be respectful of time. 75 minutes. 7:15 would be our goal, with a hard stop at 7:30. So they are the draft norms that I’ve offered up at this point. Would you like to add or edit anything to our norms that we’ll be working with going forward? If you want to email between meetings, something like that, that’s fine. All right. The charge of this committee: I kind of broke it down into four points.

One is to receive progress updates. This is a public committee that is to receive progress updates from the district.

Secondly is to provide assurance that the reimagining secondary education plan is executed as approved by the school board. The board approved this plan in July, and we have a responsibility of assurance here.  

To voice your perspectives and ask questions of the school district.

And to provide updates to the Board of Education. Whenever we have one of these meetings, there’ll be two board meetings in between. These are every other month. One of those meetings will be a board update. One of the board members will do that. Then I’ll also communicate to them when I have a little more than their usual updates. I may be asking you from time to time to present to the school board at one of their monthly Wednesday meetings. If you have questions, feel free to just jump in. “Hey, question.” I do have three slides built in to stop for perspectives and questions. You do not have to wait for those slides. Can everyone hear me?

Beth Jefferson: So Mark, I’ve got a couple requests online. Speak up a little bit, and the other members that are here speak up just because of the microphone.

Mark Pruitt:  Please let them know that I’m doing the best with my voice. I am notorious for having a booming loud voice. Not tonight.

Vic Leonard:  Mark, I just want to say that I'm on the board not on this committee. I see we have two board members here. Any online or not? If Mr. Hynson is not, then I want to exercise my right to speak up as a board member here. 

Mark Pruitt: I think three of you are here. That's fine.  Would you like to join us up here? 

Vic Leonard: Sure, and unless Mr. Hynson comes.He might come. 

Mark Pruitt: I think he deserves to have a seat as to what I watched at the meeting, but in his absence, I think that’s fine with me. I do apologize to anyone online. I usually have no problem being heard, but it is going to be a little bit of a challenge tonight. All right. So the first thing we’re going to take a look at is a little bit of a history as to how we got here. If you go to this website or you can go back. You can go back as well. We’re not going to go to that website right now. That has every artifact, slide, data request that the committee looked at between January and July of 2025.

The second one, which is also on that website, is a rolling slide deck. We will do the same thing with this committee. That slide deck from January to July is, I believe, 180 slides — with the opening slide from January being slide one, the opening slide from the February meeting being slide 30 or whatever it was. If you want to look at that, you can. If we got into that work now, it would take us four meetings to even get through those slides. So feel free to take a look at those, educate yourself about a lot of the data and a lot of the things that the previous committee considered. Now let me show you a few slides that I think consolidate and summarize what the board looked at and why they made some of the decisions they did.

In November of 2024, the Board of Education established the committee I’ve been speaking of, which was the Attendance Zone and Programming Committee, to evaluate enrollment, programming, and attendance zones of Red Clay secondary schools and to make recommendations to the school board at the July 2025 school board meeting. In doing so, they charged us with considering strong and balanced enrollment across our schools, the impact of attendance zone changes, alignment of those boundaries to existing K–8 attendance zones when possible, and equitable access to quality education for all students. That is what the committee was charged with in November when they began meeting in January. The committee met from January 21st through June 17th. You see some meeting topics there. Also during that time, they held a community meeting, student focus groups, and a community survey that allowed for stakeholder engagement and feedback.

I’ll stop. Any questions or perspectives at this point? Next slide. So the committee between January and June really came up with three key findings. Four if you include the University of Delaware. One is that our feeder patterns for kindergarten through 8th grade were changed in 2015 and align very well. What that means is they are vertical in nature. Three elementary schools feed into a middle school. Our high school attendance zones had not been changed since 2002. The result is this: the colors on the map are the middle school attendance zones, and the green boundaries are the high school attendance zones. So there is no sense of vertical community from K through 12. I’ll give you an example. AI Middle School, which is in the purple. It’s a large geographic area because there are not a lot of homes in the vast majority of it. It’s Centerville.  Large farms, golf courses, that kind of thing.

So a school with 450 students in it feeds to all three high schools, right? McKean High School in the center area there receives students from all four middle schools. That was something that stuck out to the committee originally. Next slide. The second one is the fact that we simply have many more seats at the high school level and at the middle school level, but I’m focused on the high school here. Many more seats at the high school level than we have students to fill those seats. Back in 2003, we educated about 4,800 students in our high schools. There were six high schools then. Now we educate 5,000 students. Only 200 more. But we do it in seven high schools. We added two high schools without having a crowding need. Over time and I’m speaking on behalf of a lot of that committee’s discussion. What it resulted in was only 295 vacant seats in the district in 2003, to currently 1,051 empty seats in the district in our high schools this year.

When I talk of our high schools, I’m talking of three comprehensive high schools, two magnet high schools, Conrad and Cab, and two charter schools which are chartered by our school district, give preference to Red Clay students, and are in fact enrolled mostly by high school students, mostly Red Clay students. Compounding that problem is the fact that Delaware school choice law requires schools to accept students to capacity.

What that has resulted in over the last 20 years is an enrollment loser. It’s actually been each of our three high schools over that time.

Most recently:

AI High School — 1,400 students in 2011, 550 students today.

Dickinson High School — 1,100 students at its height, was down to a little less than 500 students in 2014.

McKean High School — 1,300 students at its height, was down to less than 700 students at its low point about 15 years ago.

That is a real summary of a lot of work from this committee, a lot of work from our tech office, and from the University of Delaware. We took a look at census data and demography data.

New Castle County is going to be losing students in our school districts over the next 30 years. Between 2020 and 2050, the Red Clay School District is projected by the UD Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research to go from 15,000 students to 12,000 students.

That’s not about us alone. That is about the entire county doing the same thing. Every district in the county doing the same thing for the most part with tremendous growth in Kent County and lower canal Delaware, such as Middletown and Appoquinimink School District. Families are simply traveling south to about hundreds a year.

Vic Leonard:  Mark, question. That UD study, was that just public school kids or all kids in the county also?

Mark Pruitt:  That is their estimates through their research for Delaware public schools. So it’s all public.

Vic Leonard:  Does that include the privates or the charters?

Mark Pruitt:  I believe they had charter schools statewide. I don’t think there are enough students to make a prediction with one charter school. There are various reasons - those schools could go out of business or not have enough students. A large majority of that is based on geography. Where people live, where parcels are, where parcels are being developed, ages of the people that own those homes. Are they aging out of those homes? Are new families living in those homes? Are new homes being built in the area? Questions?  

Now I’m going to show you the plan. For those of you who click on that one. Beth, thank you. This is a website launched by the district in December, a month ago. It gives a lot of information. If you look on the left-hand side. We’re not going to go through all of it here. If you stop there for a moment. On this website it gives a message from Dr. Green, the committee’s work, and a case for change. But I’m going to start with the plan. If you could click on the plan. Board’s charge. Go ahead. The committee came up with three core principles.

One was to create alignment of attendance zones. Create straight-line feeder patterns that align high school attendance zones with existing middle school attendance zones. Clean up that problem that I showed you a few slides ago in our maps for K–8 versus high school. Secondly, balanced enrollment. Distribute students equitably across high schools. The committee understood the importance of enrollment as it relates to programming. It was important that however many students were in the K–8 feeder patterns, and however many schools were in K–8 or 9–12, that they were distributed equitably.In addition to alignment of attendance, we have balanced enrollment. Making sure we are distributing students equitably across the attendance zone high schools. Our third goal is program equity. To ensure that all students, regardless of high school, have access to high-quality academic and extracurricular programs.

Najma Landis:  Can I ask a question about that? Can you scroll back up?

Mark Pruitt:  Absolutely.

Najma Landis:  So for the balanced enrollment where you say distributed equitably, what does that look like? Or how is the team that’s working on this currently envisioning that?

Mark Pruitt: So the initial committee that we looked at reviewed a lot of data in terms of how many kids feed into any one of our current three high school attendance zones. Dickinson and McKean had a lot more students that could potentially feed into their attendance zone than did AI High School. They thought it was important that whether we went with three zones for high school or two or four or five at the middle school level, that they were equitably distributed.

Meaning if there are 1,000 potential kids who go to high schools in Red Clay, that each of the three schools would get 1,000 each. So it’s equitable in terms of numbers.

Najma Landis:  And not really considering special populations? Or that term is used in this context — that is not equal because it’s a neighborhood, but we’re going to do the best we can to create balanced attendance?

Mark Pruitt: Balanced attendance.

Najma Landis:  Thank you.

Mark Pruitt:  Two significant changes — and I am going to let Heather read through.

Heather Godwin: The program change number one is really about our Thomas McKean Innovation Campus. Thomas McKean High School will be reimagined as the Thomas McKean Innovation Campus in August 2027. The flagship campus will provide career and technical education programming, industry-standard credentialing coursework, and early college credit opportunities through expanded partnerships with the business community and local colleges and universities. As part of this change, the number of comprehensive high school attendance zone schools will be reduced from three to two — AI DuPont High School and the John Dickinson School allowing for increased enrollment and more robust academic and extracurricular offerings.

The medical program at McKean will relocate to AI DuPont High School to align its attendance zone with grade-level peers at HB DuPont Middle School.

Short shuttle bus transportation will be provided from AI and Dickinson to the McKean Innovation Campus.

Our second program change is around the IB program — International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program — at Skyline Middle School.

To allow for increased high school enrollment at Dickinson, the MYP middle school program will relocate from Dickinson to Skyline, allowing for more balanced enrollment across the Red Clay middle schools.

Mark Pruitt: Thank you. If you could just go back a page. No, go back. It was still on the website. Go back. Go up to the arrow in the upper left-hand corner. There you go. Now go to the case for change if you want a summary of the case for change. That part allows for context as to why the decisions were being made.

Doreen Wojciechowski:  In regard to the MYP program, will Skyline be strictly an honors program, or will it be split like high school where they’ll offer the IB program but there will also be regular as well?

Mark Pruitt:  It will be a choice option similar to Dickinson High School.

Doreen Wojciechowski: Okay. And secondly, will they be transferring the teacher group from the current IB program to Skyline?

Mark Pruitt:  That’s our hope.

Heather Godwin: Yes, that’s our hope. They created that program.

Mark Pruitt: We absolutely want them. That’s what we want. The reason I say that with some reservation is because there is a middle school teacher — I’ll give you an example — who may teach in the middle school program at Dickinson, but they used to teach at Dickinson High School before that program started. They’re also the football coach. Their loyalty might be to the Dickinson school more than it is to the MYP program. So I can’t say we’re going to pick. We’re going to work with their union and allow them opportunities to go over there. Other questions?

You see relevance, feasibility, impact, just summaries. And a cost analysis summary as well. If you could go back again. Comprehensive high school experience. This page tells you a little bit of Dickinson’s history and what Dickinson will be, particularly with its college readiness, which is the International Baccalaureate program. Each school will have a specific career readiness component at the McKean Innovation Campus, but also a college readiness component. The International Baccalaureate program at the John Dickinson School and the Early College Academy program at AI High School. Scroll down. Career pathways and clusters. There they are - seven career clusters. There are programs of study that will be offered at the school available to both schools. Any student who attends either the Dickinson home school or the AI home school.

Now you can go back to the slide. Questions? Impact and equity. Innovation Center. The committee, in terms of equity, looked at a lot of data. 

Equity. Does everyone have an opportunity to get what they need?

These are comprehensive schools. These are not magnet schools where someone is interested in performing arts and therefore that’s all they offer. Or in Conrad’s case, life science, and all six of their pathways are in life science.

These are comprehensive schools where 13- and 14-year-olds are starting their high school experience and just want a quality education, want to be ready to go to the next step, meet their goals upon graduation.

The McKean Innovation Center will provide access for all students in career pathways, work-based learning opportunities, and industry-standard credentials.

Also, these changes - increased enrollment at home schools at Dickinson and AI will allow for a broader range of elective offerings at any given time.

School enrollment drives staffing and resources.

When one of the schools has been under-enrolled — and there has been an under-enrolled school for the last 20 years — what you see is fewer elective courses, a smaller number of advanced coursework offerings, and athletic teams at the varsity level that can’t finish the season.

You saw that when Delaware Online reported that Dickinson or AI did not finish the football season. More importantly, when we talk about athletics, it’s a practical example — the number of junior varsity and freshman teams that are zero or three in any given period. I’m a student. I live right next door to one of these three schools. I might like to try football, but I don’t necessarily want to play starting linebacker on Friday night after three weeks of practice as a freshman. You need developmental programs that teach the sport so that kids are put in a good position to be successful during their sophomore, junior, and senior years. And more extracurricular programming - clubs, activities, those types of things.

Questions? Comments?

Vic Leonard:  The pathways that we decided on for the Innovation Center, they’re data-based, right? Through study of market opportunities?

Mark Pruitt:  We are bringing over — McKean is certainly our flagship school in terms of career technical education. We believe it’s the flagship in terms of career and technical education in New Castle County. Those programs will remain there. There’s been a lot of investment there.

In addition to that, we’re picking up the pathways at AI and Dickinson that don’t overlap and bringing them and their teachers over to the McKean Innovation Center.

Then we strategically, through labor market analysis data, identified additional computer networking pathways, cybersecurity pathways, more allied healthcare programs, nursing programs, medical assisting programs, renewable energy. Those are programs that are built through labor market analysis.

Morgan Dukes:  Was there any data collected based on student feedback related to interest in those pathways? I know that we had student focus groups. I didn’t know if the students had expressed interest in those pathways in any of those meetings or if their interest was kind of —

Mark Pruitt:  I would have to check. I don’t want to put Mr. Mattix on the spot, but Mr. Mattix held focus groups where our seventh and eighth graders were brought in and asked questions regarding their interest in pathways.

Brian Mattix: They identified those pathways. Some of them identified pathways that existed at other schools. That was easy — we can offer what is already offered. Then there were a few that were outliers. Cosmetology always comes up. It’s always a popular one for students. But the labor market analysis report doesn’t support cosmetology. It’s hard to make a living wage with that skill set. If you can hustle, but sometimes you’re working two jobs. That comes from the labor market analysis.

Doreen Wojciechowski:  Back up to that comment. What schools did you poll for your students? When you asked for student feedback, was it from the schools that were going to be affected?

Cristina Kalesse: So I'm AI Middle, so it was AI Middle.

Doreen Wojciechowski: Okay, so AI Middle School. The students were polled from just AI Middle?

Cristina Kalesse: No. I’m only the principal of AI Middle, so I know my students were polled from there.

Brian Mattix:We pulled from all the comprehensive middle schools. I didn’t poll kids from Cab or Conrad Middle because they are not a comprehensive middle.

Doreen Wojciechowski: But Dickinson?

Brian Mattix: Dickinson is not a comprehensive middle. 

Doreen Wojciechowski: But it would still affect those students, wouldn’t it?

Mark Pruitt:  Yes. It would affect those kids who may choose to attend the comprehensive high schools.

Doreen Wojciechowski:  The whole point of the IB program is to feed them into the high school program for that IB pathway. So that would be different.

Brian Mattix:  My committee wasn’t about IB. It was only about the career pathways. It wasn’t really a committee. It was student focus groups. It was charged for career pathways only.

Doreen Wojciechowski:  I get that. But some of the students in MYP are also going to go to Dickinson regardless of the IB program or the high school. I was just curious if they were included.

Mark Pruitt:  All of the CTE programs at Dickinson  - if they made the choice to go to Dickinson as their high school, all of those high school CTE programs will still exist.

Doreen Wojciechowski:  I was just wondering if they got feedback from those students.

Mark Pruitt:  It was 15 or 20 students across the district. It was just a sampling focus group.

Brian Mattix: Dickinson High students were part of the high school focus group. We had middle school focus groups and high school focus groups. Because Dickinson High is a comprehensive high school. They were part of the that.

Mark Pruitt: It's also important to note that we career and technical education programs of study need to be approved by the Department of Education because they get federal, they get state funding and federal funding. They will not get approved and we cannot prop up a professional football or a professional baseball pathway because that's what our kids are interested in, right? It's a connection between the labor market and the public schools to meet needs where there's gaps in the labor market.

Najma Landis:Can you let me know which of the CTE programs that do overlap from Dickinson and AI currently offer at McKean?

Mark Pruitt: Oh, I mean I wouldn’t want to misspeak. I can get those for the next meeting. Because they overlap - I hope I didn’t make it seem as though- We’re not bringing a new program. We’re bringing a person over, but we’re not bringing over a new program. We’re just bringing over a second teacher for that program.

Najma Landis: I guess my thinking was like if say auto tech was on  - I know there’s an auto tech section of Dickinson. So, what would happen with that space then at Dickinson since the program’s moving to?

Mark Pruitt: That space would be that obviously that would probably open up that space for something different. That is not on our plans immediately because that is an older space for one. It’s a small space. It’s a local pathway. McKean has gone to the state model which gets them more funding and keeps their program updated. Dickinson did not do that. And so it’s a small space, many, many years old.

Brian Mattix: But yeah, that’s a good question. Obviously both AI and Dickinson spaces that pathways exist in, if those pathways aren’t going to be there, they will be repurposed. Yes. But that’s phase two.

Vic Leonard: We did that automotive at AI, also, at one time a few years back. That’s now a construction program. So they repurposed that. 

Mark Pruitt: Also it's worth noting that Mr. Mattix did not do all this work as the principal of HB last year. He’s a longtime principal. He was McKean High School’s principal for nine or 10 years. He worked at the district office supporting Science and CTE programming and he did a lot of the audit work for this. And then he wanted to be back with the kids and is now principal at HB. So if you’re wondering why I’m deferring to the HB middle principal, it’s because he did something else last year.

Any other questions while we’re here? While we’re here, absolutely.

Doreen Wojciechowski: The pool at the McKean. Is that going to stay as is? Because I know different schools feed into that pool and use it all.

Mark Pruitt: Oh yeah. It is too valuable. High school pools are too valuable. That pool is used some days 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and first priority is our Red Clay School. We got two of them. We got one at Cab's campus as well. All of our schools split those two.

Doreen Wojciechowski: Oh, great. Okay. And then my second question, I did see a slide about adding AP classes at AI and Dickinson. Is the goal to make those two schools enticing to parents if they don’t choice them out? Because you still have the choice factor, right? And so a lot of parents are going to want to have something for their kids that are coming out of like that are a little more competitive than maybe the Conrad, the CAB, or Charter. So, are we trying to make those two schools be a little more competitive with our AP courses?

Mark Pruitt: So, I think we’re trying to create programming so that any student - if they choose one of these two programs - which is really a three-school program including the McKean Innovation Center - they can get any [inaudible] at one of these schools. However, then there’s equitability. I’ll give you an example as it relates to college readiness. We talked a lot about career readiness. So, it would be equitable but not the same.

So, the IB program, with having more students in that building, will allow us to have more students in the IB program, therefore more offerings for students. But right now, Dickinson’s high school size is I think about 750, give or take 25 students. That’s a very small high school.

Can we talk in terms 

[lost audio 51:00 - 52:47]

Mark Pruitt: so right now there are three geographic boundaries. This is going to offer two geographic boundaries for students. 

McKean Teacher: So the question actually, was that if mostly people want to come to one school instead of the other  - because I heard from my students they don’t want to go to AI, they want to go to Dickinson and that’s maybe their choice, so how will you consider - 

Mark Pruitt: I understand your question now. We will allow choice up to building instructional capacity. So if there are seats, there will be some seats remaining. Red Clay students get first preference to those. So if you’re a McKean feeder student — I’ll do it the other way — if you’re now in Dickinson’s feeder pattern but you want to go to AI, you fill out a choice application to do that. But we will only admit students up to capacity.

McKean Teacher: So it’s not fixed, like if they want they can get that?

Mark Pruitt: You’re talking about your kids right now that are in ninth or tenth grade, right? That’s different. I think that’s a unique circumstance that we need to consider, right? Students that are currently in ninth or tenth grade at McKean High School. We certainly need to communicate with them, but our goal would be to get those students where they want to be for their junior or senior year. I always look at this in terms of sixth grader or eighth grader.  Like we’re going to have students come in. You can be an eighth grader and apply to AI, and if you’re a feeder, we will certainly allow for choice up to building capacity. But you’re talking about a difficult situation for a group of students. Thank you. Any other questions? By the way, this meeting is an introduction and sort of grounding the work here. 

The work. This committee has a responsibility to hear from the district, weigh in on the work that the district’s doing to make sure that we are, one, doing what the school board asked us to do, and that we’re transparent about what we’re doing. I’m a member of Dr. Green’s cabinet over here at the district office. We divided this. This is a major undertaking to do what we’ve been asked to do, and we’re up to the task.

The work we did early on this year, August, September, was trying to determine where we needed to do this work. What you see are planning areas or topics where we thought work needed to be done over the next two years. If you go back to September, that includes adult ed to McKean education program being picked up, moved from AI to McKean High School. Athletics and activities. That’s evolved a little. Now we’re talking about student life, right? Athletics, activities, clubs, our students going, particularly for the McKean students, so that they continue to get what they need.

Communicating the plan. Whether it be a website, whether it be an email blast, whether it be a board update. Facilities. We’re looking at turning an old band room at McKean into a construction classroom. There’s work that goes along with that. Financial implications of the work that Dr. Green is doing. The Innovation Center itself.  I’m in my first subcommittee on I believe February 23rd to begin that work with some teachers.

Heather Godwin: Master scheduling and logistics. That’s going to be a difficult one. Making sure we know how to get kids where and when. There’s a lot to consider there. Meadowood moving to AI High School. There are a lot of logistical things that we need to talk about there. What that will look like with staffing, with facilities. A lot of things that kind of go into that, but will affect other communities as well.

Moving MYP Skyline, like we talked about earlier. Professional learning. There are going to be a lot of things that we need to prepare our staff for when we merge these three schools into two. We need to talk about what that’s going to look like, what types of things we can support our staff with to make that transition really seamless. We have public and private support -

Mark Pruitt: I’m going to jump in here. Professional learning. I’ll give you three examples of professional learning and training. One is MYP to Skyline. While the majority of those staff members will go over to Skyline, certainly a couple teachers at Skyline were fill in. We need to make people change in the IB philosophy.

Another one is Meadowood going from McKean to AI DuPont. What are their needs? How do we include them in our program?

A third one. I believe Dr. Bond, who’s leading this work, believes this is just as important. We’re taking two buildings, the brick and mortar of Skyline, the brick and mortar of AI, and the brick and mortar of Dickinson, and we’re meshing two staffs together. The team building involved in that is going to be absolutely critical.

That is not to be - we need to talk about IB certifications and making sure we have inclusive training for Meadowood students and some other things. The importance to our staff that they feel included and they’re not just a one-off transfer that now has to fit into a new culture. AI is going to almost double in size. It’s going to be two schools. So to student numbers, if you go to AI now, I would argue that it’s going to look very different two years from now.

Najma Landis: Is there also, I’m sorry to jump in, but with the professional learning, is there also a plan with that to train staff on doing similar work with students and meshing those? I just think McKean and Dickinson, they were rivals. So then they're going to be some of the -

Mark Pruitt: They are. 

[laughing]

Heather Godwin: Here’s how I’ll respond. The students was one of my biggest concerns. Right now we have three separate identities. Each school has their own identity, their mascot, their culture. I’m part of the Ramily, I’m a Tiger or a Highlander. We all have these things that we carry with us, and when we try to squish these all together, there’s going to be a lot of difficulty. So the amount of work we need to do to work with staff on creating a culture that feels welcoming to all of these different groups - that is one of my main priorities, honestly, because I think that’s going to be so critical.

Najma Landis: Do you think - and I know it looks like the work group has already been formed - are students a part of that work group?  I think there’s an opportunity for student leadership in taking the role of how they can. 

Mark Pruitt: Students are going to be involved. They're going to be involved in at least two of them. But I’m going to back up a little first. I’ll back up and say we’ve got a Ram speaking to a Highlander here. You guys are getting along. That’s great. But I’ll say to your question. What about students and making sure students feel included from the beginning. The only time you’re listening to me is this meeting. I mean, I oversee a couple committees and I’m sort of maybe the facilitator of Dr. Green’s team behind me here. But starting next month, you’ll see a slide shortly, you’re going to get updates from Dr. Celestine and her team about the work they’re doing with special ed or from Dr. Bond about it. And you’re going to be able to say when any of these committee members say, “Well, what about training to make sure the students feel included?” I can assure you, like we’ve done for the last four months, is your perspectives. That’s good, right? Like, no, we’re on that or we missed that. Got to pick that up. I think that cannot be undervalued by this group as we move forward here after a couple of months getting together. I think it’ll make a little more sense here by last.

Vic Leonard: Mark, I just want to say I know we’re going to be doing a lot of things now and 2027. How are we going to show this to the public? And I know that’s one of the criticisms right now. District not putting enough out there so the public’s aware of what’s going on. Do we have a plan to make that -

Mark Pruitt: There is cadence. I mean, I think no matter what you do to communicating, there could always be someone that says we want more. But we’re going to give board updates. Alternating those board updates. So if a board update is every other month, then an email blast is every month. We have meetings set up to the McKean and Dickinson communities where we’re going to hear from them. We’re going to get specific letters out to all of our students when their attendance zone actually changes. That includes K-12, right? And have them an opportunity to weigh in on that before board votes on it. So there’s a pretty extensive communication plan that you’re going to see.

Vic Leondard: I’m not concerned with communications at Board, but I know 25% of the public that pays taxes are families in the district. 75% percent are other taxpayers who don’t have kids. Getting it out to them, that’s the issue I think we’re seeing here.

Mark Pruitt: It may be worth - I’ll tell you, when I started teaching, everybody, every parcel in the Red Clay used to get a hard copy of a Red Clay newsletter once every - I think twice, two or three times a year. We’ve lost that group. That 75% that doesn’t have kids in the school. So that’s certainly worth bringing up at these meetings. Obviously, you’ve got another paper to do that as a school board member. Same with. We will be talking about it.

And then additionally, so that’s the district office staff that’s facilitating that work. And if it has a yes over here in this column, it has a work group associated with it. Invites have already gone out for athletics and activities, the Innovation Center, Meadowood, MIP Skyline, professional learning, everyone. The only one that hasn’t gone out yet is master scheduling and logistics. Now, that work probably starts the beginning of September next year. Yes. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here.

Najma Landis: Is the plan for each of these planning areas to have a work group, or are some of them that don’t currently have a yes not —

Mark Pruitt: I don’t want to speak for folks whose name is next to each one of those. It wasn’t our choice as to whether you want one or not. But I’ll say this: a lot of the work being done is maybe not as extensive as some of the other groups. But adult ed at McKean. Dr. Broomall’s got to work with the adult ed staff, which has two full-time staff members. Got to come up with four classrooms. We’ve got to have them a foyer at McKean where they can get directly into the adult ed area. So a little bit of retrofitting of the foyer. If someone would like to be part of work, help Dr. Broomall do that work, that’s fine. But I would guess that Dr. Green and Dr. Broomall on that example would make out that work.

Another one - transportation. Transportation is just a lot. It’s a lot of data entry. It’s a lot of using software of where students go. If someone would like to weigh in, but they’re not making decisions. It just seems to be transportation in nature. But we’re open to having that and we want to be as transparent.

Heather Godwin: Well, I think something like staffing changes really, that would be appropriate to have a work group for staffing because there’s a lot of pieces that go into that as far as seniority and roster.

Mark Pruitt: Well, the other thing is we’ve already met with RCEA twice about staffing. We’re going to meet with the Para union about staffing. So they already have a draft of our path forward. They’re marking up that path forward, going to give it back to us. But when you talk about a work group, I’m guessing a couple more yeses will be added in there. But the work group for staffing changes is RCEA or the Para support meeting.

Morgan Dukes: You said the master scheduling group isn’t planning to start meeting until next year?

Mark Pruitt: I don’t want to speak for —

Morgan Dukes: Okay. Just because I know that our school counselors are starting to do course selections in a month or so with our students. I spent 90 minutes this morning with Ms. Leer because some of the questions are about how we schedule students for next school year within our comprehensive high schools to make sure that they’re set up to be successful.

Mark Pruitt: We went through all that today. I think in this logistics question, when you create a master schedule, right, you’ve got to create the McKean Innovation master schedule first, right? And then kind of build out around it. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, these unique situations. I’m meeting with key people, and no one is more key than the longtime master counselor. I’ve known her forever. So, yeah, but yeah, she said, “Hey, we got to figure out some things.” And I was over there today.  

So, action planning. This is a document that we are using to do our action planning. It’s a screenshot of a couple of screens here. I’m not going to read every action item on here, but currently if you are Dr. Bond, you are responsible for every action item logged into this spreadsheet related to MYP Skyline. Okay. It then compiles into one spreadsheet that allows us to sort it by date, and so you can see the work we’ve done beginning in September running through December 15th.

And again, you’re going to hear more about this from Dr. — any one of those folks that was here, you’re going to hear that from at the next meeting. I’m sort of including me, but I’m setting the stage for it.

But you see program move support meeting with Laura Lane. Laura Lane is the Mid-Atlantic director of IB in the United States. Hey, we’ve got to pick up a school. We’ve got to move our program that’s been certified at Dickinson and move it over to Skyline. So that work, we had to make sure that we’re on top of this work here.

Moving down here, contact the University of Delaware attendance zone and demography about attendance zone demography. You’ll see on the next slide a guy named John Laznic because I started to get lazy with my typing. You have meeting number three with John Laznic. That is the guy who has all of the data related to where people live, how old they are, when they’re aging out, because we cannot make a mistake in changing attendance zones. So you’re going to see that on the next slide. As a matter of fact, he had a meeting number two last week that Dr. Sean Snyder attended, that's our tech department. Okay. And that takes us down to December 31st up to date.

You saw on the first page those things were complete. Everything is either in progress or complete here. Some things are going to run behind. Some things we change dates. Some things we change dates because it seemed appropriate to change the date.

And then I’ve got two slides here of where we’re going between February 1st and June 1st, with the same sort of setup. You’re going to get answers to these things from the folks leading this work, probably if it’s a committee, bringing someone from their committee with them where I’ve already heard at least two things, maybe three, where I’m like, it’s good. That’s the nature of getting a charge from a school district, giving half the page that’s voted on, and now starting to put leaves on that tree. It’s just the nature of work.

Next slide. Question about that?

I’m welcome to go back to that and let you parse that out. My intent was just to show you how we’re doing the work. We’re going to just go to the next slide here.

Mark Pruitt: You’ve got to refresh that. That’s been up the whole time. Get out of -  go to the URL line and hit refresh. We set this up at one o’clock and we weren’t finished yet and it sat open the whole time. Here you go. Now, there you go. I like the handwriting. All right, that looks a little better than me taking a picture of my handwriting for a slide today and then copying it on there. This has been set up since about noon today. In here, logged on — that was why the one slide I said where’s that other slide? It’s because we didn’t refresh when we came in here. Okay.

So, this meeting January. Here’s our cadence unless the group would like to change it.  We’re going to meet every other month, right? Zoom is an option. I am going to keep them in person. I think you get a lot more done in person, but that’s my position. Totally understand if somebody’s going to jump on Zoom.

So what I do is January 27th was a Tuesday. March 25th - it’s always the fourth week of the month, every other month. And so that nobody who may have to go to their kids’ basketball games every Tuesday night or have a church event every Wednesday night — that way you’re not jammed up every two months. So the cadence will go fourth week of every month, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That March 25th is correct. That Tuesday is not correct. March 25th is a Wednesday. And I’m going to send this out tomorrow. I’ll send you out invites tomorrow. So you’re going to have the slides tomorrow.

Najma Landis: Okay, I’ll try a question. I’m sorry. So then the idea that the presentations to the board will be in the off months? So the committee meets in March, so then in April there’ll be a presentation to the board?

Mark Pruitt: I think that’s ultimately up to the board, but that is how our draft cadence is set up with Alva Mobley.

Najma Landis: And then I noticed that there’s June, July, and then August. Is there a reason why we didn’t stick with the every other month for the summer?

Mark Pruitt: It’s hard to get people here. The drop off is just so significant. I took the liberty. This is just a draft. I can take the foot off the gas for June and July, coming back in August. But we certainly can adjust.

Vic Leonard: Are these meetings going to be recorded and posted?

Mark Pruitt: Yes. This one’s being recorded. We’re going to post that so the whole public can see that. That’s correct. We did with every meeting from January to June. We’re going to follow the same format.

Najma Landis: Is it possible for future meetings to have mics? One for you and then one to pass around for people’s questions? You know how Zoom is, sometimes it can be...  at least having that type of audio, 

Vic Leonard: not having it in that room over there, because here we don’t have much problem, but over there from our other committees —

[?] I have a suggestion. With the way that this is laid out, if we are going to do the board updates every other month, maybe it’ll go in like opposite order. Only because, for instance, if student services goes in March, there’s not going to be a whole lot to say yet. There’s going to be a lot more in October. But then if we don’t hear from the Innovation Center in October — you know what I mean? If we maybe did the opposite order, that way you’re getting an update here, but then near the end of this you’re getting the update at the board meeting. That way you kind of hear it at the beginning of — you know what I’m saying?

Mark Pruitt: I agree. 

Vic Leonard: I think we may have some requests. 

Mark Pruitt: I think the board would want, just from having this set up two meetings, that these are always after that month’s board meeting. So every one of these meetings is going to be after that month’s board meeting. I think that the best fit is to bring it in, which will tend to be about three weeks later, with an update. But it’s up to you. I think we have time.

Vic Leonard: I think that makes sense. So we can have any questions, we can discuss it in public at the board meeting, then it can go maybe onto the agenda. But either way, we’ve got some time on that.

Najma Landis: Can I just clarify? So the presentation would be at the March meeting, and then maybe you would address the questions that were brought up in public comment?

Vic Leonard: I think that's how it would go. Because we get feedback from constituents. We will make sure that they’re heard.

Mark Pruitt:  So, just so you know, next month - and I sort of set these up in importance - I thought folks would want to know what the communication cadence is going to look like over the next two months. So we’ll have Mobley here at our next meeting. Student services. We’ve got more questions about student services, whether it be a Meadowood student or whether it be a student simply that has anxiety or has a behavior plan, concern modifications. What’s this transition going to look like for my kid? That has been by far the most questions we’ve got. Whether it’s staff or some parent questions about that.

So we’ve front-loaded Dr. Celestine, not only for student service support, but also an update on the Meadowood changes. And then attendance zones and school choice will also be coming up in April and May. I’ll have Mr. Sean Snyder here talk about our work with the University of Delaware and our plans.

[?] Yeah. No, I’m looking at the flow. I think what I said was not a good Well, no, I like this how I’m looking at it. It makes sense because the things that we’re not talking about until August and October aren’t necessarily the most immediate need. I would want to get feedback on those initial groups so that we have more time to take this into consideration before we’re meeting. So I can see how the other groups could wait a little longer.

Mark Pruitt: If we feel strongly about something, it’s not a problem to get somebody here. We have to work with state folks on this, but they’ve got a committee. I’m going to try to get them to bring a teacher leader with them as well.

Najma Landis: And you said these slides will be posted for the public to see before we leave for the weekend?

Mark Pruitt: Yes.

Najma Landis: So like the areas and each of the district admin that’s covering each — if someone has a question, do you want them to put it through the question thing on the website on the reimagining secondary education?

Mark Pruitt: Yes. Yes, it goes straight to there, not to the people. I think that’s the best thing. Alva has done a nice job of farming those out. So far, since it’s gone live in December, I think we’ve gotten eight emails. I’ve answered three or four, Dr. Celest two or three. So she kind of forms a map by topic.

[?] If the state and community support that’s being presented on in August — is that the public and private support that Dr. Green is working on, is that worded differently or is that like a separate survey or something?

Mark Pruitt: No. That’s Dr. Green heading that work. That’s everything from putting together an industry advisory board that will give us feedback on an allied health classroom. Is this what a college-level allied health classroom should look like? To raising funding through public-private partnerships. And it’s why you don’t usually see something that detailed with Green next to it, with the superintendent standing next to it.

Next slide. Public comment. Would anyone like to give public comment? For all of you in the public back there, would any of you? Is there anyone?

I’ve asked her to unmute public comment. Brenda Steffon, you can go ahead.

Brenda Steffon: Hi, thank you very much for allowing me to have a public comment here. First of all, my name is Brenda Stefan. I am a homegrown Delaware raised and educated adult. I went from Greenville Highlands, Greenville, AI Middle, AI High School. I’m also on the board of the Friends of AI, which has been a passionate group of alumni spanning over 50 plus years of alumni, to be a part of the work of our late band director Mr. Paul Parets and to be a voice for not only our school but our community.

And so as a part of that, I also want to say thank you to Mark here and everyone involved for setting up all these direct transparent ways for us as a community to be a part of this. This is really great to see.

I want to also agree that we need to continue this communication not only for the people that are impacted by this school. I have a second grader, so I have some time, so to speak. But I am a taxpayer, and there are people who are not in the school system either by choice or no longer have kids in the system or have chosen not to have kids who want to know where their money is going, particularly we’ve had a very charged year in regards to these tax increases. So I think it’s very important for continuing to be very transparent and to communicate to a larger audience.

And with that, a question to pose: Will there be future discussions on the impact that this could have for taxpayers, particularly in this county? I know that may change with some other things coming down the road.

But as an alumni, I want to say to fellow other public schools, McKean and Dickinson alumni here, staff as well at these high schools — your alumni is a great resource. Please, please tap into that. And if you are alumni, be there. Support your schools. Support your admins. I am so lucky to have had an opportunity to get to know the staff at the high school now, and there are some wonderful educators out there who are doing good work. So please, please, please be a part of that.

And think about that when you think about these rivalries. There is no rivalry when it comes to we’re here for having an option that is fiduciary for the government to provide a comprehensive, equitable public high school education. And that’s why we’re all here. Thank you very much for the time.

Mark Pruitt: Thank you Brenda. Does anyone else have public comment?  Next slide. Okay. Next meeting topics that we just went through: communication, student services, Meadowood transition, and attendance zones and school choice. And a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn?

Brian Mattix: Motion to adjourn. 

Vic Leonard: Second by Mr. Leonard. 

Mark Pruitt: All in favor? Anyone want to keep going would be a no. Thank you so much for coming out. Thanks for your service.

🌐Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee Webpage

📁Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee Rolling Slides

📹 Attendance Zone & Restructuring Review Committee February 5, 2026 Recording

📋 Attendance Zone & Restructuring Review Committee February 5, 2026 Meeting Minutes (draft)

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:3:30 – 0:15:43

   1. • Morgan Dukes (McKean staff member & alumni): Questioned the Board’s commitment to community engagement and repeated public opposition to the Innovation Center plan

      • Jenny Howard (parent):  Raised safety concerns about district transportation, cost for Innovation Center routes and the Board to be guided by community input. 

2. Superintendent Report
   ⏯ 0:24:45

   1. • Superintendent Dorrell Green announced that the newly formed Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee will meet and that information about the Innovation Center has been shared.

3. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 0:39:30

   1. • Board Member Susan Sander provided an update on CBOC that met January 20, 2026 and mentioned transportation costs for Innovation Center. 

Dorrell Green: Next week, the newly formed Attendance Zone Restructuring Review Committee that the Board established last month will meet. Again for those of you, you should have received - whether it be text messages, emails, phone calls - regarding the website and information regarding plans around the Innovation Campus. We also have various work groups that have been established and we'll continue to do this work as we move forward.

Susan Sander: We began with approval of the minutes. Dr. Ammon did give a response to a public comment that had been previously asked regarding transportation costs for the innovation center. That amount is dependent on several factors which are still to be determined. However, there will be an answer provided in the spring. 

• 🌐Attendance Zone Restructuring & Review Committee Webpage 

• 📋Citizens Budget Oversight Committee January 20, 2026 Meeting Minutes