Jun 18 2025
Board Meeting

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:05:10

   • • Jenny Howard (parent): Urged the Board to reconsider the Secondary Attendance Zone proposal, arguing long-term uneven district investments in magnet and charter programs contributed current challenges.

2. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 0:49:55

   • • Board Member Kecia Nesmith provided an update on the Attendace Zone and Secondary Programming Committee; the proposal to create an Innovation Center and reduce to two comprehensive high schools did not receive a majority vote at the committee level, emphasized the need for broader stakeholder and student voice before a final recommendation comes to the Board.

⏯ 0:05:10

⏯ Jenny Howard: Good evening, members of the Board. I keep hearing the same questions in the community regarding the Attendance Zone committee. Why are we being punished? And if McKean is thriving, why disrupt it? But let's be honest, none of this is a punishment. And it isn't AI, McKean, or Dickinson's fault. What we're facing today is the result of years of uneven investment and inaction by the Red Clay School District. For decades, the district knew AI's enrollment was sliding. And yet, during that time, it chose to invest heavily in selective programs, expanding magnets, and even opening two charter schools under its own umbrella. Schools like CAB, Conrad, and the two Red Clay authorized charters were all positioned for success while AI was allowed to decline. All four of these schools have exclusive enrollment requirements that many students simply can't meet, effectively excluding large segments of our community. These choices weren't neutral. They reshaped opportunity across the district and left comprehensive schools like AI to absorb the consequences. Some are blaming Delaware's choice law, but let's be clear, choice didn't create this problem. Leadership did. Through how and where we invested. Families choose schools based on access, opportunity, and outcomes. When those aren't equitably available, enrollment shifts. And that's not about choice. It's about uneven planning and support. And now it seems like the district, instead of maybe trying to attempt to right these wrongs, the current proposal is pitting communities against each other. All three high schools are being fundamentally reshaped. Yet only AI is labeled the problem. We're told the model in Cecil's district, Cecil County's technical school is the star model, but that center was built with broad community excitement. Their funding structure is different and their success wasn't born from scarcity or fear of loss. Red Clay's plan right now feels zero sum. Dickinson feels the race. McKean feels punished and AI feels blamed. And that's not how you build trust. Let's name another real equity issue. Red Clay has lost valuable resources year by year after year by allowing the Charter School of Wilmington to pay far less than its fair share for space in the Wilmington campus. That imbalance is real. It has financial consequences and it's part of how we got here. So, I urge the committee, go back to the drawing board, engage every stakeholder, put all viable options on the table, and take a hard look at how our charter and magnet structures have impacted enrollment. Only through transparency, fairness, and real community voice can we create a high school model that truly serves every Red Clay student. I thank you for your time tonight.

⏯ 0:49:55

Kecia Nesmith: I'll get the report. So I just want to say first and foremost, thank you to all of the committee members who have been participating this entire year to Mr. Pruitt and his team. It has been a journey and I think that you know sometimes we want things really quick and we can't really get them that way but I will say that it has been structured in a very thoughtful way where we gave input and ideas and there was no idea not shared that we didn't consider. 

We went through the democratic process of determining and discussing what are some options to reach the goals which is to ensure equitable programming and access across our high schools and middle schools. And so with that, you know, Red Clay is the biggest school district in the state of Delaware. And I think we had a daunting task to work together to come up with those ideas. And in that time, it was great to have community members participate, board members, teachers, and administrators and share their perspectives around what we believe would be the best path forward to address some of the concerns around enrollment and attendance zones. 

We want to ensure that all students have equitable access to programs. And so with having school choice in our state and and making sure that you know everybody gets what they want or can get what they need, sometimes that stratifies our our schools and makes it a little bit more difficult to run programs to the highest extent. And so there were many discussions around where we would be going. And one of the the last recommendation that was on the table at the committee level was to create an innovation center and reduce to two comprehensive high schools so that all students would have access to CTE and that is curriculum and technical education. It's not VoTech. It's having access to many different programs around careers and technical education. 

We also looked at, well, how would we do that with space? And so, a big discussion was around potentially moving the middle year's IB program to Skyline. We did hear a lot from the public around their concerns. We sent a survey out, the district sent a survey out to families and we had 1,158 respondents. We do have over 16,000 students about 15 plus thousand. They conducted focus groups with middle schoolers and high schoolers and they gave some really salient points around what they think they should have school look like. They are our future. They will be the ones who will take us to the next level. And so there was quite a respectful debate at last night's meeting around whether to move forward with those recommendations. 

And so we had I think it was 14 members present and we did not get a majority vote for that. So that will be coming to to the Board next month. But I really appreciate the efforts and the respect that each of the members gave each other and sharing their opinions. And I do believe this was some of the consensus was that we need to obtain additional information through participation from different stakeholder groups that were not equitably represented in the survey and to have an effort to get that information. 

And I don't know what the committee will bring forth finally, but that is kind of where we are. And so, it's difficult, but I do believe that we will get to a great decision that will have our students in mind. A lot of times we make decisions based on what adults want and what adults need, but we don't always think about the students at the first and foremost. And I'm not saying that we're negligent. I'm just saying that that's something that we need to highlight. 

I'm going to piggyback on the WLC Symposium because today I was I was there and it and it made me think about our committee meeting last night and there were students there on a panel and they shared their perspectives and they were, you know, out of the mouths of babes. They said the truth about how they felt and what they wanted. And I think that we can learn from that and be more intentional around getting that student voice whether that means we have to do some unorthodox things in terms of engaging families in different communities who have different challenges of being involved in schools you know everybody has their own thing that they do but it was very telling today hearing those students voices and they weren't from Red Clay they were from a different district but I think that's where some of the members of the committee are steering towards and I know Mr. Pruitt will give his report next month and that concludes my report. 

📊Results from Hanover Survey District Summary

📊Results from Hanover Survey Raw Data

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee webpage

May 21, 2025 Meeting Materials 

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Meeting Rolling Slides May 21, 2025

📹Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee May 21, 2025 Recording

📋Secondary Attendance-Zone & Programming Committee May 21, 2025 Meeting Minutes For convenience, the full meeting minutes are typed below. 

May 21, 2025 / 6:00 PM / RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805 Zoom Meeting 

(For public only. Committee members are in person.) 

1 Attendance/Welcome Thomas Brucker, Emily Carroll, Amin Farooqui, Val Gould, Vic Leonard, Jose Matthews, Jodi Muffley, Kecia Nesmith, Mark Pruitt Jr , Madeleine Reitemeyer, Eric Sanford, Kendra Todd-Dixon, Reggie Worlds Mr. Leonard made a motion to begin the meeting, seconded by Mr. Farooqui. Motion passed. 

Agenda Items 

• Public Comment - None 

• Approve Minutes from May 1st.

  • Motion made to accept the minutes as submitted by Mr. Worlds, seconded by Mr. Leonard. Motion passed. 

• The Committee’s Charge/Goal - Mr. Pruitt 

• Meeting Norms - Mr. Pruitt 

• Tentative Timeline - Mr. Pruitt 

• A Review of May 1st - All 

• Additional Data Requests - Mr. Pruitt shared data on current CTE enrollment and provided logistical examples- bell schedule, shuttle bus, class schedule, attendance zones- of what an innovation center could look like. 

• Refining Ideas and Developing a Recommendation - All 

  • Ms. Todd-Dixon made a motion to recommend reducing down by one A-Z high school and create the Thomas McKean Innovation Campus. The motion was seconded by Dr. Muffly. Motion passed with 11 yeas, 2 abstain. 

  • Mr. Pruitt made a motion to recommend consolidation of middle school programs from 8 to 7. Moving the John Dickinson Middle School(MYP) program to Skyline to allow for increased high school enrollment in the two attendance Red Clay Consolidated School District 1 zone schools. This would also include a recommendation to review the middle school attendance zones moving towards straight line feeder patterns with Warner elementary in mind. This motion was seconded by Mr. Leonard. The 12 members in attendance voted unanimously(one member left the meeting early reducing the number of votes by one).

• Preparing for Community Feedback - All. 

  • Mr. Pruitt reviewed the draft survey and focus group timeline with the committee. It was suggested that we use a QR code for the survey and send it home with students in their communication folders(elementary) and distribute it widely. 

• Adjusting our Timeline - It was discussed possibly moving the June 17th meeting back to be held between June 17th - July 2nd if more time was needed to get the results of survey information to gather community feedback. 

• Public Comment - None 

• Adjourn - Dr. Muffley made a motion to end the meeting, seconded by Mr. Matthews. Motion passed. 

• Action Items 

  • Send out surveys to solicit community feedback. Review results at the next meeting. 

Next Meeting June 17 @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.