Oct 19 2022
Board Meeting

1. Superintendent Report Items Submitted by the Board - Charter & Magnet Equity Actions Follow-up and Discussion
   ⏯ 2:21:37 – 3:00:52

• Mark Pruitt, Director of Secondary Education, presented districtwide magnet/charter enrollment data during the Superintendent's Report

⏯ 2:21:37 – 3:00:52

Dorrell Green: So the next part, I'm going to have Mr. Pruitt come down and we're going to tag team through Dr. Bohms’ initiation. Several other Board Members have had interest in really looking at our magnet and charter enrollment in terms of programming. What are some things that the district is doing? We want to be able to, one, share some data around the magnet/charter, Mr. Porter share some processes, but then also look at some greater impact in terms of what that means for our secondary schools across the district that may help the Board gain some deeper insight in terms of our numbers and demographics within the district.

Mark Pruitt: Thank you. This issue has come up at board meetings for at least 12 years. At least. On and off. We actually did some work in 2014. Sam brought the two charter school presidents and the two magnet school principals together. We started to do some work, put together some committees, and see if we could make some difference, create some goals with data, and see if we could make a difference over a period of time. I believe that was 2015.

What you're going to see is a few slides here that we'll go through rather quickly. The first one is Red Clay's enrollment data by various demographics. It's a rather dense slide. You certainly will have it beyond this meeting, and it goes through from 2013 to 2022 with a series of demographics by percentage. That is the district percentages over that time for the entire K-12 school district.

The next four slides are those slides for each of the charter and magnet schools. I will have a summary slide after each of these four slides, but you’ll be able to see, for example, that African-American students in 2013 at Cab Calloway were 15% and are now just shy of 18%. You can look at that data over time for Conrad, CSW, and DMA. This slide - and I want to thank Shawn Snyder, who did a lot of this work. - took the four schools together and the changes from 2013 to 2022. This is not to say the changes met our goals in every instance, but it is what it is. The data is what it is at this point. Using last year's September 30th number. I'll give you a minute to look at that because I think it's little more manageable and digestible slide in a setting like this. 

I'm going to take just a moment to talk about some of the things that the two magnet schools... Now I don't we don't have access to the work that Wilmington Charter and or Delaware Military Academy may have done. You know maybe I we could go get that information see what they've done but certainly we could share what's been done in our own schools here at Conrad and and Cab. I can say this that we started this work in 2015 but as the interest in the school at least in terms of choice applications took off in 2012 at Conrad, what we very quickly recognized was that there were you know there there had to be more of an interest at all of our schools than one or two students from Mote or Lewis Elementary and 36 to 40 students from Forest Oak or Linden Hill Elementary.

So what we did was in 2014-15 we created an enrollment diversity committee that included administrators, parents, students, and teachers to begin to look at what factors, what strategies we could take on at Conrad. They created goals: three-year goals and five-year goals over that time. We met I believe five times a year and the school level committee was very successful. Out of those you know what that committee came up with was an Adopt A School model where we took a look at which Title I School actually... it didn't have to be a Title I school, it always was a Title I School which school had the lowest number of applications to Conrad per capita of fifth graders and we would target that school the following fall.

This is an example of of doing a lot of work but not quite having the results that that we had hoped for. Every time at least during the time we used this initiative, Warner, while while the numbers did improve and our Warner graduates at Conrad have increased tenfold over that time, it still remained in 2019 when the pandemic hit the lowest per capita applications to Conrad. There was also an Adopt a Student Initiative for the targeted three schools where teachers would follow up and make sure those students have what they needed at the assessment on a Saturday. About three years, four years back Conrad went to a "seven for seven" initiative to take kids who clearly through their interest, minimum interest and aptitude, at their previous school met the requirement—why put in a possible hurdle of them not showing up on a Saturday for an assessment? Something like that. And currently some of these things we were unable to do so what Miss Todd Dixon did most recently was outreach through Zoom initially question and answer sessions with parents at specific schools. She's targeted Warner and Highlands... excuse me was then Highlands now the Johnson school and we'll continue that in person this year.

Cab Calloway initiatives and strategies during this time period one I know that was uh both Ms. Rumschlag and Mr. Gray Bolden thought were successful were their Cab Ambassadors program. They would send a student who was at Cab as a high school student and who had gone to that Title I school back with them to work as an ambassador to create interest in attending Cab Calloway School of the Arts. Additionally they use the Cab Smart summer program to have no cost programming in Performing Arts for all Title I schools. After-school programming at no cost for targeted Title I schools. This year Mr. Gray Bolden is adding an additional early assessment. His first year going through this process he thought it's very complex for a lot of his families. He had been at Motet Elementary School and so he wanted to give families a chance to get in December and that way he could follow those students into January if he thought there was a need had they not been able to get a ride, not been able to do you know one of several things that could possibly trip them up by no intent of a 14 year old certainly no intent of a 10 year old.

At the district level - the district's had a Choice Buddies program that went on for years. The district office would work with Title I counselors to have to make sure that they understood the choice process that they would be able to share that information with their parents and community and then they would also collect data from year to year on enrollment from our Title I schools.

And more recently we are bolstering Arts programs in Title I elementary schools. Ms. Rumschlag's working on that. I also think it's worth noting from the Teaching and Learning office that we have emphasized a specific block of Science in all of our grades but specifically fourth and fifth grade to make sure that they have access to those opportunities as they move potentially towards a a STEM-based program for Middle School.

Dorrell Green: Then just lastly the partnership with LIGHT which is an organization that really helps not only support students preparing them for rigor within magnet and Charter programs specifically, but they also support parents. They help them navigate the choice process which we know is a very challenging process for some in terms of due dates so they they really walk them through that process. So Encore Aria serves as a partner with us and for those who aren't familiar, Encore was a former teacher at Thomas Edison and realized a lot of his students who come from underserved underrepresented communities while they had the aptitude and and could achieve at high levels they were having difficulties being able to access that. So we have partnered and have a community partnership relationship with LIGHT and they actually follow their students up through graduation through college. So that's a good partnership to have and they have a very high success rate quite often if you see students in CSW for example, nine times out of ten they probably gained access because they're a LIGHT fellow. So we felt from a community partnership standpoint it behooves us to really look at those relationships and I think the important thing with them is they they work with and support the families through various means of various programs and the acronym stands for again "Leading You Through Empowerment" so it is an empowerment and advocacy type of a premise as well. So we're fortunate enough to have those partnerships and allies to help support the work.

Mark Pruitt: You know what another issue that's come up certainly with the School Board Members- has been enrollment in our high schools - in this instance AI duPont High School. We thought that it was probably a good time to take a look at some enrollment at the school over the last couple of years or what you see there. Also the next couple of slides I'd like to thank Kristine Bewley and Phil Smallwood for their work in putting this information together.

What you see there is enrollment data from AI duPont High School from 2009 to 2021.

• Yellow: Students that attended that school in that year that lived in their attendance zone.

• Red: In-district choice students.

• Blue: Out-of-district choice students.

The high mark of course, you could pretty much see it: there were 1,292 feeder students attending AI duPont High School in 2009. That is down to 550 feeder students in 2021. Feeder students in 2009 were 1,292. Feeder students in 2020... that was the lowest year, there's actually an uptick the most recent year: 547.

• Highest number of in-district choice students: 151 in 2009.

• Lowest number: 52 in 2021.

• Highest number of out-of-district choice students: 148 in 2016.

• Lowest number: 17 out-of-district choice students in 2012.

Mark Pruitt: Next shows you enrollment at AI, the John Dickinson School, McKean, Cab, Conrad, CSW-Red Clay students. We did not have the opportunity at this point to get data on DMA Red Clay students. Okay, a marker as to when Choice busing ended, when Conrad was fully mature... that's a very important mark in time right? And Odyssey High School opening which of course is just a mile from AI duPont High School. So what you have there is obviously a data trend at AI duPont High School which you saw in the previous slide: 1,490 down to about 1,700... and the most significant number which would mirror that would be Conrad which had 200 students in 2009 up to 700-720 high school students. Pretty flat since 2014-15.

Dorrell Green: And so again just sharing that again from from both angles, really looking at the magnet/charter situation along with traditional Comprehensive High School and enrollment decline. You know, it impacts it as a whole because even if you look at between the initial first slide that was that was shared you're roughly looking at probably about a hundred-plus students between 2013 to 2022 in terms of overall shift in the enrollment. Right? So the number of students that attend these schools has stayed constant over this period of time. There was actually about 200 more students in these schools now than there were in 2009. The number has fallen a little bit the last few years but overall it's relatively stable during that time at about all the schools I want to say 5,500 to 5,700 grades 9 through 12. Including the you know enrollment including the two charter schools

Cathy Thompson: That's magnet, traditional, and charters?

Mark Pruitt: That is the five high schools in Red Clay and the two Red Clay chartered high schools.

Kecia Nesmith: I have a question and I don't know, you can't probably answer this, but it's something to think about. I was just wondering as I look at this very interesting data. In that decline, how many students started to go to private school or parochial schools? With that huge dip. 

Mark Pruitt: It's not data that we have access to at our fingertips. It is data that Kristine was going to try to work with the state on. I believe they've been collecting it recently but had no method to collect it prior to some period of years ago... I'm thinking from talking to her yesterday, three four years ago. 

Dorrell Green: And just generally speaking not necessarily at the secondary high school level but we have approximately 39 private and parochial schools within our geographic district boundaries as well. 

Cathy Thompson: 39?

Kecia Nesmith: Well, Delaware is like I think number four now the highest percentage of students going to the private parochial schools. 

Mark Pruitt: Our students - this number of all these schools is relatively stable. It's just where they've gone, where they attend at any period of time in those seven schools over this 14-year period.

Vic Leonard: Mark, what do you attribute the tremendous drop... the 55% drop in AI compared to the others? 

Mark Pruitt: Well let's go to the last slide and we can look at that. I think you brought up a really good point. I think this could possibly I think this can possibly really inform some of the work of the Task Force and the district as we create a new strategic plan Obviously, I think this is really important information to have. As you said Mr Leonard, overall student population has declined 52% at AI between 2009 and 2021. Out of District Choice peaked at AI in 2016 but that number was only 148. So that's not a number that's driving this decline. In-district Choice has declined by 66%. Of course that sounds like a lot but that is again a hundred and something students.  Conrad High School has grown over the exact same time by 209%. 216 students to 669 students in 2021. So you're talking about 450 of students. This is not the why. I understand that but I just want to get through this this here first. There's 450 students. In 2015 Odyssey opened and now there are 73 Red Clay students that attend Odyssey Charter School. Over the period of the last 10-12 years there's been a real emphasis on Red Clay students attending CSW and DMA. DMA's data is not in here. That's created a 48% increase in Red Clay students attending CSW. Was 600 in 2009 and now 300 students more at CSW. Those are Red Clay students and of course you know choice busing was significantly decreased in 2018 which may have impacted the 148 students who lived in the district who may but not in AI's feeder who may have chosen to use that bus.

Kecia Nesmith: Can you remind me when you said when was DMA Charter going to be chartered? Was it before all of this? 

Mark Pruitt: 2004. I want to say 2004. Within a year either way of that.

Vic Leonard: Mark, Can you explain why just the two schools - McKean and AI - were denied the choice busing or partial choice busing in 2018?

Mark Pruitt: I could certainly ask some folks and get back to you regarding that.

Vic Leonard: Yeah it's wondering to me that just two schools were affected by that.

Adriana Bohm: Mr Leonard, I've asked that question a number of times and I think Dr. Ammann usually answers it. Not that I'm trying to put you on the spot but I believe I was part of that conversation way back when.

Ted Ammann: Hopefully I'll give you the same answer I gave you.

Adriana Bohm: I'll remember, trust me. 

Ted Ammann: AI certainly has taken a lot of the discussion about that choice busing, but it was not solely AI High. Over the years - for many years - there had been choice bus routes put in in certain locations, certain neighborhoods based on interest and it was not something the state paid for. So every year we had to pay back a significant number of funds to the state because they do not provide for choice busing. The decision was made... a decision was made and it was right around the same time as our attendance zone discussion and I think that's when Dr. Bohm and I first talked about it. A decision was made that - certainly choice busing is is an interesting topic, it certainly is a barrier to some kids choosing to go to a school but we didn't have universal choice busing. We had selected choice busing over the years from certain neighborhoods; there was no necessarily you know rhyme or reason to it. So the decision was made that it was time to phase that out so that certain neighborhoods didn't have an opportunity that other neighborhoods did not.

Vic Leonard: My question was why did it affect one school more so than others? At AI.

Ted Ammann: Did it? We'd have to dig into that. We certainly didn't survey why some families chose to still go to a school when the bus went away. There were anecdotal stories about that but I don't know that we could necessarily say that it only impacted AI.

Vic Leonard: The population between 2018 and 2022 went down 32% in AI. I don't think that's a coincidence that same time that choice busing was taken away.

Ted Ammann: There certainly were some students that left during that time. Let's attribute all of them at the time to choice busing and that would be a portion of the overall decline. 

Vic Leonard: A large portion. 32% is a large portion.

Kecia Nesmith: When I look at the slide, the impact of the charter enrollment in yellow, what I see is more - I don't think that choice busing affected it because out of district students went up in 2018... didn't go down. The number of students in the feeder pattern went down consistently over time. And so I wonder... I'm thinking about the political environment in 2009 and there was a lot of discussion around choice... and I'm talking about the national not even Delaware. So with the choice, a lot more choices being offered and also discussed. That was a big political thing back in 2009 if I remember correctly. Then you have private and parochial schools, you have CSW, you have DMA, you have the Cab, you have Conrad... you know all those things were so many more choices were being offered or starting or people just thinking that they want a choice right?

Dorrell Green: I would highlight that the greater impact is to the feeder numbers, not necessary... I mean again we can say that choice had an impact but our analysis of this really was as a result of those Choice options I.E. Conrad becoming you know maturing at the school and being a desirable option, in essence had the feeder numbers of AI decline as you look at it from the 2009 on that particular bar graph slide.

Kecia Nesmith: What I see is from 2000 so there we're back in 2009. There were a number of students in-District that choiced into AI but that declined after 2014 not 2018. So it was consistent 2017, 18, 19 it went down a little bit in 20 pandemic. So I just wondered like I think there's a lot more factors that we need to consider with this decline enrollment with AI. 

Mark Pruitt: Certainly - anyone who worked on this data to put this together would not want this to be - there's no judgment in this data - there's certainly no excuses in this data. What this shows is that we've got work to do. I believe that we need to have fully functional comprehensive high schools and that enrollment. In order to do that, to have a a full array - everything from CTE programs to successful athletic programs to advanced placement dual enrollment programs - where you have a wide variety of interests. This is not a magnet school with a specific interest. You need to have enrollment to do that. I think that's where the work lies going forward. Sometimes data like this requires you to ask different questions. When I saw that the data of in-District had dropped off so much I talked to Kevin Palinetti about this and he said well we retain a really high percentage of our feeder students. So I looked at our current 8th graders, their feeders, we have about 1,280 8th graders in our district. AI by far has the smallest number of those students that at this point would feed into AI High School. They have 249 of those students this is before anyone chooses another school. 249 are set to feed into AI. 469 are set to feed into McKean. 466 are set to feed into Dickinson. That would lead me to believe that the number of students in the AI feeder pattern that uses our schools has changed since the last time the feeder patterns were established.

Vic Leonard: How does that change that drastically? Did you change the feeder patterns?

Mark Pruitt: Nobody's changed any feeder pattern since whenever the last time the Board approved it.

Vic Leonard: You're saying two hundred some in the AI feeder pattern now what was it before right now?

Kecia Nesmith: It's white flight. It's white flight.

Vic Leonard: White flight is a symptom, not a cause.  I'm trying to get the cause.

Kecia Nesmith: The cause is that there are more black and brown kids going to the school.

Vic Leonard: Ok, why? White flight is not a cause.

Kecia Nesmith: Well racism is the cause.

Dorrell Green: In the end we're looking at programming, we're looking at solutions. There's been a change between 2013 and 2022 152 students at that level. And our options are still plentiful in terms of families who have options to choice options.  The district isn't growing at the same rate that we provide additional opportunities. It becomes a whack-a-mole effect. We have 7 high school options for roughly 5500 families. So when you look at the broader number in terms of impact we have to look at the current environment which we are. We have to look at feeder patterns to some degree and understanding that programming makes a difference and right now we have 77% black Hispanic students at AI High School. We have you know CTE programs and we're working with the administration right now around some exciting opportunities and partnerships, But the numbers haven't changed over the period of time and what you see is a decrease in the feeder students because those students have chosen other options that we've made available to them either as a district or that they currently have available to them outside of the district so there's obviously internal pressure and impact on that and there's some external factors that we'll continue to work through to ensure that all of our schools get the attention, time and due diligence that's necessary to make sure that every student who are in our doors have the opportunity to thrive and grow.

Adriana Bohm: Can you go back to the previous slide for a moment please?  That one. I just look at that and I'm horrified that that ship of AI sank for so many years and that us as a Board - me included because I've been on this board for a long time - we didn't address this. I mean that thing literally was sinking, sinking, sinking... and we did nothing, nothing, nothing. That should never happen in Red Clay again.

Cathy Thompson: Well, we did do something. We demanded that Conrad only take Red Clay kids, and we demanded that Cab only take Red Clay kids. We did. And we demanded CSW take Red Clay kids.

Adriana Bohm: But what did we do for that line at AI to continue to go down and down and down.What did we do? And I take blame for that as well. This should never be allowed to happen again. That's my point. Number one. I have a request. When I look at this and when I look at the slides that you shared - thank you for them, they're very lovely - for Cab and Conrad, I'd like to see an overlay between race and class. So we see the number of black students, we see the number of low-income students, but I would like to see what happens when we put race and class... we intersect them. Like I want to know what percentage of low-income black students, what percentage of low-income Hispanic students, what percentage of low-income white students attend Conrad and Cab. And then you said we didn't have DMA but we had a little bit for the Red Clay students at CSW. So I'd like to see some of those overlays because I think that gets... that's even gonna get us to a more critical juncture or a more significant point because I believe the data will demonstrate quite clearly that its low-income students of any race but specifically African-American Latino students who are not being accepted into these programs. So I think that's really where the work needs to be done. But I'd like to see the stats before I provide an assessment or analysis. I'd like to analyze those slides. Thank you but these slides were lovely. Thank you.

Kecia Nesmith: Thats really good data. I agree with that.  There were a lot more students in the district in 2009 than there are in 2021. It's looks like it. I hear what you're saying Dr. Bohm but the only school that really had that big shift is AI so I would do a hyper focus on on that data. Because it's going to be hard - if the state collected all of that.

Mark Pruitt: 2009 and 2021. Those five schools are at about a 200 student increase since 2009. 

Adriana Bohm: So you're saying we have approximately 200 more students now than in 2009? 

Kecia Nesmith: And this number is including choice students as well from out of district.

Mark Pruitt: We have more students. That's not saying there hasn't been a slight decline over the past 3 or 4 years. That's the enrollment totals at those 5 schools.

Cathy Thompson: For Cab, some of those aren't Red Clay.

Mark Pruitt: That's correct.  I want to clarify what I meant by those numbers. It's snapshots in 2009 and 2021. Point being, point being is we're dealing with about the same amount of students here and it's just what seats they're taking up within in the in these 7,000 seats we have the offer and the 5,000 seats that we have fulfilled. 5,500 that we have to fill. 

Cathy Thompson: 7,000 seats?

Mark Pruitt: I didn't look at, maybe I'm speaking well, you have an extra six-seven hundred at AI and -

Cathy Thompson: It would be nice to know how many seats we do have and how many students.

Mark Pruitt: Instructional capacity?

Kecia Nesmith: The September 30th count - that was the whole thing. 

Dorrell Green: Again we have a lot more seats than students. And the student numbers over the years, to sum it up, really haven't changed drastically. But the opportunities and options both internally and externally has grown. We haven't discussed private and parochial, we haven't discussed VoTech, so there are a number of within Red Clay proper. And I know Conrad did an analysis of students, particularly of Hispanic and Latino descent, who were there for Middle School sixth to eighth grade and they lost them at high school because then they were choosing to go to Delcastle for example. So again, we understand the hyper-focus that we need to have on AI in particular, but please know we've made decisions as a district previously to address one where it creates another issue or vacuum on the other side. And I think this is what we're realizing now because when those decisions were made five, ten years ago, no one was forecasting out what that - what is that ultimately going to mean? So the Conrad issue was addressed, but no one forecast it out: 

What does that mean for the district as a whole when you start to see feeder numbers decline?

Because I believe through 2018 to 2021, only 40 students were lost in terms of out-of-district choice students. In terms, so there are a number of different numbers and that we can parse. We're focused on it, we're working with the admin. This has been of concern not only to us, but we got to be comprehensive how we look at this across the district. 

Cathy Thompson: And I do remember, because my daughter was graduated AI in 2009, I do remember the Board has made a number of decisions. One decision was to significantly limit choice to AI High School, and I remember Merv making that presentation at a Board meeting. We significantly decreased choice applications that could be accepted. And then as a Board we did that at AI. What about a district, both in and out? I mean we as a Board, we said we wanted Conrad to be all Red Clay, we wanted Charter to be all Red Clay, we've been pushing Cab to be all Red Clay. So we limit the number of out-of-district. 

Dorrell Green: So they were coming from other places and I would be safe to say 1,500 students within AI. I'm sure there's a lot of pressure on your climate in terms of size of building, scope of building while, you know again, the school is thriving. But we're also talking about infrastructure on another end when you're looking at, you know, capacity for schools, you know, ultimately that size. So again, we just wanted to share this information with the Board because it was a request. So thank you to Mr. Pruitt, thank you, Mr. Smallwood.

Jose Matthews: Mr. Pruitt, I had a couple things as well and as I proactively listened to the rest of my colleagues, I intentionally reserved comment just to really be cognizant of the feedback and the comments said tonight so I could really process and have an understanding of what we're seeing here. Superintendent Green, I think, highlighted something that I think is certainly missing from this discussion and conversation. I know that this conversation has been had in the past, but specifically for Hispanic students, a community that I'm incredibly and well-connected with seeing their interest in VoTech opportunities. AI being 35% Hispanic Latino, we have to look at what their community is interested in, what those students are interested in and what we're preparing them for when they leave here in Red Clay. And I would like us to look at our offerings to be able to leverage those populations and keeping them here so they don't have to go out to, let's say, a Votech. And those numbers I didn't see in this presentation, but I would be interested in seeing them because a lot of members in my community, specifically the Hispanic community, they do want to go out into the workforce and that's the reality of the circumstance here. And we're not meeting their needs and I don't think that's fair and I don't think that's okay.

So I think that there are some wonderful educational opportunities and wonderful job opportunities for people to live a fruitful life, and if we're not fostering that here, I think that's a problem. I mean there's no shame in going out and working a blue-collar job and making a reasonable living. We know that electricians and plumbers and construction workers and now we're in the age of these electronic vehicle maintenance technician certificates that a lot of other districts in the nation are providing for students as they move forward and move on. These are real desires for the Hispanic and Latino community I think we need to meet. So as we look at the demographic and population we're serving there, I want us to keep that in mind, absolutely.

📄October 2022 District Charter & Magnet Enrollment Demographics Report