Feb 19 2025
AZ Committee Meeting

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 5:18 - 06:45

   1. • Jason Gleber (Charter School of Wilmington) Audio is not available. 

    ⏯ 1:50:40 - 1:53:22

1. 1. • Jared Obstfeld (Friends of AI): Opposes removing one of the three high schools, emphasizing their importance for diversity, student social development, and supporting all students including those with special needs (IEPs), and urges others to consider these impacts before making a decision.

      • Brenda Steffon (Friends of AI): Supports maintaining a secondary school, emphasizing equity, community engagement beyond just data, lessons from past school closures, and the need to prioritize enrollment, diversity, and inclusive support for students.

2. Data Presentation
  ⏯ 12:45 - 55:16
Data Presentation & Committee Discussion on Enrollment Trends and Building Capacities; Mark Pruitt presented findings on the 20-year decline in middle school enrollment (from 4,100 to 3,600 students) and the lack of alignment between K-8 and high school attendance zones, while committee members discussed the impact of instructional capacity changes, inclusion models, and charter school competition on district-wide enrollment.

⏯ 1:12:57 - 1:46:25
Collaborative Brainstorming After breaking into groups to brainstorm, the committee reconvened and shared their break out ideas including: CTE Innovation Center, Warner K-8, Expanding Dickinson's IB program, and redrawing attendance zones.

🔇Audio is not available for Member Introductions and public comment; 👂audio begins at 06:45

Mark Pruitt: Do we have any public comment on Zoom? 

Unknown Speaker: There was a comment. 

Shawn Snyder: Okay, we fixed it. 

Hadrian Cissell (member of public): Yes, they said they can hear. 

Vic Leonard: Thank you. 

Mark Pruitt: Do we have any public comment on Zoom? 

Unknown Speaker: I asked and there was nobody.

⏯ 7:02 Mark Pruitt: Nobody new added. All right. All right, so now everyone should have in front of them an agenda for this evening, which we just reviewed, and a hard copy and also a hard copy of the minutes, which were sent to you to draft minutes in. And if we don't have them, here they are. No problem. So start this one this way or this one this way. I also - if you can get a chance to read them in the email - I sent the email out a couple days afterwards. And so we will allow for 2 minutes to review those minutes. The minutes, by the way, for Robert's Rules are only need. It is not a transcription of what was discussed. We, we record the meetings for that. It is simply a recap for the meeting, particularly if we took any action at the meeting. Is someone open to making a motion to approve or amend? 

Unknown Speaker: I make a motion to approve.

Unknown Speaker: Second.

Mark Pruitt: Wait to make sure everyone comfortable for today. The motion on the table and second all in favor of approving the motion.

Group: Aye. 

Mark Pruitt: Anyone opposed? Minutes have passed that are official and would be put on our committee's website. 

All right, very quickly this slide is a repeat from last meeting. That is the goal of the Attendance Zone Enrollment Programming Committee. The goal of this committee is to evaluate the enrollment programming and attendance zones of Red Clay secondary schools and make recommendations to the School Board at the July Board meeting. In doing so, the committee should consider strong and balanced  enrollment across schools, align boundaries to K8 attendance zones when possible, consider geography and neighborhood schools when possible, provide equitable access to quality education for all students, and also consider the advantages and challenges of the recommendations we make through data analysis, community feedback and research. You will also see that a couple more times to keep you focused when we start to brainstorm. The next is our meeting norms.

We're going to speak our truth. We're going to be respectful of various points of view. We're going to assume everyone on our committee has positive intent and we're going to strive to be solution oriented.

A tentative timeline, we started with, I said, last meeting I'd talk at you more than I would probably the rest in total. We're gonna finish that up tonight. Got a little more history and data to go through. I anticipate about 10 or 15 minutes. And then we will get into the brainstorming and consideration of the possibilities. And we'll have some rules about that. Not like nothing's too small, nothing's too big. It's just an idea to get us started.

We'll see how the rest of that goes. We can make an adjustment throughout our time as needed. 

All right. So what have there up in front of you is the sort of what I call initial findings. We were going through data and if someone or multiple people on the committee spoke up and there was some discussion about it or, "oh, wow," or, "oh, I didn't know that. That's concerning."

Right, we tried to catch and capture that. It does not mean that we didn't miss something. It doesn't limit us to what we need to fix or anything like that. It just sort of recap the items that we discussed. The fact that the high school feeder patterns, one - don't align with the middle and elementary school. 

Let me pause here for moment. Tremendous attendance, Dr. Nesmith. Yes. By the way, 19 people on this committee. Okay.

And at the high school, the attendance zones had not been updated since 2002. That was an initial find.

⏯ 12:45 Mark Pruitt Discussion around Skyline. We didn't really get to that data yet, but there was some discussion about Skyline's enrollment, the decline between 2015 and 2025. You'll see that here momentarily when we get to the middle school data. AI High School's enrollment decline between 2010 and 2025. AI High has less students in their attendance zone when compared to The John Dickinson school and McKean High School. Probably they only have 60 % of the students to choose from that the other two schools do.

Warner has no distinct feeder pattern. They have an elementary attendance zone, but then they split to two middle schools and then all three high schools. And there was some concern expressed about the lack of community for that smaller community within Red Clay.

High school enrollment has remained constant over the past 25 years, but we have gone from set 5 to 7 high schools in the past 20 years, right? So we've always educated at our 3 comprehensive schools, two magnet schools, two charter schools that we charter. There are 5000 students now.

All right, but we used to do that with five schools 20 years ago.

We've gone from 6 to 8 middle school in the last 20 years. You'll see some data, consistent, we'll see some consistencies along with what we looked at the high school's last meeting. Well, some discussion about prioritizing Red Clay residents. This is gonna be a complex issue, but we, as a Red Clay community, have prioritized not only Red Clay residents for Conrad Schools of Science and Cab Calloway School of the Arts, but our School Board has asked the Delaware Military Academy and the Charter School of Wilmington to prioritize Red Clay students as they charter those schools. And the impact that that's had. 

There was some discussion about a reduction in choice busing. 

And there was some discussion about the fragmentation of attendance zones in the city of Wilmington, particularly as it applies to our high schools. The little pockets of McKean, Dickinson and really just a lot of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Connecting the city, probably originally designed in 1981.

 ⏯ 15:38 Mark Pruitt: Now, we're going to continue with some, well, not all new information because I think it's important to recap a couple of things. We saw this slide last month. These are, by the way, you're going to get these hard copy now the same as you did last month. The next 5 or 6 slides. But we, if you're at the meeting, you saw this. The slides are now public. These are - in color are our elementary attendance zones established in 2015 and the overlay in a dark in a black highlighter are the middle school attendance. Pretty clean, as that work was done together by the district in 2015. Every elementary school in our district is assigned to a middle school of which they are enclosed within that attendance zone. Okay, there are 2 that are not:

Brandywine Springs is split.  Their attendance zone is Skyline Middle School, others are AI Middle School. Warner's are split. Some are HB middle school and some are Skyline Middle School.

Slow down with questions with the new slides. But again, you do not have to wait to put your hand up and say I have a question. 

Val Gould: Sorry, can we get those? Thank you. appreciate it. 

⏯ 17:31 Mark Pruitt: Next slide. Now jumps ahead and what is in color is the middle school attendance zones, again, established in 2015, and the overlay in green are the high school attendance zones established in 2002. And, you know, very quickly, you recognize that there is no alignment between K-8 attendance zones and high school attendance zones. There was some discussion about the lack of the community and vertical articulation between schools with this. It's also worth noting that didn't include all these slides that we have four attendance middle schools and some of them feed - all four - feed to McKean High School. Three of the four feed to AI DuPont High School and three of the four feed to Dickinson High School.

This is, I think, what the Board is that, you know, what we put as a core goal, which is to have alignment of attendance zone boundaries across the K12 program.

⏯ 19:06 Mark Pruitt: This is a new slide here. You saw a smaller slide with high schools. This goes back 2000. It's a busy slide. So I'll slow down and let you digest it a little bit, but it is on a 4 year sequence. 2000, 2024. There are 7 years. There are 7 snapshots. Every 4 years.

And what you see is the enrollment.

There are 3 things to note here: 

One is that Conrad Schools of Science saw a decline from 2000 to 2012. That was the result of it changing over to a magnet school. So, and now for the last four bars from 2012 to 2024 has been constant because a magnet school would have a constant enrollment, right? But it was larger than that when it was one of our attendance zone schools. 

The other thing worth noting is that Brandywine Springs only has five of the seven bars because it was created between 2004 and 2008.

And the John Dickinson MYP Middle School only has three bars listed,16, 20, and 24, because it was created between 2012 and 2016. I'll let you digest that for a moment. At any point, I'll take questions for clarification. 

Maddie Reitemeyer: For Conrad, what about it becoming a magnet made its enrollment less, like if it could hold a thousand as a comprehensive? 

Mark Pruitt: Remember that this is 6th-8th middle school. So the decision was made to open up a 6th through 12th grade magnet school. So you had to control the middle school at about, it's 170 a grade, to that's times three. Okay. In middle school and it's times 4 for high school. These are only middle school numbers. This does not include Dickinson High School. It does not include Conrad. But your point is well taken when there were more students in there in 2000, 2004 and 2008. There were no high school students. 

Maddie Reitemeyer: Got it. Okay. 

Mark Pruitt: Good question. Any other questions or comments? Early findings. Anything that sticks out. 

⏯ 21:55 Vic Leonard: Just Skyline went down and Dickinson went up. So , I guess that was early, in the early years that program started. 

Mark Pruitt: I would say that that Skyline's precipitous decline from 2016 to 2024 is in line, certainly with the John Dickinson program.

Kecia Nesmith: Also, that year shifted the enrollment and the students that were at HB. 

Jay Bastianelli: Yup that's correct. 

Mark Pruitt: Yep.

Jay Bastianelli: And then also in 2016, there was it was very odd how to curve it. There's an error in choice. Skyline had one grade, that a lot of the kids decided to choice back, due to the feeder pattern change, and they had too many students in the sixth grade. I never knew the exact number, but they showed that, but that [inaudible]

Mark Pruitt: I think what Jay's saying is that to use that 880 number, the light blue, in 2016, as the beginning of the decline, there was too many kids in school that year. It was overcrowded due to an adjustment in the attendance zone and what I remember them calling a bubble at the Board meetings. But I do think it's fair to say that they operated at about 700. And now, this year, like, 420.

You see constancy in Brandywine Springs. That's a 300 student program. 

Unknown Speaker: Can I ask a quick question? 

Mark Pruitt: Yes. 

⏯ 23:41 Unknown Speaker: Just curious, why the steady decline of HB that [inaudible] 2004? It's not that - it's subtle, but... 

Mark Pruitt: Yeah, it's well certainly at one point, if you go back to 2004, there were 930, I think, kids in the school approximately. I don't know that I can speak to the reasoning behind that. At this point, they have, they are at about... I can tell you...

Kecia Nesmith: While you're looking, could it be that that's when Conrad became a magnet school?

Unknown Speaker: Yes, that's exactly what it is. 

Mark Pruitt: Uh It is, but they do have a waitlist. So, I think it's important to note that they operate at current capacity of 90%. They also are inclusive now of Meadowood students and they were then too, but I don't know if the Meadowood program - so like the Meadowood program is not included in that number because it's a separate program. But the number has held steady in that school at what, Jay, about 750-760 is the number we use. 250 per grade over the past few years. 

Val Gould: Is there, does anyone have any ideas, if there there was an uptick in enrollment in private schools specific to HB DuPont's? 

Mark Pruitt: I do not think that was a time. And again, I'm just giving you my hunch here that that period would have been a period where 2012-16 where most of the private schools were having some problems, I believe, with enrollment. Now, that was was more for high school than middle school. I don't know for sure. 

Val Gould: I only ask because 2015 is when the elementary attendance zones were redone. And that would have changed who was going to HB DuPont. And so to see that change starting in 2016 kind of sets off alarm bells for me.

Jay Bastianelli: You're saying for it to go down?

Val Gould: Yes.

Kecia Nesmith: But I think they also have John Dickinson school added. 

Val Gould: I understand that.

Kecia Nesmith: So there's not that many that actually [inaudible.]

Unknown Speaker: When did Odyssey come online? Odyssey Charter. 

Mark Pruitt: Odyssey. K-8, it was K-5 first, then K-8 has to go back at least 12 years. 

Maddie Reitemeyer: But I think to Mr. Pruitt's point, because there's a waitlist at HB, there's still families that would like to go. I mean, in theory, could be probably 200 higher, but for whatever reason, the number of students that fit in there went down. So that reduction doesn't necessarily mean, represent, interest going down. It's just the number. And if you think about when Central School closed as well, and we went to more inclusive schools, a lot of the classrooms could then, if the students' needs meant that only 5 students were in the classroom, and maybe there was only one classroom of students that fed there, and now there might be 3 or 4. Plus, I just think in a very positive way, we've become more and more inclusive of kids that are in comprehensive schools. So those classrooms then, we used to have 30 kids in it, and now it has 5 to 10 in it. So your total capacity goes down. My guess is that's more what we're seeing?

⏯ 27:20 Mark Pruitt: It's a great segway into capacity changing over time. You're going to see that as our schools have changed, right, we haven't necessarily built additional space on a building, right, brick and mortar, but we have adjusted capacities over time. So the capacity at HB middle, the instructional capacity at HB middle school 20 years ago may have been 900 and is now you'll see it in 820 or whatever that number is. That is the result of bringing back of autism classrooms are inclusive changes from 2000, I think it's 14? Around the same time as the attendance zone changes. And so you're now taking a classroom that the formula for instructional capacity was 21 to 25, and now you're setting it somewhere between 5 and 10 for some of those classrooms. 

Unknown Speaker: Is there data to support you?

Mark Pruitt: Ask that again. I didn't really hear you.

Unknown Speaker: Is there data to support if that's truly the case? I mean, we're making a lot of assumptions right now. So is there data to support that? 

Mark Pruitt: There certainly would be data to support that the capacity has been reduced over the past 20 years. I could go back and look, there's a folder we have older capacity. 

Shawn Snyder: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we looked at that style book and code a couple of weeks ago. And that really was the big difference was you took a classroom that maybe 30 years ago when you did these walkthroughs with like a studio JAED, or some sort of architectural firm, the business rules were each room by square footage to all this many kids, especially when law change, the way we handle classrooms change, like school psychologists in school, a zillion more employees that maybe don't even have classrooms, but they need space. 

When you do the math, given these new parameters, even though the physical plan didn't change, it's a smaller capacity based upon the business rules in Title 14 for school buildings. We can set program capacities. When you get to 85%, I believe, as in code, that is when we can start creating wait lists and things like that associated with choice. We could put a lot more kids in HB. We a waiting list currently, right now. But the question is, do you want to pack a school with as many possible students as possible?

I used to be a principal, I could tell you my vote would be "no" as the principal of that building. There's a balance to how many you want in there. But the data sets would would show us that the capacity at HB DuPont isn't necessarily the issue. 

⏯ 30:01 Jose Matthews: And I think I'll attest. Recently, and this was an elementary school, that had that same exact issue, ended up came exactly what you were saying, which is North Star Elementary. And North Star Elementary obviously has a wait list for their program as well, but realizing that it wasn't healthy to cram in that many students into a classroom, it just wasn't fair for the students, it wasn't fair for families, for the educators who are trying to do their jobs. So they really did run into space capacities and so the Board had to make the decision to pull back. And we're very grateful for the amount of people who are interested in North Star. We have a lot of other phenomenal, fantastic elementary schools that are doing excellent work. But because of the restrictions that Shawn just mentioned, we have to make adjustments to be able to meet the needs that are involved in the regulatory stage as well. 

Unknown Speaker: That makes sense to me, but I guess if the capacity was obviously not increasing, isn't that true, all across the board? 

Shawn Snyder: Yes. All the building's capacities would be a little bit lower than say 30 years ago, we did the same. 

Unknown Speaker: So I guess the reason I'm bringing that up is like that I'm seeing very different trending. So we're talking about HB DuPont. Makes sense. Ok. But then I would expect to see some of the same trending with other schools, that's not what I'm seeing either.

So, and again, I know there's other factors that we all talked about the fact that again, Brandywine, and another thing, but again, going back to 2004, I'm just using HB DuPont, oh before Brandywine Springs and John Dickinson school, I would expect the same trend. So I'm seeing like, for example, that's a good shift. 

Jose Matthews: Yeah. And I can answer that question. You look at our buildings historically, they've been all built in different time periods with the layout. We get, you know, these beautiful buildings like Warner Elementary. They have these huge classrooms, huge library, the huge footprint that, you know, the state would have approved, you know, all those years ago. Now there's all of these laws and all of these stipulations in place on how a building is supposed to be designed by square footage. So some of the newer buildings have very different capacities to some of our older buildings. And being that Red Clay, we have, you know, the oldest buildings in the state. Our buildings can really vary in terms of capacity, depending on the time periods that they were built, like buildings like Warner and AI Middle School. The State would never approve some of the gorgeous architecture that they had and some of the larger buildings, which actually work out really well for the population, but some of the newer buildings just don't have the same opportunities. 

Mark Pruitt: I would also note, and I'm not, I think, maybe if the capacity in a building was 900 and they had 900 and then the instructional capacity was changed, there was a need to get that down to that capacity. If Stanton Middle School, for example, was 600 and its original capacity was 800 and its new capacity at 700, there was no reason to drive the 600 enrollment down. They were still not at capacity.

And I'm not trying to like, prove you - like - I was thinking like, I think there's a lot of factors that play into it. But one factor that what we looked at, in case simpler than this, but we looked at this data for high schools and we did not see a reduction in enrollment over the past 15 years. But we have in fact seen a reduction in sixth, seventh and eighth grade enrollment since 2010.

So while there were 4,100 students, approximately in 2010, in 2024 3,600 students attended. So in 2010, 4,100 students attended 6 middle school programs. And now 3,600 students attend eight middle school programs.

Questions?

Amin Farooqui: For middle school, I don't want to pick on those numbers, but middle school is there a possibility that that's the time about when parents experiment to - what I have noticed - is that those schools are time where parents can experiment with homeschooling, private schooling, but then they're coming to high school. 

Mark Pruitt: Is this a time when potentially parents are experimenting with different programs, home schooling, private schooling, etc. It was the question. Oh I would, I don't know that certain. I do know that we are including in our data for high schools, the two charter schools that Red Clay school district charters, but there have been other middle school charters that have come to fruition over this time period that we do not charter. Okay. And so we know that we've got students at Odyssey Charter School.

Amin Farooqui: And some already also [inaudible.]

Mark Pruitt: None within the 5 mile radius, but certainly yeah, there's a handful for that's 40 - you know, with based on.

Kecia Nesmith: Aspira language program. How long has Aspira been -

Mark Pruitt: There is certainly school a couple of other charter schools within the city. And then they all were born during this time period. And I'm not saying that that's the only reason that there's a reduction.

Shawn Snyder: I think I said this last meeting, but I looked at the stats so much. And I love that. There's a lot of reasons, I guess, what I want to, you're going to find 10,000 reasons that got us to this space and they're all correct. But I looked for a silver bullet for the first three or four months of doing this kind of research project. Never found it. Found a bunch of bullets, found like maybe 6 or 7 of them, but it took a lot of different things happening to get us to this week today.

All are valid, by the way, there is a valid exploration of middle schools opening. And charters. There are a more K-8 charters than there are the high school charters. That's just true around the state. 

⏯ 36.47 Vic Leonard: Well, uh, our enrollment in middle school is down in the district and Charter has just been approved for a 6-8 - 

Mark Pruitt: Charter has been approved for 6-8? 

Vic Leonard: They put in for it.

Mark Pruitt: They have not been approved.

Vic Leonard: Charter has put in for 6-8. 

Mark Pruitt: They have not been approved for - I don't know anything about that.

[inaudible group conversations]

Mark Pruitt: Any concerns or ideas before I move on to the next slide. So two more slides before we start. all right. This is information that we recently received. As I said, we've been working with the University of Delaware, their Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research. A gentleman by the name of John Lasnik has lot of work for the schools. School enrollment there. This had to be Monday, maybe Friday. He sent a report recently produced about school enrollment using the 2020 census data. Enrollment projections in all Delaware schools, about a 40 page report. I did not bring the 40 page report, but I did give you one slide. You see that their enrollment projections for Red Clay are to go from 2021 14,400 students to 12,000 students in 2050.

This is consistent across all Red Clay. Excuse me. New Castle County school districts, but not all school districts in the state of Delaware. All right. There are a couple that are actually probably going against that trend. Smyrna school district, Cape Henlopen school district, Milford school district.

Something to keep in mind, I thought it was important to get up there. You know, the importance of enrollment when when dealing with strong, you know, strong schools. And why, you know, while we would certainly. As I think we've done in many cases, halt any downward trend in enrollment, certainly, you know, when you, when you talk about census births, deaths, lot of those things, there's there's reason to believe that there will be a reduction in enrollment in Red Clay school district over the next 30 years. 

Kecia Nesmith: It's not that much.  

Mark Pruitt: What's not that much? 

Kecia Nesmith: The reduction. You gotta think about ages of who's living here now. What ages are the people in your houses? And is there a trend? Like I'm looking at Appo, we're talking about Appo. Appo School District has grown, but it was very rural at one point. So the people bought, I don't know, 20-30  years ago. They're going to start getting older. It's like a certain demographic that lives in that community around same ages. They bought the new house and then it's going to go down. Then they're going to move out or they're going to live in nursing homes and then it's going to come back up with kids. So I think that with Red Clay it's very stable in terms of where we are, but we might have that trend, depending on the births. Like that is information I'm curious about  - is how many births for during certain years because they're not always the same. Sometimes they went in COVID, they went up, know, and you got a lot more kindergartners coming in. So I just, think that is important and we're not really building in this area. 

Shawn Snyder: And it's important. That's a good point to make a data set like this, predictive data sets, very difficult to do. And last thing is like the guy you want to have to do. It's amazing, but it won't have you can't predict there's going to be a pandemic where there's a baby boom. That's the no data set to look into the future like that. So that's a good point. 

Val Gould: But also, I think the economy is probably driving a lot of this. People aren't going to have as many kids when we can't afford to keep ourselves home. 100%. So it's a really interesting trend. But I agree with the Appo comments. I can tell you that. Everyone who I know lives down there is like my age. They're in their 40s. And it's just like in 10 years, your kids are done.

⏯ 41:39 Shawn Snyder: And also the unknown thing about Appo is will they stay or will they go retire someplace else? I don't know. Middletown is a desirable retirement location. These are great studies and I like John. 

Mark Pruitt: I can tell you that the University of Delaware and Mr. Lasnik, we have tentatively scheduled, but you make an adjustment, to come out and talk through how they come up with these types of numbers and some additional numbers that go along. 

Unknown Speaker: I can also state that the birth rates, that's public knowledge. You go into the State of Delaware website and it tells you in what areas, how much the birth rates at Christiana and all the other hospitals and all there. That's what I do. The strategic data is all out there. 

Vic Leonard: Does this reflect any possible changes on the WLC? You know, Christina moving out of the city or? 

Mark Pruitt: This does not reflect that information. I don't believe. This is with no change. I believe a lot of the a lot of the narratives in the report, I didn't want to bring, you could have gone through this report. Right? It'll be really easy to get into the weeds with a report like this that I received by the way, either Friday or Monday. 

But I think, you know, it's just important to note as to where, you know, the people and folks that do this work, the census, that type of information, where they think school districts, you know, are heading over the next 30 years.

⏯ 43:09 Mark Pruitt: The next slide is a busy one. There was some questions about capacity. I've got the 10 schools that include either a middle school program, a high school program or both. It tells you what they are. Are they an attendance school? Are they a choice program?

What is the current enrollment of middle schoolers and high schoolers? What is the current capacity for that building?

CC is current capacity and IC is ideal capacity. 

And I use the term "ideal" loosely. And I didn't change many of those. All right? But if you look out in yellow, I include what capacities are in those buildings as best as I could. And I do not work for Studio JAED. But, I came up with a conservative number. We came up with a conservative number, the team that did that work. What these capacities, because the first question would be, if you've been in this area, and we tell you that AI High School's capacity is 955, you're going to go, that doesn't make sense to me. Like, I went to school there, I knew it was like 13 or 1400, they build on two additions and so on and so forth. All right? That is because there are spaces in that building that are not being designated instructional and also they have our adult growth program because there's room in school. Okay, but they are somewhat portable programs that do allow for a larger capacity if we need it. All right. 

Then, of course, the Meadowood program. McKean is listed at 954 in their current capacity, but that is because the Meadowood program has a large, eight classrooms, you know, approximately, office space, that kind of thing, which limits it, but there's could be, conservatively easy at 1145. 

So this was requested information. I will allow some time to consider this, ask questions about this. You also have this in front of you. Those of you taking pictures in the back, this will be up on our website tomorrow. I don't mind if you take pictures, I think I've seen two people, like, it's fine. It's going to be up on the website tomorrow. 

Shawn Snyder: We have extra copies.

Mark Pruitt: That's true too. 

⏯ 46:07 Kecia Nesmith: I have a question about Brandywine Springs. Yes. So, when you talk about capacity, you're talking about instructional capacity. 

Mark Pruitt: I'm talking about instructional capacity, but remember this only reflects middle school and high school programs. So like, their total capacity here. We're only talking in terms of secondary schools. So it is at 330, but the number is, I think, 1012.

Kecia Nesmith: So, yeah, so the ID, what is that? 

Mark Pruitt: That is the percentage of current capacity for that secondary program. And the other one is the percent of ideal capacity or what could be an ideal capacity. 

Kecia Nesmith: The two on the end? 

Mark Pruitt: The two on the end.

Kecia Nesmith: Okay. So how do you - so is there a building capacity number? I asked that because Brandywine Springs is K-8, where the other schools don't have kindergarten-5 programs. So I guess the curiosity is, and we might have this somewhere already, but the actual building capacity? 

Mark Pruitt: 2012, I think. Certainly somewhere around there. 

Shawn Snyder: It would be that range, Mark, you're right.

⏯ 47:26 Unknown Speaker: Is the elementary part considered attendance zone? 

Mark Pruitt: The elementary part would be attendance zone. And the middle school would be what we're calling choice here, right? There is no, no, no one goes to that school because they live in a, in in a certain attendance zone. Yep. But yeah, if you extrapolated that out, their, K-5 would be A-Z and then of course their middle school is choice. 

Unknown Speaker: So that number for elementary is pretty much written in stone? 

Mark Pruitt: We can't entirely control it because you don't know who's going to attend, make a choice to go somewhere else. You know, 

Unknown Speaker: The only control mechanism you have is the - 

Mark Pruitt: we can control this 330. 

Shawn Snyder: That's actually a really important point. When you're in attendance zone school, you have to teach everybody shows up at the door and we don't have any ability, even if we're like at fire code capacity, we have to figure it out. Like downstate where they have small districts where there's an elementary school, they buy like mods and trailers and start putting them around the school because you have no wiggle room. There isn't like 30 schools to choice to. We have a little more flexibility in Red Clay.

Unknown Speaker: Brandywine Springs. Do they still have their trailers? 

Shawn Snyder: Oh, they have a couple of back. Yeah, they do. Those are those are kind of tucked into the back. Yeah, it's more secure than a normal one, but they are still there.

Mark Pruitt: Questions, concerns, ideas about this.

I'm going to give you some pretty detailed direction about that. So, pretty simple handout. I just gave you momentarily. So, so that. At the end of this meeting, I am going to have an opportunity to say, is there any other data we need to be thinking about that? Right? There's something within reason. Right? Like, with our data analysts that we have in the district.

But certainly we've done that way. did that last meeting. We could do that for next meeting as well. Okay. But now. Right. We're going to go through a couple of brainstorming activities. We're going to start in groups of four or five, depending on the group's size. Obviously, in these groups, I've included three - Board Members are not in the same group. District administrators are not in the same group. School administrators are not, except for one instance, I realize.

I try to spread out the teachers on the committee because everybody has a different perspective based on your role on the committee, which is why you're seated this way within the groups. I didn't really get my stuff. It's kind of like spread them out here. But I would say as we go through any brainstorming activity, consider what our goal is strong and balanced enrollment across schools, align boundaries of K-8 attendance zones when possible.

Consider geography and neighborhood schools when possible. Equitable access to quality education for all students.

You know, what are the numbers you need to provide that? We talked about that some at the first meeting, right? Enrollment drives programming in our secondary school, right? 

Our general role about brainstorming is we're not going to criticize any ideas. We're going to be encouraging. We're going to build on each other's ideas. And don't be afraid to share an unrealistic or an unconventional idea. Certainly, you know, if you have a bold idea, throw it out. If you think something's too small, put it down. It's fine. 

Here's our first group. Here it is. There again, there's our goals again. A little smaller there at the top. Everyone is going to take five minutes approximately to write down three ideas that are solution oriented that could impact, possibly impact what we've discussed.

All right, everyone silently writes down up to, you only have two, that's fine. Or one, that's fine as well. Up to three ideas on your paper. Now you're gonna do this independently. Then what we're gonna do is we're gonna take your paper and we're gonna rotate it to the next person in your group and they're gonna give you feedback on that. And whether it's encouraging, great idea, maybe you could add on to it. Here's something else you could consider.

All right, just two minute rotations till your paper gets back to you. We got a group of five now, so a couple of groups of five, so they'll have an extra, you know, they'll have an extra rotation in there, but we'll make it work. We're gonna keep past the papers around until they've gone full circles. Okay, once we've done that and your paper's back in your hand, I've got some whiteboards set up over here, and I am going to begin capturing and grouping ideas as best as I possibly can.

All right, we'll take pictures of it. You know, so we have it and then get it down in writing and then we'll start to, you know, mold those ideas, put them into categories, maybe even do some of that work tonight. Okay?

 ⏯ 53:02 Unknown Speaker: I have a question that's a big question. So you might say to me, we need to table it, but it's going to affect some of my brainstorming ideas. So I could table it if I needed to. At the first meeting, Dr. Green mentioned the Redding Consortium and Christina may be being pulled out of the city. At least my understanding is that resolution has already come through. So then my next question is, do we know if Red Clay is going to be absorbing all of the Christina city boundaries? Because that would affect, I would think, numbers in a large way. 

Mark Pruitt: Okay, it absolutely will. Here's - and Dr. Green was going to try to attend all these meetings. He's actually at another event. He may get here at 7:15. 7:30. He said he wasn't sure. This entire last last meeting was available. He talked about the fact that this is something our community needs and something our community wants and that our Board asked us to move forward with this. There's no guarantee of an approval by the State Board of Education of their recommendation. Okay. So we need to be on the cutting edge of what we need to do as a Red Clay community. This is a note I got here from like 5:15.

Unknown Speaker: Okay.

Mark Pruitt: And then, but, then if they do make that change or approve something, we'll be ahead of the game in knowing what we want to do and how to bring, and hey, we can do this, but we can potentially do this, right? There's a lot of moving pieces and things kind of thing. But ah we can do this, but here's the direction we're going and how does it fit into Red Clay's plan moving forward. So that was sort of uh a helicopter view of his thoughts because he knew that question would come up. Dr. Nesmith?

Kecia Nesmith: Yeah, a quick question about Brandywine Springs K-5. Are they at capacity? 

⏯ 55:16 Mark Pruitt: They are. They are at capacity. 

We're now going to take five minutes to independently come up with no more than three, but hopefully two or three ideas. And then in five minutes, I'm going to, five minutes-ish, we're gonna start rotating our papers around and allow for some comments on your ideas just within your group.  

[group conversation]

Again, I don't mind. certainly can have discussion, but again, you're kind of coming up with some independent ideas at this point. And then everyone in your small group is going to have an opportunity to encourage add to your ideas. So, like, you'll have an opportunity to talk through it with your group.

[group conversations]

Your idea your idea does not have to be completely hashed out. When we get to zero, I'm going to ask for a little straw poll of who needs more time. So like, how's it going be more done with your individual ideas?

25 minutes left. Quick straw. Who needs more time for their two or three ideas?

Unknown Speaker: I need one more minute.

Mark Pruitt: Two more minutes and then we'll start rotating our ideas around. 

[group conversations]

One more minute left to come over the three and then we're going very quickly transition to rotating these around.  So you're have an opportunity to see everyone on your teams for two minutes. Couple of points, ask a clarifying question. Oh, I see what you mean by that. Yep, good idea. Or maybe you could add this or, all right. Then we'll go really rapid fire that two minutes per rotation. So we have an opportunity to share out ideas on the whiteboard.  I appreciate the rule followers. We haven't done the first one yet. I added two more minutes.  

[group conversations]

Okay, now we're going to reset and rotate one direction or the other and you can look at it, ask a clarifying question, make a couple comments. So we all have a sense of what our group is getting ready to put forward to the whole group. So the first rotation has started.

[group conversations]

We're going with the second rotation. Second rotation of two minutes is started. 

[group conversations]

All right, we are making next rotation. And two minutes has started. 

[group conversations]

Twenty seconds before we rotate.

[group conversations]

If you're a group of four, you get two extra minutes to discuss your ideas because we got one more rotation with the groups of five. 

One minute left in the final group.

⏯ 1:12:57 Mark Pruitt: We are going to come back together now. Everyone should have their ideas in their hand. We are now going to begin to brainstorm out the ideas of the whole group. I've got four white boards here. I'll do my best to group them by categories. Right? So look, if we're going to exhaust all of the ideas, understanding that it would be 57 ideas, but it won't be because not everybody has three. There's going to be a ton of repeat. So once you've given all of yours, you could say, you can add to somebody. said that, but I might add that to it. Or you could say it's already up there in completion.

There's no reason to put like a tab by someone. There's no advantage right now to saying, well, I said that too, so that's more important right now. We're gonna get to that with straw polls and those kinds of things. If it's already up there, I'm not gonna like add a little check mark that someone else said, because we're gonna get to that point in the process. All right, now the hardest part of this potentially, you know, person that has been created to be the first person to add an idea of going to add something. 

Amin Farooqui: I think one of the things that uh we like was that we should have something of a specialized type of programming at the school. I know that it comes in that to have a programming, you have to have kind of enrollment first. It's kind of a chicken and egg thing. But they are opinions about some type of technical programming or dedicating a school to a specific technical program. Right now, yeah, so generally with public Red Clay schools, most of the schools feel like generic. Adding any type of specialized program. 

Vic Leonard: Yeah. There's a lot of competition with the VoTech.

Kecia Nesmith: What level is that? 

Unknown Speaker: High school. 

Mark Pruitt: I guess it's technical school. High school. Don't worry about my writing. If you can't read my writing, I can. I'm going take picture of it. Yeah, I'm going to go fast here.

Amin Farooqui: Can you both middle and high school both? 

Mark Pruitt: Let's kind of move around table by table, right? Like so that we don't exhaust one table. How about something from the table over here? 

⏯ 1:15:55 Shawn Snyder: I propose we close, think we got some good notes here on it, not close, necessarily, but repurpose one of our high schools. We have three comprehensive high schools. The math kind of isn't math-ing for those three. So we should repurpose one of them into a center that the other two schools that we teach would use.

Like my suggestion would be a CTE Innovation Center or something along those lines. 

Mark Pruitt: That I believe is in this category. 

Shawn Snyder: Yes. The other two schools would use that school for all of the CTE pathways. You could make amazing pathways with two different high schools funds' pour into one building.

Mark Pruitt: This says shuttle other schools. 

Shawn Snyder: Maryland does a program like this by the county. They have county wide CTE innovation centers all over the state. 

Mark Pruitt: I've got like a by the way, one of the jobs as we start to brainstorm ideas, we're going to do some work as well. Is it done around the country? Right. Can we get some information about what it might look like at other at other schools? Right. Let's go. Let's go here. We're to go in circles and I'd like to talk. We can add to any.

⏯ 1:17:25 Kecia Nesmith: This is a either - or. Either expand the Dickinson program to have more middle school enrollment versus, so it's a 6-12. Make Dickinson the magnet school for IB, 6-12 . Or take the middle school out all together. 

Mark Pruitt: I'm going to move this over going to the middle school board. We can make an adjustment later. It's either expand MYP middle school - 

Kecia Nesmith: and make it an IB school. 

Unknown Speaker: Essentially, it's 6-12 IB magnet. 

Kecia Nesmith: A magnet school. 

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, 6 through 12 IB magnet. So you'd be expanding the middle school just to make everything bigger, like adding a hundred of grade over six years or whatever.

[inaudible group conversation]

Kecia Nesmith: And put it at Skyline.

Unknown Speaker: Put the whole 6-12 at Skyline? Oh, put the middle school.

[inaudible group conversation]

Mark Pruitt: I'm going to share this document in an edit mode where anybody can go, "That's not what I said. That's not what you said, Mark." Trust me, we're going to be comfortable with this when next month's meeting starts and where we are. I think we're here now.  

⏯ 1:19:27 Val Gould: [inaudbile] It destroys community, pride in your school. 

Mark Pruitt: You're talking about the actual feeder from one level to the next. 

Unknown Speaker: So like why does AI middle school split into three high schools? When they go to school for 6-8.

Val Gould: [inaudible] 

Mark Pruitt: I gotta believe someone else is going to contribute to that. I mean, what we gotta do, it's actually in the goal. So, you know, it's in what we're purposed to do by the School Board. So anything else you need me to add to it right now? Or we're gonna wait and let it swing around and let some other people add that. I think that's a must, right? The question is, do we do that with two high schools? What's it gonna look like? But let's keep getting things out there and go from there. Got someone else at this table?

Vic Leonard: Yeah, go ahead, do the Warner idea. 

⏯ 1:20:50 Tawanda Bond: So we had an idea for Warner that piggybacks on the straight line feeder. We thought that we could maybe look at keeping Warner together as possibly doing K-8 and making it a straight line feeder to a high school. 

Unknown Speaker: Similar to Bayard does that.

Tawanda Bond: Keep the community together. 

Unknown Speaker: You have to keep the community together. 

[inaudible group conversation]

Mark Pruitt: Is it safe to say that we could do that by utilizing Warner and Shortlidge?

Tawanda Bond: Yes, we talked about that too.  

Unknown Speaker: [inaudible]

[inaudible group conversation]

Mark Pruitt: We're adding to this innovation campus skills center. Early graduation.

[inaudible group conversation]

Mark Pruitt: Coming over to this group here. By way, I've added - just so it's kind of clear and for the sake of folks that might be online, I've added to this: Repurpose to CTE Innovation Center, Skills center, Early graduation, early college center, credentialing for jobs that sort of was like rapid fire coming out of this group. 

⏯ 1:23:00 Unknown Speaker: One of the ideas I was going to write down, but to create an online program, but let me clarify because I know you're going to you say, they already have Twilight or they can go to LACC. But instead, if a family knows that they want to be online, which we're getting a lot of requests for, I can tell you that. If they apply before September 30th, they have a home school. So I would saying AI High School because there's room there, but it could be anywhere. And so if the family requests to be in an online program, they get a home school and that school's responsible for their services. So meaning the teachers are there, the ones helping them. If they are going to prom or doing an activity, it's coming at that home school. So they're essentially choiced into that home school. But after September 30th, if a family wants to move online, then they work with the school they're with. So this isn't like, you know, we're having difficulty with somebody, so we're just gonna shift them to online here. This is really meant to be a home program where one school is taking care of those families and they're part of that community. 

Mark Pruitt: I've got an online school but give them a home school for other opportunities. 

Kecia Nesmith: That would be an online program. That's what I do for a living. So I have an online program K to 12. 

Mark Pruitt: I think there's definitely value there. I love the idea. I'll ask this, maybe you can chime in as well. 9-12? 6-12? What were you thinking when you said?

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so I was thinking 9-12 because that's you know, that's who I work with.

Mark Pruitt: This is the original so I'm going to go 9-12, parentheses 

Kecia Nesmith: and use the district curriculum versus third party. 

Mark Pruitt: Yeah, you remember some big recommendations, but we still have 14 months for those kinds of details. That's why the timeline has to be what it is. You know, I'm talking to maybe Board Members and Dr. Bond here now. Like, we're not going to like that. That's the kind of work that Dr. Bond's team would hash out over a 14-month period and why you got to have a lot of that done before you open up. Here's our opportunities for choice a year out after that. So, right. Next, know we've got more here. Where are we now? Coming down the end.

Reggie Worlds: [inaudible]   

[inaudible group conversations]

Mark Pruitt: Alright, Reggie, I've got capping Cab and Conrad at a lesser percent. 

[inaudible group conversations]

Unknown Speaker: I said Reimagining. 

Unknown Speaker: Reimagining. Fancy word.  

[inaudible group conversations]

Mark Pruitt: Remember, I know that this is going to be online. I know this is a lot, it's just a dry erase marker. We're just brainstorming ideas. All right? Go ahead.

⏯ 1:26:46 Unknown Speaker: I think mathematically the idea of a specific technical school works well in terms of discussions we've had, the numbers and ways we work. And also I think Dr. Bond's idea is fantastic in terms of keeping the community together and also keeping some of those students at such a long bus ride. That's not always necessarily fair to them. 

Mark Pruitt: We're going go through. We're going spend a lot of time going why is this really beneficial?Shortening bus rides. That's the next step in this right now. So I'm going to hold off on writing down that, but I actually think and obviously I know some of the folks that have thought about this before. I actually look at this as, know, instead of saying, well, we're going to repurpose it to this or that, you know, it's it really is. You know, right? is whatever the school, you know, it can be. It's going to be great. Right? As far as what you do with the facilities, the out the outdoor facilities, you know, what internally is there? I think it's a lot of opportunity to get on like think big when you think about a big idea like this. What else do we have? 

⏯ 1:28:09 Unknown Speaker: So mine's kind of like two parts. The first is survey each household with each children to understand why they are choosing not to enroll into their feeder school. And then the second part would be looking to the highest level of choice schools and see the reason why the majority is choosing them than the other schools that are available.

Mark Pruitt: Let me work with you on that. Survey about why families make those choices.

Unknown Speaker: not to enroll their children in their feeder school and why they're choosing them to go somewhere else. And then the other part to it would be to understand, you know, the highest choice schools. Why are these parents choosing these schools? Is there something at this school that, you know, excites more people versus the schools that had the least enrollments? That way we can see it through certain programs and implement them into the other schools, or more people to implement those. 

Val Gould: This was discussed by our group. I know that equity is one of the focus points that we're supposed to be making sure we're looking at. In talking about how to make different buildings special. But there also needs to be, in my opinion, there needs to be continuity of programming across all the schools. And yeah, so you might be able to have like one or two special things. But there also needs to be continuity in planning. So that when trends come and go those schools can stay up and running at appropriate capacities and don't lose when trends shift or when demographics shift in area. Every school should have the same opportunities plus maybe a couple of special. Does that make sense? 

Mark Pruitt: Yeah, well, I can tell you it makes sense. It's actually in our strategic plan. It's Red Clay's commitment to graduates. All right. And it's the portrait of a graduate and then it's our commitment to graduates of what are we going to offer across all of our schools. I do think that's important that we don't get, yes they need to have an identity, but you can get a little "faddy" like f-a-d fad. 

Val Gould: I grew up in New Jersey and so like all the school there very [inaudible] and when you're in different areas like you're gonna have, like you know, some areas gonna have great football program and other areas might have great music program. It's very rare that you get schools that have both. And not that maybe it's up. But like, the school that has a great football program may not have a great field hockey program. There might be another school that has a great field hockey program in another district. So making sure there's continuity in  programming, but also allowing it to choose their identities, I think is pretty [inaudible.]

Mark Pruitt: And again, you're going to get this and you can [inaudible.]  

Kecia Nesmith: There's many at this table. 

Mark Pruitt: Kecia?

⏯ 1:31:27 Kecia Nesmith: A few of the table were thinking. Move Charter to another place. I have no idea where. And it's either the Cab program or you could have you can move that - we need to make some moves, but with the potential Redding Consortium mandates, we might need a city high school. And so having that building be available to either / or and most of the Charter kids live in Greenville, Hockessin, Pike Creek anyway, so it would be [inaudible] 

[inaudible group conversations]

Mark Pruitt: I didn't hear the rest of that.

Kecia Nesmith: I'm not doing that again.

Mark Pruitt: Obviously, they have a lease and things are kind of involved with this and you gotta get involved in as partners, but that will allow for a city high school for Redding potentially. That was the idea, I think, the spirit.

⏯ 1:32:36 Vic Leonard: Okay. Our original thing was we looked at our attendance zones. It wasn't equal. So first thing we want to do is readjust the attendance zones. So we have equal numbers in the [inaudible] of high school. We don't want to miss that one.  

Mark Pruitt: Equal students in each attendance zone school. Regardless of any changes we make, that needs to be equitable?

⏯ 1:33:18 Jose Matthews: I definitely see a lot of great ideas. I love the idea about the Warner community. That's actually one of the items that I wrote down for my number three was consolidating the city schools to stop the destruction of neighborhood school and a sense of community. I think that has really been detrimental to the black families and black community. Um and I will say that because that's what it is. They have completely destroyed black families and the student experience of those communities by busing them all over, by separating them and giving them absolutely no sense of community whatsoever. 

Mark Pruitt: I'm not going to add to that because that's our next activity is why is it a great idea? Right, like we're going to go through some analysis oh of how, you know, does this meet our goal? And is it going to have the greatest impact? Is it a high leverage idea? And I think that really outlines that. 

Jose Matthews: The repurposing of a high school, I think is fantastic, but I'll also put it on the record that I don't think it should be AI that should be repurposed when we're looking at our schools. I think that could be a great opportunity for AI to be able to bring back what we want. 

 ⏯1:34:26 Mark Pruitt: So I would say this, keep that in mind. At the end of this meeting, what I'd like to have next month is not only data, but what do we want to hear from? From facilities, right? What are our, you know, I think when you're talking about this kind of work, you're talking about what's the best facility to, you know, to keep open or what needs the most work? About acreage, right? Like, and the work, you know, and those types of things, I think, go into that. So what do we still need? And who do we want to talk to potentially in meeting 3 or 4? I'm talking about like our facility, Dr. Ammann, Marjorie McCalsky, you know, potentially. 

Unknown Speaker: And like for that repurpose, I know we talked about early college credits, will there be an opportunity for us to partner with [inaudible] to increase the collaboration there. 

Unknown Speaker: We have one. 

Mark Pruitt: We already do some of that. It's a little bit fragmented to your point. Because our schools are smaller in number, they can't do everything for everyone, right? So we have a great developing Allied Health program at AI High School, but you're only getting it right now if you're one of those 550 kids. And is there an opportunity to leverage - 

Unknown Speaker: And I'm [inaudible] DelTech so they will get, if they stay in my program, will get college credit. 

Mark Pruitt: That's dual credit. 

Unknown Speaker: Well, AI has the Early College Academy right now and McKean too. 

Shawn Snyder: Mark, can you speak to that program just for a second? So everybody knows what the Early College is? It's brand new. It's brand new. 

 ⏯ 1:36:08 Mark Pruitt: It's actually very portable program. It's a partnership with Goldey-Beacom College where students apply to the programs offered at McKean or AI High School. Students as eighth graders apply to choice, either Early College Academy McKean or  Early College Academy AI High. We had about 100 applicants year one, with about 40 in the program. This year, year two of applications, had, I think, 150, 140 something. I'm hoping to grow that program. Those students came in, they'd take a ninth grade bootcamp course in their freshman year. And then in 10th, 11th, and 12th, they can take their entire freshman year's of Goldey-Beacom in ninth, tenth, and eleventh, including their 12th grade year on Goldey's campus.

Shawn Snyder: When you graduate, what's your opportunity credit wise? 

Mark Pruitt: 30.

Shawn Snyder: 30 college credits. 

Mark Pruitt: The College sophomore distinction diploma. It's what our graduates -

Unknown Speaker: Business oriented?

Mark Pruitt: What's that? 

Unknown Speaker: It's business oriented, right?

Mark Pruitt: Nope. They're keeping the courses to general education while they obviously would love some of those students to stay with us. We also thought it was really important that they were the most transferable credits. 

Unknown Speaker: I would say it's humanities focused from the courses that I see. 

Shawn Snyder: Those are the most highly transferable, like sociology. Almost every college.

Unknown Speaker: There's a writing class. 

Mark Pruitt: They're common prerequisites. 

Unknown Speaker: I want to give credit to Red Clay, whoever made the deal because the other school counselor and I were looking and they transfer wonderfully to all the Delaware schools. I mean, like it's a one-to-one transfer and not just, you get elective credit. It really gets you out of that freshman year. So props to anyone who was on that. It was really great.

Unknown Speaker: It was Mark Pruitt.

Unknown Speaker: It was great choices. It's a great program. 

Mark Pruitt: Question is, can that go to this building? Right. Can these courses be offered at that building? Can those types of programs be there so there's more access for all of our students. Typically our schools that choose to attend, our attendance zones schools, right? 

Unknown Speaker: Well, I think it's valid to her point.  Because Dickinson kids right now are the ones that can't access that.  I mean, they have IB, they have a great program too.  But if it was sitting at a hub, it would be nice then if you don't want to do IB then you can still access it.

Mark Pruitt: Okay, let's do this. I wasn't sure we'd be. But I feel like we can get everything up that we discussed in small groups here in the next few minutes. What is missing that's not up on here that was discussed? Shouldn't be because it's too small or too big or too long. 

⏯1:39:00 Unknown Speaker: I said, I know a note that was given with regulation issues, but I really think expanding what we call a D setting. So bringing back a similar program to what Central was. So maybe not in a separate building, but again, in one of the, so right now Meadowood sits at McKean, for example, but having all the autism classrooms in one of the buildings or for our students that ah maybe are certificate students, but still can participate in a lot of regular classes, creating, you know, I don't, yeah, I know we call it D setting, but like the old Central. Instead of being in a separate building though, bring it into one of our high schools. So like a special ed program in the high schools. That's not Meadowood, but for our autism program classrooms, those kids, many of them are diploma. So having it in the building, but a full programming for them.

Mark Pruitt: What else we got?

Tawanda Bond: We had a piece, Mark, that and this might be next meeting. So you can tell me to go along with that. Warner-Shortlidge. We talked about having supports built in. Like set up a community supports. Like, if you have the Shortlidge building where we could better bridge the families-school connection. 

Mark Pruitt: You're talking like, health, job search, social services. That's like this stuff's building in Christina. 

Unknown Speaker: I'm going to go totally out there. 

Mark Pruitt: That's why we're here. This is that time. 

⏯1:40:59 Unknown Speaker: Well, my idea one day was why don't we move AI Middle to AI High School, make it a 6 to 12. If we get the data, how many of our eighth grade students are staying in that school for high school? And then it will increase our sports, our arts, our band, because we'll have more kids that would want to participate in these. AI Middle barely has sports, AI High barely has sports. Like putting them together, we can grab those eight graders. We can make clubs. Even if we don't have a DIAA sport, we can make clubs. 

Mark Pruitt: Let me, let me - it's up there. But I will caution that you can't do that and that.  

Unknown Speaker: Correct. It's an idea. 

Mark Pruitt: So we have empty seats to be innovative. But you can't innovate yourself out of, you gotta have enough seats for attendance zone kids. 

Unknown Speaker: But that would open a building to be repurposed. 

Mark Pruitt: Yes.

Kecia Nesmith: Well could you put that at AI Middle?

Mark Pruitt: What's that?

Kecia Nesmith: But could you put that at AI Middle? 

Mark Pruitt: Which one here?

Unknown Speaker: The hub.

Mark Pruitt: Oh, I don't know if we're there yet. We certainly can consider it. It's not really outfitted for CTE programming. [inaudible]  

[inaudible group conversations]

What else do we have? I do think it's important that we exhaust these lists. So no one leaves feeling like they had a great idea and it's not on this board.

[inaudible group conversations]

Unknown Speaker: What did you say?

Mark Pruitt: [inaudible] to all schools.

Kecia Nesmith: But also location. So like are you talking about AI? That's the furthest school to go to from the city. 

Unknown Speaker: Which one is?

Kecia Nesmith: AI High School.

Unknown Speaker: It's further than McKean?

Jose Matthews: I thought it was the closest.

Unknown Speaker: I live in Trolley Square. AI is less than, I think it's like seven [inaudible.]

Jose Matthews: Yeah, it's like right outside the city.

Kecia Nesmith: CSW and Cab are right there.

Jose Matthews: It's in the city, yeah. 

⏯ 1:43:26 Mark Pruitt: What else do we have? I tell ya, the only thing I have, is really a focus on high schools. And I think we've got too many buildings. I just do. I just do. I think, you know, the attention goes to AI High School now, or Dickinson 10 years ago. But we've got two attendance zone schools that currently operate at 420 - Skyline, and 450 - AI Middle. And it's very difficult, it's very difficult to offer them all the programs they deserve because enrollment drives programming. 

So I don't think you can do this work and kind of leave that middle school piece hanging out there. Having said all that, a lot of these things tie together. So if you are going to repurpose a school, as an Innovation Center, a flagship campus for high school, you then need to have 11 or 1200 seats in the other two which means you've got to do something with MYP anyway. So that is going to reduce it by one. So these things may tie together. 

But I do think it's worth noting that we've got to consolidate middle schools from 8 to 7, but you also need to take into consideration that you've got an addition on this board with Warner's, right? So if you add one, you gotta probably look at two. So, but I do think at the end of the day, you know, it can't be 8, it certainly can't be 9. You know, you're looking at a—

⏯ 1:45:27 Kecia Nesmith: Mark, can we, can you add to that? We need to determine what models, first of all, evidence to show which models work the best. Because we have a K-8, we have one K-8, we have three, was it three 6-12s, we have two 9-12, and that's where it's not just the, because you're saying that there are schools, but there are actually programs in a school, and which model works best and how do we know? 

Unknown Speaker: We have K-2 and 3-5.

Kecia Nesmith: Yes. 

Unknown Speaker: So those are very unique and [inaudible] study this as well. 

Unknown Speaker: Early learning child center and K-2.

Unknown Speaker: Mark,  [inaudible] with the data [inaudible]

[inaudible group conversations]

Unknown Speaker: And also the demographics. 

⏯ 1:46:25 Mark Pruitt: Hang on, that's our next slide. All right. So let's go. Let's go here. We're going to move forward a couple of slides. 

I've tentatively had on next week's meeting, next month's meeting. Do we need experts? And I think while we haven't hashed out a lot of these details, it might be helpful to talk from a facility standpoint, a finance standpoint. A transportation standpoint, right? Like, what are the costs associated with what I, what I think about this? It's an awesome idea. And while there would be less traditional daily stops, runs and take-home buses, it involves shuttle buses. So that we can provide equity to all students in these programs. Right? So, you know, there's a, there's a price tag, something like that, but there is saved money in consolidating our home schools by one. You don't have the daily runs that go along with that. But you can't reimbursed back from the state. I'm no expert in that. So, you know, is it, it, it, you know, do we want to talk to a couple of people? Yeah, go ahead.

[inaudible group conversations]

Unknown Speaker: Reinstate choice busing to all schools.

Mark Pruitt: Equitable busing and I'll add.

Unknown Speaker:  McKean and AI lost choice busing. 

[inaudible group conversations]

Mark Pruitt: Oh, that's a good question. I think we've got 14 months to hash out those kinds of details. So, yeah, let me keep going here now. All right. So, um, how about I talk to some folks that do this work and see if we can't get them on the agenda for next month? Is that something we're comfortable with that one? What do you think on something like that? 

Kecia Nesmith: Mark, we should add to that list. It may not be an expert, but I just want to highlight that we don't have any Black or Latino families that live in the city that have a perspective from that. I'm a Black person, but I don't live in the city, I live in the suburbs. And I think that that's a big piece of all of us making decisions and putting information around all of these choices. But we don't have that representation. I know it was random, but even if it's a guest participant, I feel like we need to look at that. 

Mark Pruitt: Our next step with this is to learn. I just went back through them, but like, what are the benefits, what are the possible unintended consequences? So what are the highest leverage? That's the work we're gonna do next on this list. Oh, and I think maybe we can have that discussion at the beginning of next meeting. Are you comfortable with that?

Jose Matthews: I have a big correction for that board. I feel like that Warner community K through eight should say K through 12. I don't think that eighth grade they should then just start splitting them up. I think it's very critical that they stay together K through 12. 

Mark Pruitt: Just a dry erase marker.

Mark Pruitt: All right, public comment. Have no one left in person. Do we have anybody who would like to give public comment remotely? We have no public comment remotely. Next slide. 

Unknown Speaker: The hands went up. Two people. 

Mark Pruitt: There we go. All right. I would ask that we please, we want to be respectful of public comment on Zoom. You can go ahead and give their name, Jonathan, and let them keep rolling here. The first one is Jared Obstfeld. Jared, whenever you're ready. 

⏯ 1:50:40 Jared Obstfeld: Yeah. Thank you for letting me speak. I just wanted to put out my opinion that I, I really don't think it's a good idea to be considering taking a secondary high school away, one out of three secondary high schools. Secondary high schools are super important to diversity, to socializing students and also, you know, not by choice. I mean, they don't have a choice of whether they're helping students with special needs who need IEPs and things like that. That's something that they absolutely do. And it's very important. So I just want everybody to consider those things when talking about taking away a secondary school.

Mark Pruitt: Is that the end of your public comment?

Jared Obstfeld: Yes.

Mark Pruitt: Thank you very much. We appreciate that very much. 

Jared Obstfeld: Thank you.

Unknown Speaker: All right, next is Brenda Steffon, I believe. 

Mark Pruitt: Okay, Brenda Steffon, Ms. Steffon, whenever you're ready. 

⏯ 1:51:49 Brenda Steffon: Hi there. Thank you for letting me have a few seconds to speak here. I would like to just offer that the—I've been listening to the conversation here, the ideas, and I appreciate that both Val and Vic have come up with keeping it on track from last meeting as far as keeping that equitable conversation that Dr. Green brought up in the beginning of last meeting. Also the idea that it's not just about the data. You have to connect with the families. And I appreciate the other woman who said, bring in other communities that are impacted by this so that they are represented. So I feel like there's one thing to look at the data and to say it looks very easy to close schools. I have grown up here. I was part of the 1979 deseg. Delaware moves slowly. Greenville was closed. Wilmington High was closed. Let's encourage not repeating the same steps as before. I love the innovation, but let's also keep that secondary school as an option. As Mr. Obstfeld had said, we need that diversity. We need that inclusion. We need to have the support structure to have kids benefit from the joys and the experience of a public school. And that involves enrollment. We need enrollment to be uh a really top priority here to help these schools. Thank you very much. 

Mark Pruitt: Thank you very much. We appreciate your comments.

Do we have any other public comments online? Thanks, John. Okay, next slide. 

Next meeting, we still have some work to do with analysis, right, of analyzing these ideas. I'll compile them, get them out to you. We'll spend some time. So that's going to change a little bit. All right. But, we certainly will look to have some time in some new small groups, still having board member, administrator, teacher together, right? Like, but we'll change it up a little bit. So we, you know, we're getting different perspectives. Have a conversation about high leverage, unintended consequences. I think we heard that a couple of times here tonight or at least potentially that can be a thing, you know, and do some of that work. We'll also have a guest speaker too, some ideas here that certainly come with transportation changes, price tags, also some savings as well. Good both ways with that and we'll see where we are in terms of narrowing ideas with a straw poll of this group. Okay. And then maybe depending on time, prep survey questions for public input. We've gotten some feedback on that as well. 

Unknown Speaker: Will, one of the guest speakers, like in any of these ideas, if we made Dickinson 6-12 magnet, if we made a flagship, if we added a D setting in a school that's already there, but talk about if the other schools can absorb, so numbers-wise, can McKean absorb any, you know what I mean? 

Mark Pruitt: Those two experts are in the room. That's Shawn and I. Really, that's that, you know, certainly we're a team that works. I think what we're looking, I think what I'd like to maybe see is Dr. Ammann is the CFO or the chief operating officer, oversees transportation, facilities, deals with our funding. He might be able to broadly start to, you know, answer some questions that we may have about a step forward. 

Unknown Speaker: Everything is still on the table for flushing out?

Mark Pruitt: Oh yeah. Yeah. We'll see. We might have to make an adjustment here. You know, like, I feel like it's been good work. I feel like we're in a good spot. I thought the public comment was valuable. Yeah. It's something to think about. Right. You get it. You know, so, uh but we have a real opportunity here. I appreciate the work. And is there anything else anyone would like to add to the good of the meeting? Give me a couple days here. I'm going to get this typed up. I'm going to get the draft minutes out. But, you know, I want to make sure I get this right and then I'll allow you to give. Check called on Google, not where you comment, each comment on it. All right. So we're not changing. We're not doing anything of a public committee. You know, I don't want to just allow us to edit that. Okay, I think.

Amin Farooqui: But I thought it was interesting that with all these people, I thought we're going to be very far apart. But it seems like we are kind of aligning things. 

Mark Pruitt: Yeah, I think that's good. Yeah, I think there were some... yeah, I think the four boards have at least started off in some buckets. It may have gotten away from it a little bit. But I'll also try to put it in the buckets and consolidate as best I can as well. Anyone else have anything they'd like to add? I really appreciate it. This is now 19 folks with different perspectives who have to hear public comments, who do this kind of work. This is going to—this is going to start to get some traction here. You know, whether that be some media attention or  whether that be uh some public comments at a school board. But I think any, any, any work that you're going to do like this that matters, it will. And so I really appreciate this group working together like this. It's been a lot of fun putting this together and being able to facilitate. Having said that, motion to adjourn. Can I get a motion to adjourn? I'll say Matthew's motion to adjourn, Dr. Nesmith seconds, all in favor. Thank you much.

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Webpage

February 19, 2025 Meeting Materials

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Meeting Rolling Slides February 19, 2025

📹Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee February 19, 2025 Recording

📄Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee February 19, 2025 Meeting Minutes For convenience, the full meeting minutes are typed below. 

February 19, 2025 / 6:00 PM / RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805 Zoom Meeting (For public only. Committee members are in person.) Attendance/Welcome
Jay Bastianelli, Tawands Bond, Thomas Brucker, Emily Carroll, Amin Farooqui, Antonio Gomes, Val Gould, Vic Leonard, Jose Matthews, Caitlin Merto, Jodi Muffley, Kecia Nesmith, Mark Pruitt, Jennifer Recchiuti, Maddie Reitemeyer, Eric Sanford, Shawn Snyder, Kendra Todd-Dixon, Reggie Worlds. Jay Bastianelli made a motion to start the meeting at 6pm, seconded by Vic Leonard. Motion passed unanimously.

Agenda Items
Opening Items
● Introductions
● Public Comment - Jason Gleber
● Approve Minutes from January 21st. Caitlin Merto made a motion to approve the minutes, seconded by Shawn Snyder. Motion passed unanimously.

New Business
● The Committee’s Charge/Goal - Mr. Pruitt
● Meeting Norms - Mr. Pruitt
● Middle School Data- Mr. Pruitt with committee discussion
● Instructional Capacity Data - Mr. Pruitt with committee discussion
● Brainstorming - All
● Discussion & Analysis -All ○ Committee members shared ideas and Mr. Pruitt captured these ideas. ○ During the discussion it was decided that it is essential the committee brings in viewpoints from communities, stakeholders (city of Wilmington families)
● Requests for Additional Data
● Public Comment - Jared Obstfeld, Brenda Steffon
● Adjourn - Jose Matthews made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Kecia Red Clay Consolidated School District 1 Nesmith. Motion passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 8pm. 

Action Items
● Mr. Pruitt will invite district guests to share information on related topics to the committee's work.
● Mr. Pruitt will send out information from brainstorm activity to committee members for review and edits. 

Next Meeting March 20, 2025 @6pm at RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805 This meeting is open to the public. The draft meeting minutes will be posted on the district’s website, redclayschools.com, within 3 business days of the meeting.