▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:14:00 – 0:45:07

   1. • Ryan Reamer (McKean junior): Spoke in opposition to converting McKean into an Innovation Center

      • Morgan Dukes (McKean staff member & alumni): Opposed the proposed Innovation Center at McKean, arguing that it reduces student opportunities and cited a petition with over 2,500 signatures against the plan. 

      • Jared Obstfeld (executive board member, Friends of AI; former Red Clay student & parent: remarks delivered by Brenda Steffon) Raised concerns about the proposed McKean Innovation Center and related redistricting, referenced past transparency issues.

      • Brenda Steffon (AI High School Class of ’88; Board Member, Friends of AI): Expressed concern about declining AI enrollment, need for financial transparency and communication about Innovation Center. 

      • Becky Orr: Requested a pause or slowdown on the McKean Innovation Center proposal

      • Steven Fackenthall (General Music Teacher, Richey Elementary; President, Red Clay Education Association): Acknowledged District efforts to meet with staff about McKean Innovation Center changes, but emphasized the need for staff buy-in to ensure long-term success

      • Shaun Orr: Highlighted the challenges of midday transportation for students with disabilities related to the Innovation Center

      • Andrew Cleaver: Called for greater transparency regarding the McKean Innovation Center and district operations

2. Superintendent Report
   ⏯ 1:00:12

   1. • Superintendent Dorrell Green announced that the newly formed Attendance Zone Committee will meet. Red Clay's website has been updated and information shared with the community.

3. Board Discussion 
   ⏯ 1:06:37

   1. • Board Member Devon Hynson raised concern about choosing members for the new Attendance Zone Restructuring and Review Committee, member participation and committee transparency. Names selected.

⏯ 1:14:27

• Board members debated who will serve on the Attendance Zone Restructuring and Review Committee and revisited the discussion about community participation.

4. Board Committee Report
    ⏯ 2:06:34

3. 1. • Board Member Susan Sander provided an update on CBOC which met December 9, 2025; a slide presentation about the Innovation Center was mentioned. 

Ryan Reamer: Good evening members of the Board, administrators, parents, and teachers. My name is Ryan. I'm a junior at McKean High School. I'm here tonight to speak against the proposal to close McKean as a comprehensive high school and convert it into an Innovation Center. I appreciate the time that you're taking to listen because this decision affects not just the building, but generations of students and an entire community. 

For my underclassmen friends, this decision means that they will never get to say they graduated from McKean High School. They won't be able to compete for McKean sports teams, and some may not graduate with their friends. In the past three years, I've watched my peers settle into the school, build connections, and truly grow into the incredible students they've become. For my family, McKean is a legacy. My grandfather and all of his siblings attended McKean. My father went to McKean. My uncle here, my uncle taught here as the automotive teacher, and my brother graduated from McKean. And now I'm a student here. That history matters. I'm speaking to you not just as a student, but as someone deeply involved in the school. I'm the junior class president. I'm a member of the National Honor Society and the student government. I'm captain of the swim team. I also play volleyball and work closely with the unified sports programs which I am very passionate about. I work with teachers, administrators, and students every day. And I can very confidently say that McKean is full of dedicated staff and motivated students who care about their education and their community. I would also like to mention how one-third of our student population is students with disabilities. Many of which are my close friends and teammates. We have so many programs and resources for these students and I worry what may happen to them after the suspending of McKean. Career pathways and innovation programs are important and I would never deny that. I support expanding opportunities for hands-on learning to other students, but that should not come at the cost of eliminating a fully functioning high school. Closing McKean as a high school sends the message to our students and our families and our community that our history is disposable. I urge you to listen to the voices of the students who walk these hallways every single day and give future students the same chance that I had to learn, to lead, and to graduate proudly from McKean High School. Please take the time to reconsider this decision. I love my school, my teachers, my friends, and the opportunity provided to me, as does the rest of the student body. Thank you for your time.

Morgan Dukes: Hi, I'm Morgan Dukes, a McKean alumni, current staff member, and Red Clay community member. The proposed Innovation Center reduces student opportunities and still has not been clearly communicated to the families and the public. McKean serves 40% of all the district's comprehensive high school students, including 44% of our special education population. Yet McKean's students families overwhelmingly are not informed about this plan and those that are do not support it. District representatives have stated that communication about this plan has been sent out to families. I've spoken to multiple parents of McKean students and the only communication they received was labeled as secondary programming changes and school choice. However, there's hardly any explanation about what an innovation center really is. The comment that this process has been transparent is disingenuous. Almost 2500 people, more than double the number of responses to the committee survey, have signed a petition opposing what they believe is McKean's closure. This does not reflect the informed support that the committee suggested. It reflects widespread confusion, and that confusion is a direct result of how this plan was handled. McKean was not named as the proposed Innovation Center site in the committee's rolling slides until their meeting in May, just one meeting before the committee's final session. The community cannot provide meaningful public comment when they do not know what is being decided or where to find information about it. To even understand the proposal, a person would have needed to already know the committee was planning to do this, have access to the internet to find the committee's website, dig through months of slides, minutes, and recordings to understand what an innovation center is, and then somehow figure out that McKean was the intended target despite the school staff, families, and students never being notified. I know individuals right now who believe this plan turns McKean into a votech high school. People don't understand what an innovation center is and that confusion alone proves that this process has not been transparent. At the public meeting at the end of the 2425 school year, several concerns were raised and the district is planning committees to address some of those concerns, but parents deserve answers before decisions are made finally, not the year before implementation happens. The implementation date of fall 2027 is not ambitious. It's extremely aggressive. How can families voice concerns about a plan they had not been clearly explained to them? How can students weigh in when they haven't been informed? How can the community support a vision they don't know is being built? Silence is not approval. You've heard the public at meetings, through emails, and through the petition. Their voices should matter. I urge you to pause this plan, engage the community honestly, and ensure that transparency and student opportunity drive your decisions. Thank you.

Jared Obstfeld: Good evening. I'm Brenda Steffon. I am speaking for Jared, who is celebrating Hanukkah tonight. Good evening members of the board. My name is Jared Obstfeld, executive board member of Friends of AI, a former

student and graduate of the Red Clay Consolidated School District, a concerned parent and an advocate for better education in Newcastle County. Over the past few weeks, I've spoken with neighbors in multiple parts of the

district, including families who live right near McKean, and many of them have no idea that there is a plan on the table to convert McKean High School into an innovation center or to significantly reconfigure our high schools and attendance zones. At the same time, the Redding Consortium is actively considering a redistricting option that will affect all of Newcastle County school districts and students either either positively or negatively depending on the performance or proper research and data collected on community-based needs, current educational deficiencies within our school, student and family support, transportation, and financial impact. That disconnect is alarming. On November 19th, parents and staff came to this very Board and testified that outreach around the McKean Innovation Center and related moves was insufficient, pointing out that a key district survey only reached a roughly 30% of families and was open for just eight days in the summer. They asked for clearer timelines, transportation plans, and enrollment impacts and did not get concrete answers that night. This isn't the first time communication and transparency have been questioned. Young versus Red Clay. The Court of Chancery described how during the 2015 tax referendum, the district's campaign strategy focused on mobilizing likely yes voters while deliberately avoiding outreach to seniors and other residents who might be a no. And a few years ago, this board itself complained to the EPA without delays in informing schools and parents about elevated lead levels in school water. A stark reminder of how dangerous slow or selective information can be. I'm asking you to commit to a proactive equitable communication by considering the following methods of community outreach and inclusion. Clear plain language website for the McKean innovation center and any redistricting proposals with facts, maps, timelines and translate it to major languages spoken in our community. Send district-wide emails and text messages when big proposals or surveys launch. Mail summaries in every household and affected zones and not just backpack flyers. Thank you for your time.

Brenda Steffon: Good evening. My name is Brenda Steffon, AI High School class of '88 and Board member of Friends of AI, a community of alumni originally brought together by our late band director Paul Perets. We continue in that legacy to understand what is happening and to advocate for the students, educators, and families of AI High School who rely on this district. Over the past year, our board has attended A to Z enrollment and

School Board meetings to listen, ask questions, and stay focused on what our community is experiencing. While we do not speak for McKean or Dickinson alumni, we stand in solidarity with their calls for greater transparency. As Friends of AI, our role is to press for the clarity and accountability these decisions require. AI high school enrollment continues to decline as several district buildings need significant and more efficient upkeep. At the same time, the

district is launching the McKean Innovation Center, a major structural shift that raises important questions about transportation, staffing, resource distribution, and long-term sustainability. We are not opposing new pathways for students, but these questions must be answered clearly for this plan to be put into action districtwide. Families need to understand how these changes will work in practice. These decisions overlap with other dynamic changes. Most recently, the Redding Consortium's decision for one Northern Delaware school district in review handling 45,000 students across the district. Families tell us that they are not receiving consistent communication about any of this. Some learned of major proposals only through social media or word of mouth and not through the district. When communication breaks down, the meaningful participation from the community becomes impossible. Our

request tonight is direct. First, provide quarterly public updates with clear information on major proposals, financial implications, resource shifts, and expected student impact. Families need one reliable point of reference, not short window surveys, or hard to find documents. Second, strengthen how information is delivered. Families across Wilmington, Hockessin, Newark, and Pike Creek are not receiving timely updates. Effective communication requires repeated outreach, multilingual and ASL access, digital and print materials, and in-person sessions that match community schedules. If the district wants meaningful input, it must make participation at multiple entry points possible. Friends of AI will continue to show up. We expect a district at that will meet this moment with the commitment, clarity, and responsibility these decisions require. Thank you very much.

Becky Orr: Thank you so much for letting me speak tonight.  I do also want to come here and just ask for a stop or a slowdown for the proposed McKean Innovation Center. I believe there needs to be greater transparency, communication, and community involvement regarding the Innovation Center and the changes that may be connected to it. Many parents, teachers, and students are still very unclear on how this plan will be implemented, what the timeline truly looks like, how and why decisions are being made. A lot of parents don't even know anything about it. I think if more knew, there'd be more people speaking tonight. It has not been broadcast like it said, like people have said to current McCain or Red Clay parents or students at all or in a clear open way. Current students and staff at McKean, they're in a particularly difficult position. They're going to be asked to make choices or choices are going to just be made for them that affect friendships, trusted teachers, and established support systems. These aren't small decisions, especially for students who rely on stability and routine to succeed. Transportation is another major concern.Just regular bus systems to and from school we all know is already a challenge let alone adding transportation in the middle of the day for regular students and special ed students. Also, what about students that are in sports, band, best buddies, etc. They have a sense of community with them with their groups. What are they going to do when they have to choose a school to go to or they just get put into a school in their senior year? Do they go with the one teacher they like or the other teacher they like? Do they even have a choice? Where are their friends going to go? McKean's a really strong school with a very proud community. And right now, we feel that changes are happening to us rather than with us. And that sense of losing community, it's painful. This really deserves attention. I respectfully ask the district to stop or at least really slow this process down to ensure meaningful transparency, open forums for parents and teachers, clear communication for students and staff who are directly affected. Awareness and voice do matter, not after the decisions are finalized by someone that's not even in the school building, but while they're still being worked on. Red Clay, you you know they say their goal is student success, but I don't believe that the Innovation Center is the answer to this goal and that's it. Thank you.

Steven Fackenthall: My name is Steven Fackenthall, general music teacher at Richey Elementary and proud president of the Red Clay Education Association. I'm here tonight to speak about the McKean Innovation Center. First off, I'd like to begin by thanking the district and Mr. Pruitt for offering to meet with any staff who have questions or concerns about the programming changes. I continue to push this opportunity to buildings. I also appreciate the work that has gone into collaborating with RCEA on processes for staff movement. Those efforts matter and have been noticed. All that said, I do want to emphasize an area that still needs attention. Staff buyin. While processes and timelines are important, the long-term success of any program depends on the people implementing it, believing in the vision, and understanding the value of the change. At this point, I do not believe that has happened. I encourage district to focus intentionally on building that trust and shared understanding because the success of these programming changes will ultimately be determined not just by how well they are planned but how strongly the people doing the work believe in them. I'd like to remind the board of a similar situation about 10 years ago when the district with Board approval decided to close Richardson Park Learning Center and Central Schools that were amazing at supporting students with special needs and dedicated resources to support those students. The district doubled down that resources would follow the students. Staff, including me, at the time continued to ask how those resources would follow as you couldn't split people. Needless to say, the schools closed and I would say we have never fully replicated the success of those programs. We should learn from our mistakes and do it better. This needs to happen with staff. With efficacy, you'll get the buyin and support to make these changes successful. And as you know, our working conditions are our students' learning conditions. I appreciate your time and happy holidays. 

Shaun Orr: Thank you, District leadership and Board, for providing us this opportunity. I would like to talk today about the Innovation Center. Particularly ask the Board to strongly consider the long-term effects of their actions. But I'm going to focus primarily on individuals with disabilities and transportation of those individuals during the midday. So while transportation may seem like a small part of the school day for many of our students, particularly those with disabilities, these transitions can be one of the most challenging moments they face. Many special education students rely on routine and predictability to feel safe and ready to learn. Midday bus rides, such as the ones required for student access to the innovation center, disrupt that routine. These interruptions can cause anxiety, sensory overload, and behavioral challenges, especially for students with emotional and behavioral or sensory needs. The effects of these transitions don't stop when the bus ride ends. Students often return to class dysregulated, leading to lost instructional time and difficulty re-engaging in learning. Even short disruptions can have a lasting impact on a student's ability to meet their educational goals. Transportation services are important and transportation by all means is necessary. However, it is our responsibility to ensure these transitions are as supportive as possible. Better scheduling, consistent drivers or aids, clear communication, and intentional transition supports can make a meaningful difference for students with disabilities and students without disabilities. All things considered, there is no guarantee that all of those supports will be consistently available for students with disabilities. And if they were able to be provided consistently, it still begs the question, why subject the most vulnerable population of students to that disruption in lieu of alternative solutions? Given the unpredictability of those independent factors, it is probable that students with special needs may not have access to vital parts of their educational experience. When we plan with empathy and purpose, we reduce stress, protect instructional time, and create a more inclusive environment for our students, which was Red Clay's push for including students into McKean and other comprehensive schools. Addressing midday bus transitions is not just a logistical issue. It's an opportunity to better support the whole child, including children with special needs and the most vulnerable population. Thank you for your time and your commitment to all students.

Andrew Cleaver: Evening Board. From what I'm hearing and everything going on here, we're talking about budgeting, we're talking about cost, stuff like that as well. What about financial transparency here? What's going on? Back on December 1st when I was here, the biggest question you guys were asking about all this Redding Consortium was the data for finances and stuff. The transparency the School Board should be liable for here because I brought yup a subject back on December 1st where we talked about the grading system, Infinite Campus, and also the progress book, because of my son and what we experienced. Today we actually learned, his mother and I called a special meeting to figure out what was going on. And one thing that was discovered by a State Rep is that the Infinite Campus isn't working. What I'm asking for is transparency. We found out today that there's actually a pilot program that we didn't realize what was going on for the building based autism class. That's there's no spelling words coming home, nothing like this. What I think people are asking for is transparency. Even in the facilities and buildings and maintenance. Because back on December 2 there was another Redding Consortium held for special education right here at this school. Didn't say which one or what building but apparently one building, I don't know what district, the elevator was not working and a student in a wheelchair, there's a few people that heard this, the child had to be carried up and down the stairs. Now, one, that's an ADA violation. Two, that's a fire violation. Three, that's a civil rights violation. I believe what people are asking for here is transparency. With the Innovation Center, people want to know what's going on. And it's like there's a clear understanding of another transparency. I don't know if you guys are aware of it. 3600 Mill Creek Road. What do you guys have planned for that? Because it was bought by the State of Delaware for $4.3 million and then transferred to Red Clay Consolidated School District. Where's the transparency? Thank you and have a good evening. 

Dorrell Green: Reimagining Secondary Education. I know there was a call for more transparency and one of the things was a dedicated website. So we will be launching and it will go live as a dedicated web page to learn more about Red Clay's plan to expand access to CTE pathways through the McKean Innovation Center, industry recognized credentials, early college credit and hands-on innovation experiences at the Thomas McKean Innovation Campus. And again, I will publicly say this to the Board and we've heard a number of public commenters. We have really one time upon us to get it right and you know whatever the Board's desire is and collectively as a community for us to get it right I sit here as a Superintendent putting it out there that whatever we need to do to to make sure that happens. 

There was a vote last evening with the Redding Consortium to look at moving forward with an option of a Newcastle County consolidated school district. Now, regardless of whatever happens with Redding, we're still responsible for the students who are under our charge in our care, including our staff members as well. And if we need to go slow to go fast, the reality of it is we're competing with ourselves in Red Clay. We've highlighted that through the Attendance Zone committee reports. We've looked at 20-year data analysis. We have a middle school that for 50 years has served anywhere from 700 to 750 students that's now sitting at 381. 

We're the microcosm of choice and charter in terms of how we've really taken our student enrollment and expanded opportunities. However, the overall enrollment hasn't grown in our district. And so, we are at a tipping point where we have to do something. And collectively, however, we do that with the committee, the status quo just isn't going to get it. So, we have to figure out what that change is and really truly provide more opportunities for students and have a clear vision. And if that means again, we got to do our due diligence to communicate that more broadly, we stand at the ready to do so. But one or two things are going to happen: Either change is going to happen for us or it's going to happen to us. 

And so, however, we can collectively work together with our community to ensure that we are making clear-eyed change, but also not allowing legacy and history to anchor us in the past and allow ourselves to move forward so that our students of today have opportunities. Our communities don't have - we're not the chemical, we're not the credit card, we're not the corporate capital of the world. We're not the car  - So a high school diploma of just simply getting a diploma and getting a job and going into an industry within Delaware, that period is long gone. So it does require innovation. It requires integration. It requires some hard decisions that have to be made. But we have to be clear-eyed about what does this mean for the learner of today and future learners of tomorrow. And you know going through that Redding process clearly seeing that people made decisions and even in Red Clay made decisions in a moment in time. You know, Mr. Fackenthall just alluded to what this building used to mean to so many and that decision in 2010. So much of what we're doing is because of previous decisions that were made, right? 

Making ourselves competitive within the district, prioritizing within the district to the point that we've cannibalized enrollment within the district and being clear-eyed about when certain schools were at their peak, it was at the expense of other Red Clay schools. So, we have to be clear out about what we're talking about and how we're talking about it. And unfortunately, a lot of that wasn't known. And so, we again have to focus on that. But, we will have an active website that will go live tomorrow to provide updated information. We'll work with our comm's department. We'll continue to engage with the McKean staff and others as we continue to move through this process. 

And ultimately, whatever the decision that the Board makes, we'll work and address accordingly.

Devon Hynson: Am I allowed to ask a question?

Dorrell Green: If you would like to.

Devon Hynson: So, what I think I heard from the community is that there wasn't enough transparency, right? And it sounds like the way that we scheduled this was to do it this way. So it wouldn't make sense to repeat the same thing that we did last time and expect a different result this time. 

Dorrell Green: So we're not, well this is selecting community representatives to express interest in participating in the committee that the board established.

Devon Hynson: Right. And I think that is where the challenge comes in because there could be people that in that envelope that wanted to participate, right? And because they weren't selected, they weren't able to.

Dorrell Green: They can still participate. They just wouldn't be committee members because the Board has a framework in terms of the number of people that serve on a committee.

Devon Hynson: Right. But it sounds like it's structured in a way that they come and they speak at the mic. They're not really participants. 

Dorrell Green: No, it's a committee. This isn't - so, this is selecting members to serve on a committee. So they're selecting public names of people who express interest and serving in a formal capacity on a Board committee. So they're selecting two people and individuals from each of your respective nominating districts. And then those whose names aren't selected, who express interest, will still have the ability, but they're just not formal committee members

because the committee itself has a member from each nominating district, which is the framework for a Board committee.

Devon Hynson: I guess my point is every other committee, they're not really participants. They're commenters. Like they're not able to just come, sit at the table and be included in the conversations and the decision-making, right? Where you have a chair, you have people that are there, that are involved, the people that are voting members, and everybody else can just make a comment, but they can't really give their input. There's really not a substantive way for them to be included. 

Susan Sander: May I interject a point of order at this point? 

Devon Hynson: Okay. 

Susan Sander: When we established this committee, Attendance Zone and Restructuring committee, it was always meant to be a listening session for the public. It was never meant to be interactive. Our job as a Board is to oversee the planning of the Innovation Center. We have now given it to the district and said plan it. Plan it to the best of your abilities and keep us informed every step of the way. This review committee is how we are doing that. These committees, this committee is open to the public. These meetings will not be in private. They will be on Zoom. Open to the public. These are the representatives from these districts who will then hear the information about the plans and have the ability to take it back to their community, back to their schools, back to the parents who are saying they're not informed. Now, we're giving them one more communication method. 

Devon Hynson: Okay. So, what I'm hearing is that you're okay with it just being a listening session for the community. 

Susan Sander: Yeah.

Devon Hynson: So, what I'm making clear is that as a Board member, I think that that's fundamentally unfair for the community to be locked out and just be able to listen and not be included in the conversation. That's it. So, if that's the way it goes, that's the way it goes. But I'm just telling you, my perspective is I just don't think that's fair.

[1:14:27] Board discussion resumes

Dorrell Green: At this point we need the Board to determine which of the three Board members would like to participate. Not everyone raise your hand at once. 

Susan Sander: So are we asking for Board members now?

Dorrell Green: So for your committee there are three Board representatives who will participate in that. And so now we have to determine which of the three Board members would like to participate, have the time and the availability to serve on the committee. 

Vic Leonard: I would like to put my hat in the ring since I’ve been with it from the beginning.

Devon Hynson: Absolutely.

Susan Sander: I’d like to put my name in. 

Beth Twardus: I would as well.

Dorrell Green: So, we have four Board members who would put their name in. 

Susan Sander: Do we duke it out? 

Dorrell Green: Well, I don't want you to duke it out.

Vic Leonard: Wrestle, right? 

Dorrell Green: And again, I think because they're public meetings, just being mindful these meetings will be noticed. And so if you have three active members serving, it does not prohibit from a previous ruling that we had for other Board members to engage as participants, but the fourth would not, in essence, actively engage. So if you have three -

Vic Leondard: and an alternate

Dorrell Green: Well if you want an alternate you can have an alternate. But again it just really takes you three of you, or four of you, we simply put it in there if you want it.

Susan Sander: I do not know how to resolve it. 

Jose Matthews: No, you just sign up. There's -

Beth Twardus: So, somebody just has to step out.

Susan Sander: Somebody has to step out.

Cross talking 

Devon Hynson: The challenge is if you're of the opinion that you think that it's just a reporting committee, why would you want to participate? 

Beth Twardus: Devon, I can't hear you. 

Devon Hynson: What I'm saying is if you're of the opinion that that's just like a reporting committee, then why would you want to actively participate? Just wait for the report, right? Like let other people that believe that the committee should be developed as a way of engagement and parent and family engagement and inclusion, right? Like if you're of the opinion that that shouldn't take place in that committee, just wait for us to come and report to you what happened in that committee. That would make sense - 

Susan Sander: Once again

Devon Hynson: That would be logic.

Susan Sander: The idea of the committee was to be a listening session. There will be no input and that was clearly stated. There will be no input. These are listening sessions.

Devon Hynson: Right. And I appreciate that. But what I'm saying is if that's your stance -

Susan Sander: Yeah.

Devon Hynson: I don't understand what would make you want to actively participate -

Susan Sander: He stumped me. That question is not making any sense. I'm sorry. 

Devon Hynson: Maybe somebody can ask it another way. Jose, can you ask it a different way?

Jose Matthews: I don't know if I can rephrase your words. Essentially, I think what's being asked is why do we have Board participation when ultimately the Board ends up receiving the reports and approving the outcome anyway? Is that correct? 

Devon Hynson: Correct. That would be the appropriate approach. 

Jose Matthews: So the proposal would be for the Board members to step back. Correct?

Devon Hynson: Correct. If you're of that opinion.

Jose Matthews:  No, no. I'm just asking that. Is that what you're asking? 

Susan Sander: That was the stated purpose. I apologize. 

Jose Matthews: Don't worry, no no. 

Susan Sander: Point of order. That is the stated purpose. It is not my opinion. It is simply the charge that we were given as a board for this committee. It is not my opinion. It is what this committee was intended to do. Listening session. We need to hear from the experts. We need to hear the district and how the plans are going to proceed. Pure and simple. 

Devon Hynson: Sounds like we need to figure out who's going to be on the committee and who's not. 

Naj Landis: I'd like to say that I'm on no committees yet, so I'd like to be a part of one. 

Dorrell Green: So, in fairness to Ms. Landis, I think she should have the first selection. And again, that's I, as only the Executive Secretary advise the Board. 

Devon Hynson: I agree.

Dorrell Green: And I will say I agree - hearing the discussion. Please know that we did give an alternate proposal to actually have a work group that would have done two things:  really engaged folks as an advisory and serve in that process. But we find ourselves where we are right now that we have it as a structured board committee. So it's going to, in essence, require three board members to serve in an official capacity. So Miss Landis is one. Now you need two others.

Devon: I'm in. 

Susan Sander: I'm putting my name in.

Devon Hynson: So it will be us three. 

Dorrell Green: So can we agree, Mr. Leonard? I know you were the fourth. Are you willing to take one for the team because you will be informed and actively engaged to allow Ms.Landis, Ms. Sanders, and Mr. Hynson to serve in the Board capacity.

Vic Leonard: Of course.

Naj Landis: Thank you.

Dorrell Green: That's very noble of you, Mr. Leonard. Thank you, members of the Board. So we have that established. Are we okay with moving forward?

Susan Sander: We went over the McKean Innovation center. Mark Pruitt was kind enough to present the slide presentation again and it was wonderful. There were a lot of questions, a lot of answered questions. It was an excellent, excellent presentation. 

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Webpage 

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Rolling Slides 

📄Red Clay Attendance-Zone & Programming Committee July 2025 Recommendation to the School Board For convenience, the full text of the document is typed below. 

Red Clay Attendance-Zone & Programming Committee Current Recommendation to the School Board

Core Principles

Alignment of Attendance-Zones: Create straight line feeder patterns that align high school attendance zones with existing middle school attendance-zones. 

Balanced Enrollment: Distribute students equitably across attendance-zone high schools. 

Program Equity: Ensure that all students, regardless of high school, have access to high-quality academic and extracurricular programs. 

Program Change #1: Establish the “Thomas McKean Innovation Campus” The committee recommends that Thomas McKean High School be reimagined as the Thomas McKean Innovation Campus through expanded partnerships with local colleges, universities, and the business community. This flagship hub will provide coursework in the following areas: 

• Career and Technical Education (CTE)

• Industry-standard credentialing programs

Early college credit opportunities As part of this change:

• The number of comprehensive high school attendance-zone schools would be reduced from three to two: Alexis I. duPont High School and The John Dickinson School. 

• These two comprehensive high schools would split the Red Clay high school attendance-zones equally, allowing for increased enrollment and more robust academic and extracurricular offerings. 

• These two attendance-zones better align with middle school attendance-zones, allowing for straight line feeder patterns from middle school to high school. 

• Short shuttle bus transportation would be provided from AI High and Dickinson to the McKean Innovation Campus for career, technical, and early college coursework. 

Program Change #2: Relocate the John Dickinson Middle Years Program (MYP) 

To allow for increased high school enrollment at The John Dickinson School, the committee recommends relocating the MYP middle school program from Dickinson to Skyline Middle School, allowing for a more balanced enrollment across the middle schools. 

• Additional Recommendations for Future Consideration

• Middle School Attendance-Zones: Reevaluate middle school attendance-zones, especially as they pertain to the Warner Elementary School community, to improve feeder pattern continuity and equity. Virtual High School Programming: Explore the development of virtual high school coursework to expand flexibility and learning opportunities for Red Clay students.

📋Citizens Budget Oversight Committee December 9th, 2025 Meeting Minutes For convenience, the full meeting minutes are typed below. 

Citizens Budget Oversight Committee Meeting 

December 9th, 2025 District Office- Board Room/ 6:00 pm 

Attendees: Community Members: Bob Chase, Ken Davis, Lynne McIntosh, Marianne Roken, Ray Sander, Cathy Thompson Building Reps; (Anthony Gray- Bolden, Kendra Todd-Dixon, Mark Vankerhoven) RCEA Rep: Amy Mirolli) BOE Members: Susan Sander, Vic Leonard, Sr. Red Clay Chief Operating Officer: Ted Ammann; Staff: Steven Andrzejewski, Committee Chairs: Nate Schwartz, Chris Miller

Agenda: 

Old Business: 

Approval of November 2025 minutes

Tax Reassessment Update: The property tax deadline has been extended to December 31, 2025. 

No changes since last month. 

Revenue is now 38% of what we expected to receive 

Some information on the county appeals process has been provided by the state. Stipulations process will take place first. This hearing will result in a new negotiated tax amount for the property owner. There are currently 182 owners scheduled for a full hearing. 

There is approximately $50,000,000 of assessed property value. 

Delmarva provides their own property assessments due to the utilities. There is approximately 1.4 billion in assessed property values to shared in the county. 

A bulk of the tax receipts will come in January. The February final budget report will provide an update on the revenue, but it is expected that the next few years will see some loss of revenue for the district. 

New Business:

McKean Innovation Center: Mark Pruitt presented the Secondary Attendance-Zone & Programming Committee history and current plan. 

Monthly Expenditure Report. 

The district is on target with expenditures and payroll Several of the Expended Thresholds over 60% were discussed. 

Public comment 

Next Meeting is scheduled for January 13th, 2026 in the District Office

🌐Reimagining Secondary Education Thomas McKean Innovation Campus District webpage 

🌐School Choice in Red Clay 

🌐Redding Consortium Redistricting Materials 

📄Redding Consortium Plan and Process 

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:20:01 – 0:39:52

   1. • Morgan Dukes (McKean staff member & alumni): Reported 77% of McKean staff oppose the Innovation Center plan and there is concern for student impact.

      • Jessica Schroeder (parent) Requested to delay implementation of the Innovation Center plan and criticized the low-participation in summer survey.

      • Sakura Irving (parent) Raised concerns regarding redistricting, capacity, and transportation equity.

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

      • Steven Fackenthall (General Music Teacher, Richey Elementary; President, Red Clay Education Association) Expressed support for McKean staff raising concerns and emphasized the need for the district to communicate. 

2. Superintendent Report
   ⏯ 0:58:07

   1. • Superintendent Dorrell Green announced an open call for parents and community members to serve on a new Attendance Zone Committee.

3. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 1:11:40

   1. • Board Member Vic Leonard: Due to so many missing committee members, the McKean Innovation Center presentation from Mr. Pruitt was postponed until next month's CBOC meeting on December 9th.

Morgan Dukes: Hi, my name is Morgan Dukes. I am a McKean High School alumni and current staff member. McKean staff completed a survey related to the innovation center and I wanted to share the information collected with you all. Staff are aware of the plan. They understand it but they overwhelmingly do not support it. In fact, 77% of our staff oppose it with 60% being strongly opposed. Their top concerns are not personal. Job protection, salaries, and comfort did not appear among the top issues listed. Staff are worried about the risk to students, lack of transparency, and the proposed timeline. These are all people who work closely with our students, and they're asking you to slow down and look closely at the implications. Staff believe that most parents and students are largely unaware of the plan. They don't understand its consequences and therefore cannot offer informed support. When the people most affected are the least aware, that's a serious warning sign. Staff specific worries are concrete, immediate, and consequential. First, they fear serious impacts to special education, disability services, and vulnerable learners. Learners who rely on continuity, proximity to services, and stable environments. Staff feel that this plan puts that at risk. When students with the greatest needs face the greatest risks, caution is not optional. It's a moral obligation. Second, there's concern about the lack of transparency and limited stakeholder engagement. Many feel the process has moved forward without honest communication or meaningful input from teachers, parents or students. That perception erodes trust and without trust implementation will fail. Third, staff highlight an unrealistic timeline that could disrupt learning and erase programs students count on to help them graduate, stay engaged, and stay on track. You can't build innovation on instability, and students can't learn in chaos. Educators know what it takes to execute a complex transition, and they're telling you that this timeline will not work. Innovation should solve problems, not create new ones. These concerns come from professionals who support our students daily. They know what works. They know what puts students at risk. And they're asking you to pause, reassess, and truly engage the families and staff who will live with the results of this decision. Data from the committee's own survey reinforces these concerns. Only about 50% of parents and staff districtwide supported the proposal. These numbers don't indicate consensus. They indicate a divided community, and acting on them as if they reflect informed support is irresponsible. No one is against innovation, but innovation without stability is disruption. Innovation without transparency is untrustworthy. And innovation without safeguarding our most vulnerable learners is unacceptable. Our staff are urging you to pause this plan, bring families into the conversation, and redesign it with the people that it will impact the most. That's not resistance, it's responsible leadership. Thank you.

Jessica Schroeder: Good evening, Members of the Board. My name is Jessica Schroeder, and I'm here to speak about the high school and programming changes. In 2022, after years of instability, multiple moves, a pandemic, and six different elementary schools, my family finally found where every family hopes for, stability and community. We purchased a home in a neighborhood within walking distance of a school, the John Dickinson School. We chose this neighborhood because of the school, because it meant shorter commutes, independence, academic excellence, and a walkable community where my kids could finally put down roots in the decade ahead. My family's MYP students are thriving. But this plan takes that stability away and fractures community trust in Red Clay. The programming committee's recommendation approved by the Board on July 9th, 2025, moves the entire MYP community, including students, staff, administrators, and the pre-IB curriculum to Skyline Middle School by fall 2027. Families like mine had no way to anticipate this when making life-altering decisions like buying a house or completing a school choice application. This change will reshape thousands of families. Community input was gathered through a survey that was open for only eight days in the middle of the summer. It was rushed, quietly released. It obscured key details and included no timeline. It reached only 3% of Red Clay families. Any educational researcher will tell you that a 50% response rate is the threshold for valid input. That is not community engagement. That is statistical rounding being used to justify a plan shaped more by political pressure than by equity or educational excellence. Meanwhile, teachers and staff, the backbone of our schools, are left facing uncertain positions, duplicated roles, disrupted teams, and the impossible task of maintaining stability for students amidst more questions than answers. This abrupt change in the direct is in direct contrast to the Red Clay Consolidated School District's core values of meaningful collaboration and a safe and nurturing environment. Especially in light of future changes coming from the Redding Consortium. Tonight, I'm asking the Board to delay the implementation of this plan. Not permanently, not drastically, just responsibly. Delay implementation so that this transition can truly choose excellence, choose opportunity, and choose Red Clay with thoughtful planning, genuine community engagement, and continuity protections that minimize harm to students, families, teachers, administrators, and the quality of the programs we claim to value. For the sake of stability, trust, community, equity, for the sake of Red Clay students, especially those currently in sixth grade MYP and in 9th and 10th grade at Thomas McKean High School who made their choice without all the information. Delay this plan now. Thank you.

Sakura Irving: My name is Sakura and I'm a Red Clay community member. I'm writing just to express my extreme concern about the direction of the redistricting process. I want to talk about what Red Clay is actually proposing. The committee is considering eliminating high schools, turning McKean into an innovation center. And that means hundreds of students that are currently assigned to McKean will be redistributed to schools to other schools. And there's no clear explanation of where these programs will go. What is the capacity of the schools that they're moving into and what this does to class sizing and staffing. You guys are also reviewing feeder patterns which directly impact families coming through every school without the community engagement. This means many children could lose the straight line feeder patterns they were promised. Some would attend maybe three different middle and high schools in just a few years based on the timeline. But to me, the most glaring contradiction came on May 1st when the committee removed the goal of equitable choice busing because the district cannot fund it. If we can't fund  transportation of choice students now, how can the district justify moving entire neighborhoods between schools without a fully funded transportation plan? Transportation is equity and without buses, there's no access to programs, honor courses, or specialized pathways. We can't pretend this is happening in isolation. These changes are unfolding at the same time the Redding Consortium is discussing pulling Christina's Wilmington students into Red Clay or consolidating districts entirely. An overhaul that could take three to five years and would fundamentally change enrollment, staffing, taxes, and most importantly, resource allocation. As a member of the community, I'm deeply uncomfortable with being asked to accept major disruptions to our children's stability with partial data, inconsistent messaging, and an unclear timeline. Families deserve to know how many students will be displaced, what schools will absorb them, and what the capacities of those schools are, especially being as though the district is typically running under staffed for nursing. How will these feeder patterns change for the schools that we are keeping in? How many more transitions will our children face? And how can we claim equity when transportation has already been cut before boundaries are even finalized? Right now, this process is anything but transparent, not formally formed, and not aligned with the district's own stated values. Before any plan moves -

Jenny Howard: Hi, good evening. My name is Jenny Howard and I'm here to speak about three issues that share the same themes. Equity, accountability, and protecting all students, not just some. First, the student activities policy. The policy needs clear language affirming that every student has fair, inclusive opportunities to participate across all schools. Without this, equity isn't enforceable. Second, the transportation policy. Safety requires a clear, accessible way to report hazards. The district should establish a process for reporting unsafe routes and bus stops, publicize it and monitor it, and review concerns promptly. This is basic governance and public safety. Finally, the high school plan, which is my biggest concern. Assigning all of Wilmington and all of the Meadowwood students to AI, while Dickinson becomes a suburban school with fewer high needs students, concentrates poverty, disability, and city enrollment in one school, creating de facto segregation. The district claims equal access to CTE programs, but questions remain. What if schedules conflict? What if high demand programs fill up? Are city students less likely to get seats? due to their long travel times. Is there a lottery if seats are full? Transparency is also a huge issue with this plan. The one town hall we had, the community was given less than a week's notice and it was the last week of school last year. The board then voted in the middle of the summer under the guise of we have to move forward with the plan and we can change it later if needed. Also, if straightline feeder patterns are a stated goal, why do the new boundaries still split schools like Warner while concentrating every Wilmington student at AI? The community needs an honest answer about whether this is phase one of removing Wilmington students from suburban schools. Additionally, we haven't seen a cost comparison about how choice busing for all high schools versus daily travel to the CTE hub compares. A fairer alternative would be to treat AI, Dickinson, and McKean as district-wide magnet style high schools with choice busing for all just like Cab and Conrad get. This balances demographics, prevents segregation and expands opportunity. Right now, this plan is being done to the community and not with the community. That is a huge problem that we need to change. Thank you.

Steven Fackenthall: Good evening, board. My name is Steven Fackenthall, music teacher at Richey Elementary and president of the Red Clay Education Association. First off, welcome board member Ms. Landis. I'm sure we'll get to know each other very well. I look forward to working with you and the entire Board for the betterment of our profession. I'd like to briefly talk about American Education Week and also class size. Thank you to our educators, specialists, administrators, education support professionals, and all employee groups for making our public schools the very best they can be. It takes a team to educate, inspire to keep our schools safe and healthy, and to create welcoming learning environments that allow young people to prepare for their future. By working together, we create the great public schools our students deserve and our nation needs. Thank you to all. Lastly, we recognize the district is not requesting a waiver this year and hasn't to my knowledge the past few years, the past few years, which is great. We recognize we appreciate the district's recognition that lower class sizes are beneficial for learning. I would truly love Red Clay to take the lead in how class size is actually determined. The antiquated ratios that say someone can be in a classroom for 30 minutes can be and lowers the ratio is absolutely absurd to me. Lower class size also shouldn't come at the cost of another desperately needed resource for our buildings. I'm just saying in general things it's a band-aid. The formula is a band-aid. We really should lead the way. As National Education Association President Becky Pringle says, we want all the things. We want all the things. We want lower class sizes so educators can reach every child with efficacy. And as I say, our working conditions are students learning conditions. I'd also like to thank Morgan Dukes and the rest of McKean for coming out. As I shared last month, we have to be overly communicative in what this is looking like. That's getting into those buildings, sharing those concerns, answering those questions, and I'm hopeful that the McKean staff and all staff will come out and continue to share those concerns for answers from our district. I appreciate your time.

Dorrell Green: As many of you heard, there is an opening as the Board committed to wanting an ongoing committee. So we are looking for parents and community members to participate in the committee for the attendance zone and transition program that again we've heard from many public commenters but as we continue to engage with our schools and our communities around opportunities to advance the District. So that is an open call. So we want your participation on the restructuring and review committee that the board has commissioned us to have. So there is information we'll make sure again we continue to push that out. Miss Mobley just as a constant - you know on social media and other channels - to ensure that folks are aware and have that opportunity to engage.

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:8:40 – 0:39:52

   1. • Jennifer Beyer (parent): Discussed middle school at Dickinson and need for more social emotional support.

      • Steven Fackenthall (General Music Teacher, Richey Elementary; President, Red Clay Education Association) Urged the Board to ensure transparency and broad communication.

      • Jenny Howard (parent): Urged the district to pause the new high school plan, citing limited community representation and top heavy district influence in the committee. 

2. Board Action Items - Attendance Zone Committee Proposal (Amendment), Discussion and Vote
   ⏯ 0:35:10-46:25

   1. • Board Member Susan Sander made a motion to amend the original proposal to create an advisory group in place of a group that provides input; Mark Pruitt explained there will be several subgroups doing the work on the Innovation Plan and this committee will receive updates. The group will be listeners. 

Jennifer Beyer: My name is Jennifer Beyer and I'm here tonight as a parent of a John Dickinson Middle School student who truly cares about not just academics but also the climate and culture within our schools, especially at the middle school level. Middle school is such a unique and critical time in a child's life. It's a period of enormous change socially, emotionally, and developmentally. Students are trying to figure out who they are, where they belong, and how to manage friendships and emotions that are often new and overwhelming. Because of that, the environment around them, the tone set by the adults in the building, the expectations for how students treat one another, and the support systems in place matter tremendously. What I've noticed, and what I've heard echoed by other parents, is that while our district does a strong and incredible job emphasizing academics, there seems to be less attention on the social emotional side of student life. I think that imbalance can really impact how our students experience school. When kids don't feel connected, safe, or supported, it affects not only their well-being, but also their ability to focus, learn, and thrive. I'm not here to criticize, but to advocate for balance, for a greater focus on fostering kindness, empathy, and inclusion. Things like advisory programs, social emotional learning opportunities could go such a long way towards helping students develop stronger relationships and healthier coping skills. Even small changes, consistent expectations for behavior, more communication between staff and families, and spaces where students feel heard can make an enormous difference. Ultimately, I believe that a positive climate and culture is the foundation of everything else we want to accomplish academically. When students feel emotionally supported and valued, the entire school community benefits. So, I'd just like to encourage the district and the board to look closely at how we can strengthen that social and emotional framework in our middle schools especially because our kids are not only learning facts and formulas, but they're learning how to be people and that's something worth investing in. I appreciate your time, your service, and your commitment to our students. Thank you.  

Steven Fackenthall: Good evening, Board. My name is Steven Fackenthall, general music teacher at Richie Elementary and president of the Red Clay Education Association. I'm simply here to talk about the attendance zone and restructuring committee vote that is on for you tonight. I am hopeful that if this were to pass that the committee and the district are overtly transparent in their discussions and decisions that are being made because those decisions and discussions are being made are for staff and community members that are going to be most impacted. I am hopeful not only are they going to be overtly transparent in their discussions and decisions, but seeking input from the staff and the community most impacted in every possible way. I know that there were some admin that went over last week during one of their faculty meetings. I appreciate that. I'm hopeful that every avenue of transparency in decision-making, discussions and seeking input will be made for those mostly impacted by any decisions. I really appreciate your time. Thank you. 

Jenny Howard: I'm here tonight to discuss Red Clay's new high school plan and the growing concern that it's being developed for the community but not with the community. The committee behind the plan was top heavy with district administrators, parents, and community members made up barely a third of that group. And the imbalance is clear. The proposal doesn't reflect family's priorities or what's best for all students. Many families still don't understand what this plan means for them. Parents are confused, frustrated, and losing trust. Now, we're hearing that CAB Calloway, and Conrad students who already have access to selective programs and additional resources, will also have access to the innovation center. If that's true, why would any parent choose Dickinson or AI? Plans like this only make our schools more divided and our system less equitable by further concentrating opportunities in certain sought-after schools. The same pattern shows up in transportation. The district's own rules aren't applied consistently. Some choice students are granted hub stops or routes outside their feeder zones while others are denied that same access. And these inequities start early. For example, every non-title one school has its own full-time talented and gifted teacher serving K-5  students, while title one schools share one teacher across multiple buildings. Those students lose out on early enrichment opportunities that others take for granted. With that being said, I urge the district to pause this plan and rebuild it with transparency, fairness, and authentic collaboration. That includes creating a real family engagement plan, one that gives parents, students, and community members a meaningful role before decisions are made. Red Clay families want to be partners, not spectators. Equity means access, transparency, and opportunity for every student. Thank you for your time. 

Vic Leonard: Switching that around, I think this next one would have some comment.

Hugh Broomall: It is recommended that the Red Clay Board of Education approve a new committee to be named the Thomas McKean Innovation Center Working Group as submitted.

Jose Matthews: So moved to approve.

Susan Sander: Second.

Vic Leonard: Thank you. It's been properly moved and seconded. Any discussion?

Susan Sander: Yes. I would like to amend the committee as originally stated. In light of the fact that we need to get information to families, educators, and the community in general about the proposed McKean Innovation Center, I propose that we change this from a "committee" to the "Thomas McKean Innovation Center Working Group."

My reasoning is that I’d like information reaching families in real-time as opposed to going through the series of commitments it takes to serve on a formal committee. I would also like to propose that the working group is made zoomable and open to the public, so information is disseminated in real-time to families.

Hugh Broomall: How about I ask Mr. Pruitt to share a little bit about how the advisory working group is going to work and how they’re going to be transparent?

Mark Pruitt: I’ll offer some context. This is exciting and meaningful work, but there needs to be flexibility. We began with an internal steering committee of 12 district administrators. They are overseeing what will be 16 subgroups over the next two years. The leaders are putting together time-bound benchmarks, back-mapping from August of 2027 with key action steps needed to launch. Once that finalized working draft is ready, we will put together subgroup teams. These groups are very different: 

the move of Adult Education from AI High School to McKean

a communications subgroup

a facilities subgroup

a DIAA athletics/extracurricular subgroup

and a funding subgroup.

The makeup of each will look different. For example, the Adult Ed transition will look different than student services. We are also pivoting existing groups, like the Student Superintendent Advisory Committee, to get their feedback on the transition. Additionally, we are putting together this advisory working group of experts. We’ve already engaged with the Department of Labor, Goldey-Beacom College, University of Delaware (Demography), ChristianaCare, DelTech, the Department of Education, Rodel Foundation, Wilmington University, and Emerging Delaware. We want them to join an overriding advisory working group. We have to meet them where they are; we might not get 16 experts to a Tuesday night meeting at 6:00 PM, so we may have them present to the teachers and parents on the committee instead. Either way, we will update the Board bimonthly.

Vic Leonard: I have a few questions. One, will these meetings be open to the public?

Mark Pruitt: We can certainly make them open to the public and put them on Zoom.

Vic Leonard: Yes, we’d like to do that. And we’d like Board representation at these meetings as part of the deal.

Devon Hynson: Where did you get the members for these subcommittees?

Mark Pruitt: We have not established the subgroups yet. There are six key working groups. The first step is establishing the benchmarks by back-mapping from August 2027. Once done, we will reach out to small groups to do the work, primarily within the workday.

Susan Sander: We are proposing that there be Board members and representatives from the nominating districts on this working group so we have active listeners. We realize this is not a group giving input; it is a listening and communication group.

Mark Pruitt: I think it’s important to note that when we meet with experts to negotiate legal terms for clinical space or apprenticeships for students, that won't happen at 6:00 PM. But a progress report on those steps can happen at 6:00 PM.

Vic Leonard: Mr. Pruitt, a main question I get is: what is the benefit to students and how do we determine curriculum or pathways?

Mark Pruitt: In 2022, we looked at a labor market analysis of jobs over the next 10 years. We have great CTE (Career and Technical Education) pathways; McKean is our flagship for that. We will move existing pathways from AI High and Dickinson there. We’ve identified growth in allied health, healthcare technology, cloud security, AI, networking, and clean energy.

Susan Sander: Technology is going to be changing things. Our career pathways will need to be updated as technology changes so students can find jobs.

Jose Matthews: Point of clarification: I want to make sure that if approved tonight, we have a period for public comment at all of these meetings.

Susan Sander: Thank you, I appreciate that. Yes, definitely - a point during the working group meetings where public comment is available.

Vic Leonard: Is there a motion to approve the amendment first?

Devon Hynson: So moved.

Susan Sander: Second.

Jose Matthews: That was for the amendment. Now we go to the motion for the working group itself.

Vic Leonard: Is there a motion to approve the recommendation for a working group?

Beth Twardus: So moved.

Susan Sander: Second.

Ms. Stevens: Unanimous. Motion carries. 

📄AMENDED Proposal for Thomas McKean Innovation Center Working Group October 15, 2025 For convenience, the full text of the proposal is typed below. 

Proposal

The Thomas McKean Innovation Center Working Group

The Thomas McKean Innovation Center Working Group is responsible for supporting the Red Clay Board of Education and District Administration in transitioning Thomas McKean High School into the Thomas McKean Innovation Center. The Working Group will provide expertise, input, and advisory recommendations from community partners, families, educators, and students to ensure the Innovation Center is responsive to the needs of the district and community. The group will serve as an advisory body rather than a traditional board committee. 

The Working Group

This Working Group serves to assist the Board of Education with communication between the administrative personnel leading the Innovation Center transition and community advisors providing professional expertise. Community partners will serve in an advisory capacity, strengthening collaboration between the district and external organizations, and ensuring that the transition reflects workforce needs, educational priorities, and community values. 

Working Group Goals: 

• Provide progress reports to the Board of Education regularly (bimonthly – every other month). 

• Ensure alignment with district goals, workforce development needs, and community expectations. 

• Offer advisory feedback on: 

  • Facility redesign and program development. 

  • Workforce and career pathway programming. 

  • Staffing transitions and professional development. 

  • Student enrollment, transportation, and support services. 

  • Funding strategies and sustainability planning. 

  • Timeline and launch of the Innovation Center. 

• Support inclusive community engagement by bringing forward input from families, students, educators, and external partners. 

• Deliverables: 

The Thomas McKean Innovation Center Working Group will provide the Board of Education with: 

• • Bimonthly reports on transition planning and implementation. 

  • Timely, public-facing updates for families, educators, and community partners. 

Final recommendations to guide the successful launch of the Thomas McKean Innovation Center. 

Scope of Responsibilities:

The Working Group will act as a communication and advisory platform, not a governing committee. Its responsibilities include: 

• • Providing feedback to district leadership to ensure best practices are followed. 

  • Advising on alignment between academic programming, workforce pathways, and community needs. 

  • Ensuring input from community partners, families, and students is considered in board and district decision-making. 

  • Serving as a bridge to strengthen collaboration between the school district and external organizations. 

The Working Group will meet every other month (bimonthly), beginning in October 2025 and continuing through October 2027. Additional meetings may be scheduled to address transition milestones and ensure timely communication with the Board of Education. 

Expectations of Members: 

Working Group members are expected to: 

• • Attend meetings consistently. 

  • Contribute perspectives and expertise relevant to the transition. 

  • Interact respectfully and collaboratively with other members and stakeholders. 

  • Communicate information within their networks to promote understanding and engagement. 

Community partners serving as advisors may choose to conclude their participation at any time, while district and board representatives will be appointed in accordance with Red Clay policy. 

Expectations of the Life of Working Group: 

The Thomas McKean Innovation Center Working Group will operate from October 2025 through October 2027 to guide the innovation center's planning, transition, and launch. It can be extended if additional advisory support is needed.

📄Proposal for Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee September 17 2025 For convenience, the full of the proposal is typed below. You can also view the original PDF document using the link provided.

Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee Proposal

• Charge Statement: The Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee is responsible for requiring Red Clay District personnel, tasked with developing a plan to satisfy the proposal agreed upon by the Attendance Zone and Programming Committee and voted upon by the Red Clay School Board, to present progress reports to this committee to assure understanding for all stakeholders affected by this plan and to monitor financial, personnel, transportation, and student issues associated with this plan. 

The Committee: 

This committee serves to assist the school board with communication between the administrative personnel charged with the Attendance Zone and Restructuring and ensure community involvement in the proposed changes. 

Committee Goals: 

Provide progress reports to the board on a regular basis (bimonthly – every other month) regarding the plans for the realigning of the attendance zones, MYP programming at Skyline, proposals for school choice, staffing changes, transportation plans, funding, Innovation Center progress, and launching dates. 

Deliverables: 

The AZ and Restructuring Review Committee will provide the board with all proposed recommendations and ensure information is available for all stakeholders including Red Clay community members, families, and educators. 

Scope of Responsibilities: 

The AZ and Restructuring Review Committee will act only as a communication platform for the board to keep the board aware of the changes proposed by the administrative personnel, and to ensure best practices are followed and input from community stakeholder is communicated to the board. 

Timeline: 

This committee will meet every other month (bimonthly), unless deemed necessary to meet more frequently, beginning with October, 2025 and ending in October, 2027 (to ensure any additional information is communicated to the board. 

Expectations of Members: 

AZ and Restructuring Review Committee members are expected to attend meetings, voice views, act responsibility, interact politely with other members and community. Members shall not miss more than 3 meetings in any school year (July – June) time period. Board members on the committee are selected in accordance with BP 9004 and community members can decide at any time that they wish to end their service on the Committee. 

Expectations of Life of Committee: October, 2025 through October, 2027. 

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:12:40

   1. • Charles Lockerman (Friends of AI): Raised concerns about transportation funding for the Innovation Center.

2. Superintendent Report
   ⏯ 39:47

   1. • Superintendent Dorrell Green discussed equitable access to college coursework in Red Clay, including AP, IB, and dual enrollment. 

3. Board Action Items - Attendance Zone Committee Proposal
   ⏯ 1:08:37 - 1:14:13

   1. • Board Member Susan Sander made a proposal to create The Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee to track attendance zone changes and implementation through 2027, with Superintendent Dorrell Green offering to have the District synthesize the essence of the proposal to ensure the final version accurately captures the Board's intent and logistical requirements for a vote next month.

Charles Lockerman:  Good evening. Red Clay board members, how you guys doing today? Good. I just wanted to talk a little bit about what we've been doing. The Friends of AI at AI High School, we had a senior barbecue to welcome them back to school. Staff and AI alumni doing that. The alumni were actually able to sponsor shirts for all 50 seniors for this year which you know is great because just like the end of the year it's just one less thing that they don't have to worry about that helps them. I took photos in the school on the first day of the school. I've been taking them with the football team. I'm gonna do it for all the sports. When I drop the flash drives off to the school, they actually have a program there in the curriculum for computers that they would edit the photos. So, I'm literally just going to provide the material and the students are going to edit the photos for the school, which I think makes everything a little more interesting. The kids are talking a lot about the alumni band and homecoming again because they want to see us out there. So, that's what we're planning to do. The 24th is our big upcoming event. We're going to play again like we did last year and just keep the tradition going. 

Other than that, I just wanted to switch gears so I get this point in too. I researched the plan that you guys all proposed and everything and the only thing that confuses me is AI High School has less students because the choice busing was taken away among other things. But I feel like that can make an impact. But instead of giving AI more buses to bring students to the school to increase the attendance, you want to give buses to take them to an innovation center and then go back and forth with the upper classmen throughout the day. What doesn't make sense to me is you have money for buses for that program, but you won't allocate any to help the school increase their enrollment. Upcoming we have - besides homecoming - we have some other things that we're planning with the staff and with the principles in the loop and so is the athletic director on everything. So, it looks to be an exciting year and I look forward to the next time I can talk to you with another positive update. Thank you for your time. Have a good day. 

Dorrell Green: And then fall data again at a glance around college level coursework. I think it is important when we look at equitable opportunities for students to participate in rigorous learning. Our fall coursework at a glance and these are college level courses that include Advanced Placement, IB courses, or Dual Enrollment courses in partnership with our local universities whether that's The Early College Academy that we rebooted several years ago for students who are taking courses at Goldey Beacom, students who are taking courses at DelTech. Zion, if you don't mind, what career pathway are you in?

Zion (Conrad student presenter): I'm in the biotechnology pathway. 

Dorrell Green: And are you currently taking any kind of dual enrollment courses, AP courses or anything?

Zion (Conrad student presenter): I take three AP courses. I don't take any dual enrollment courses.

Dorrell Green: So that's an opportunity. Again, Zion is an example of taking those three AP courses where he's earning those college credits. Gives him a leg up to be able to go into college if that's what he chooses to do to have those credits upon graduation. It also makes them marketable for colleges when they have that opportunity. And for our students who choose to go straight to the workforce, the fact that they can put that on some type of resume, it definitely makes them more marketable. There are transferable skills. When we look at our AP seminar course, which we're making that an anchor course for all sophomores, those transferable skills through that AP seminar course, help students across life again through communication, through collaboration, their ability to work, to process information. So this is just some data from the beginning of the year. And if you look at the trajectory from year 2022 to 2023, you see a clear indication that the number of students  who are participating in those college level courses has grown substantially across the district. We're seeing that correlation hopefully through SAT data and the more that we anchor ourselves and providing students with those rigorous opportunities we're certain that we'll see positive outcomes. Just to promote some events, October 22nd, we will have our College and Career Fair will be hosted again at Alexis Dupont High School. Where we'll have over 100 colleges, universities, the military, local businesses. This is aligned with our vision of career and college ready just to again promote so that Red Clay is a destination upon graduation for our students to go to the workforce, military career, but to be a destination for those who are seeking students who are life ready.

Vic Leonard: Items submitted by the Board. We have the Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee proposal. Ms. Sander?

Susan Sander: Thank you. I propose the establishment of the Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee. This initiative represents one of the most significant changes to the Red Clay district in decades. The financial and stakeholder investment required for this project will be extensive and enduring, with the expectation of long-term success. The School Board has a responsibility to ensure that our community of staff and families is well-informed about the changes related to the programs, transportation, district costs, career pathways, and the timeline for implementation. Accordingly, this requires a committee with representation from each nominating district. It’s important to note that this committee is not tasked with proposing changes, but rather reporting on the progress of plans related to the attendance zone and restructuring.

Vic Leonard: Okay. Any discussion? Is there a motion?

Susan Sander: I think we have to…

Dorrell Green: So, there is no motion tonight. This is just a notice of it, and then the Board will come back next month to vote.

Vic Leonard: And so we can have discussion?

Dorrell Green: You can have discussion, yeah.

Vic Leonard: I’d just like to say I think it’s a great idea. It’s bi-monthly, correct?

Susan Sander: Correct. Bi-monthly. I apologize, I forgot to indicate that. Every other month. Apparently, "bi-monthly" can mean two meetings a month, so I would require the planning committee to meet with us every other month for updates on the plans.

Dorrell Green: My general question to the Board is: do you want that update at a regular Board meeting? Or, if you’re saying bi-monthly, is there a subsequent meeting where you want the committee to update the Board? That would require notice. I’m just being clear in terms of dates, timing, and efficiency. Do you want the committee to meet, and then update the Board from those meetings?

Susan Sander: Definitely. It will be a separate meeting.

Vic Leonard: Any other discussion?

Beth Twardus: I noticed on your timeline the life of the committee starts in October 2025 and ends in October 2027. Is there any reason for 2027, or is it until the completion of the project?

Susan Sander: The plan is to be implemented in September of 2027, I believe. I wanted to ensure that all the details are wrapped up, and that’s why I proposed we go until October of 2027 in case there are any last-minute updates the Board should be aware of.

Beth Twardus: Is there a mechanism, then, if plans get delayed for whatever reason, to continue the committee after October 2027? If the situation hasn't fully resolved itself or flushed out, is there a mechanism to extend the committee, or are we set to 2027?

Susan Sander: I would love to see a mechanism put in place, definitely.

Vic Leonard: I think it was in the proposal, if we need to go further.

Dorrell Green: Okay. May I ask something of the Board? If that is indeed the case, after you leave the Board meeting and digest this, please submit that information. We’ll gather the information and work with Mr. Pruitt so that when you come back next month, we have something efficient.

When you talk about "nominating districts," there is a process for how we actually solicit those districts. That might put us out further and delay your timeline. If it’s okay with the Board, submit your info, we’ll synthesize it to get the essence of what you’re saying, and provide feedback so that next month you have something you can vote on that hits the intent you want.

We already have a cadence in terms of getting out to meetings in October, for example, representative student groups. My neighbor, Mr. Mike, who is a graduate of McKean High School, Class of 1975... we heard public comment last month from alumni. They have their 50th anniversary luncheon this Sunday. I’ll be joining them to engage and share insight. There are things already happening to engage the community, and while I know we want a formal committee, we will provide feedback and work with Ms. Sander to dialogue so the Board knows we are engaged.

Vic Leonard: Yeah, I think it’s modeled like the Facilities Committee where the district gives updates on facilities. I’m happy to see it and hopefully we can make that work. Any other discussion? 

📄Proposal for Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee September 17 2025 For convenience, the full text of the proposal is typed below. 

Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee Proposal

• Charge Statement: The Red Clay Attendance Zone and Restructuring Review Committee is responsible for requiring Red Clay District personnel, tasked with developing a plan to satisfy the proposal agreed upon by the Attendance Zone and Programming Committee and voted upon by the Red Clay School Board, to present progress reports to this committee to assure understanding for all stakeholders affected by this plan and to monitor financial, personnel, transportation, and student issues associated with this plan. 

The Committee: 

This committee serves to assist the school board with communication between the administrative personnel charged with the Attendance Zone and Restructuring and ensure community involvement in the proposed changes. 

Committee Goals: 

Provide progress reports to the board on a regular basis (bimonthly – every other month) regarding the plans for the realigning of the attendance zones, MYP programming at Skyline, proposals for school choice, staffing changes, transportation plans, funding, Innovation Center progress, and launching dates. 

Deliverables: 

The AZ and Restructuring Review Committee will provide the board with all proposed recommendations and ensure information is available for all stakeholders including Red Clay community members, families, and educators. 

Scope of Responsibilities: 

The AZ and Restructuring Review Committee will act only as a communication platform for the board to keep the board aware of the changes proposed by the administrative personnel, and to ensure best practices are followed and input from community stakeholder is communicated to the board. 

Timeline: 

This committee will meet every other month (bimonthly), unless deemed necessary to meet more frequently, beginning with October, 2025 and ending in October, 2027 (to ensure any additional information is communicated to the board. 

Expectations of Members: 

AZ and Restructuring Review Committee members are expected to attend meetings, voice views, act responsibility, interact politely with other members and community. Members shall not miss more than 3 meetings in any school year (July – June) time period. Board members on the committee are selected in accordance with BP 9004 and community members can decide at any time that they wish to end their service on the Committee. 

Expectations of Life of Committee: October, 2025 through October, 2027. 

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:04:13 - 0:18:17

   1. • Monica Ball (McKean Alumni): Raised concerns forcing students into a career pathway limits learning options; also raised concerns about Innovation Center transportation costs.

      • Mike Brenner (McKean Alumni): Questioned the rationale for converting McKean into an Innovation center

      • Jenny Howard (parent) Criticized the rushed approval of the high school restructuring plan without meaningful community input; asked for pause.

      • Jenny Chorman (parent): Expressed that closing a high school is not the solution; instead, she suggested making them more comparable to magnet and charter schools.

2. Superintendent Report
   ⏯ 29:57

   1. • Superintendent Dorrell Green confirms that the Innovation Center timeline is public information and accessible. 

Monica Ball: I just wanted to make some comments about the concerns about the McKean as an Innovation Center. I'm a 1975 graduate of McCain. My daughter is a 2018 graduate of McCain.We're getting ready to have our 50th reunion this year. So, about another month from today, actually, we're going to be having a fun kind of reunion. And we're getting ready to get a holly tree placed up there, which is a state tree of Delaware at the high school. My concerns have to do around the career pathways as a graduation requirement. I'm a little concerned. I think it's a state requirement. I don't think it's the best idea. I would like to see some statistics at some point if this is actually working for the students when they graduate. I think that pigeon-holing kids in the ninth or tenth grade into a particular career pathway is not correct. I would like to see a focus more on the comprehensive curriculum more in the three schools and maybe reduce CAB and Conrad's enrollment if that has to come about. I'd like to see more elective classes and possibly take these career pathways into a smaller set like if that's possible either, like a month-long class or whatever. Not three years. My daughter was in this and it didn't really work out for her. She went a completely different pathway. But the support was there and McKean has a really good handle on it but that's not the only thing that you want.  Kids in high school to actually explore different pathways for careers. You don't want them pigeonholed into certain areas. We actually have talked about transportation costs. That's one of the things that's a big concern for me. I have lived in this Red Clay district. I've lived here at the same address for almost 70 years. I've been a part of the whole area here in the McKean environment for going on 50 years here. I'm trying to see maybe the teachers could rotate between the high schools, maybe give them some exposure to different career areas.Like I said, maybe even reestablish the Wilmington City School District at some point. But back to the whole thing with McKean, I would love to see it just stay where it is. There's talk now about a couple people have brought in about maybe getting a referendum, a public referendum and a public vote on the next election. That's maybe a good idea. I know it would delay some things, but you know, let's try to think a little bit slower here on this and not put McKean in the grave as far as a high school is concerned. I'm really concerned that you're jumping the gun here a little bit. this. I can talk more about it later if you need me to. My three minutes are up. So, thank you.

Mike Brenner: Good evening. My concern is I don't know that this has been all that well thought out with McKean. Again, I'm a graduate as well. I graduated in Monica's class ‘75. After looking over the different things that I've read about, I'm confused as to why they'd even want to consider putting the McKean into a VoTech and moving all these people around when AI has such a small - has more room - that you could put Charter  there or you could put Cab Callaway there to help fill that up. And as far a vote, you're not using Linden Hill or Skyline Middle School. Why not move to make a VoTech school there? And bussing people from Cab Callaway or Wilmington Charter to AI would seem to be a much easier path to go than moving all these people around. McKean has 96% enrollment. That's the reason is - we all live here. We're all doing this and I think that it would be the wrong move to take McKean and make something different out of it. That's all I have. Thank you.  

Jenny Howard: Good evening. My name is Jenny Howard and I'm here to address two urgent issues. The opportunity funds and the high school restructuring plan. First, let's be clear. This is not about flexibility. It's about equity. Opportunity funds exist because of a lawsuit to correct historic inequities. These dollars were intended for schools with the highest concentrations of low income students and English language learners. When waivers allow funds to spread across every school, we don't lift all boats. We widen the very achievement gap this law was designed to close. Second, the restructuring plan. This decision impacts every student in our district. Yet, it was approved without meaningful community input. Families, teachers, and students had little chance to review, ask questions, or provide feedback before the vote. Rushing a decision of this magnitude undermines trust and risk creating inequities that will last for years. We deserve better, and our kids deserve better. Equity can't exist without transparency, and trust can't exist without inclusion. Here's what we're asking for. Publicly post opportunity fund allocations and staffing changes in plain language. Pause the secondary school's plan until families and educators have a real voice in shaping it, not just reacting after the fact. True engagement isn't telling us what's already happening. True equity means planning with the community, not around it. And I just want to say to Mike Matthew Mike Matthews last point about board docs, it is really hard for the public to see what's going on and to be able to publicly comment on it prior to votes when board docs is not opened up until hours before the meetings. So, if there's anything that the board can do or the district can do to open up board docks sooner, that would be great because yes, we can see the general agenda a week in advance, but we can't see and I understand not all presentations might be ready, but if they are ready, it would be nice for the public to be able to see these things and that way they have adequate time to digest it and then give meaningful comment at the board meetings. I think you would see a lot more engagement that way and I really hope that this year we can work all together and make it the best year yet. Thank you.

Jenny Chorman: Good evening everyone. My name is Jenny Corman. My children attend Red Clay schools. I don't have much prepared but I would like to talk about the opportunity funds. I think they should stay in the schools they are allocated with. I'm advocating for that. We hear all the time that teachers  are not well paid and also teachers in all the schools - not just the low-income schools - are always investing their own money into supplies and stuff needed in their classrooms. So I would like to advocate for for those schools to keep the money

and just see the needs there. There is a reason why some schools have more lower income students. I'm not just talking about English learners. I would also like to talk about the taxes. The company that was hired, I don't think that was in Red Clay decision to hire the Taylor company that did the assessments. It was ridiculous. They didn't even study the market and they just put numbers on houses. The price numbers are just over the top. The last thing I would like to talk about is the high schools. I do think something needs to be done, but I don't think closing one high school is the solution. It will be more effective to make the three high schools in the Red Clay more equitable or comparable to the magnet and charter schools. That's it. Thank you.

Dorrell Green: And here's just a timeline that's in my report for the secondary attendance zone updates. And again, I won't go into detail about it, but we find ourselves right here going into the fall of 2025 communicating the plan and then working with various stakeholder groups to ensure that again we continue to engage. So that timeline is within my report. It is public knowledge and public information.

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee webpage

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:30:25 - 0:40:10

   1. • Morgan Dukes (McKean staff member & alumni): Urged the board to vote against the committee’s Innovation Center proposal; risk of losing staff and disrupting student services.

      • Val Gould (McKean Alumni & AZ Committee member): Urged the board to vote against the committee’s Innovation Center proposal; District sidelined AZ Committee's focus on attendance zones to pursue the Innovation Center.

      • Jenny Howard (parent): Asks how this plan dismantles inequities; Calls for equal access to rigorous courses, arts, CTE, and extracurriculars at all high schools.

2. Presentation to the Board and Discussion
   ⏯ 1:36:28 - 2:44:59

   1. • Director of Secondary Schools Mark Pruitt and committee members presented the work of the Secondary Attendance Zone Enrollment and Programming Committee to the Board, covering the committee’s findings, analysis, stakeholder engagement, and final recommendations for the high school and middle school attendance zones and programming.

3. Board Action Items - Attendance Zone Committee Recommendation

     ⏯ 2:53:25 - 2:56:37

3. 1. • Superintendent Dorrell Green recommended that the Red Clay School Board approve the recommendation of the Secondary Attendance Zone Enrollment and Programming Committee as submitted.

Morgan Dukes: Hi my name is Morgan Dukes and I am speaking about the proposal put forth by the secondary attendance zone and programming committee. I'm not only a McKean staff member but also a McKean High School alumni. VoTech high schools used to be shared time facilities. Students were bussed from their high school to a VoTech facility for vocational education. When enrollment decreased, state and local officials, including the superintendent, were interviewed and several issues were noted, including a communication and integration between schools, funding, transportation, and extracurricular activities. All things that were also brought up by community members as potential problems at the committee's public meeting in June. In the end, VoTech schools became full-time. The McKean student body is the largest student body of all Red Clay high schools. And that's not even including the Meadowwood students that are also serviced within the walls of McKean. Redistributing these students and our staff will cause large disruptions to not only McKean students and families, but the larger Red Clay community and could lead to a loss of skilled teachers at a time when they're difficult to find. If Red Clay were to move forward with the proposed innovation center, we would only have 139 available seats left at the high school level. If we gain any additional students as a result of redistricting, we would be severely limited in space. And based on McKean's capacity, only 57% of Red Clay's current non-charter high school students would be able to attend the innovation center. This does not seem equitable. McKean currently serves large populations of marginalized groups, including special education students, MLL students, and low-income students. With some of these groups overlapping, I don't see them represented within this proposal. Redistributing these students to other high schools would disrupt the specialized support services and programming that these students receive and could lead to detrimental outcomes. Additionally, these students are being asked to step into an entirely new environment with new adults, students, and expectations, which presents a new set of challenges for them to overcome and could be seen as obstacles for them to even join a CTE pathway at the innovation center. Not only that, but the special ed services, supports, and policies that are in place and normalized within one high school may not be recognized or supported by an innovation center, thus risking legal repercussions. Instead, career pathway options should be spread across the high schools with each school offering some common pathways while other pathways are only offered at certain high schools. Currently, there are several career pathways that students are not being offered in Red Clay that they would be interested in. By creating new pathway options across the high school, students could then choice to the school with the pathway that they want. Yes, this is costly, but creating an innovation center with new pathways and paying for transportation would be costly, too. Based on the operations impact shared by Mr. Ammon at one of the committee meetings, this proposal would have one of the greatest impacts to our operations across multiple levels. Therefore, I implore the board to vote against the committee's proposal and make it a great day to be a Highlander. Thank you.  

Val Gould: Good evening everyone. I am Val Gould. As many of you already know, I am a member of the Attendance Zone committee. I am also a former Red Clay teacher and will be about to rejoin the district as music teacher at Baltz. I want to share a few thoughts on the proposals that you'll be voting on tonight, courtesy of the Attendance Zone committee. Our charge as committee members was to work toward equitable outcomes for all of our students. All of our students, not just some. However, it became evident very early on that some of the district administration had other ideas in mind and that idea was an innovation center. As a result, we spent very little time on addressing attendance zone concerns such as the attendance zone issues at Warner and some of the other schools in our district that are affected by poorly designed attendance zone feeder patterns. This district through its former board and administration, not likely anyone in this room, have created this situation of underenrollment at AI and increasingly neglected traditional high schools here in the district through its support of charters and magnet schools which have created or I should say recreated a form of school segregation where traditional high schools like McKean, Dickinson, and AI have become all but afterthoughts. I urge this board to reject the innovation center proposal. Instead of creating yet another wheel in a district already full of wheels that have run over the idea of equity, our time and resources should be spent creating a level playing field on which all of our students and staff will find pride, success, and joy in their education. The disrespect of those who need our support the most has gone on way too long. It is time for this board to start making things right again. Please vote no on the innovation center. Thank you.

Jenny Howard: My name is Jenny Howard. I'm a mother of four and a former Red Clay teacher. I'm here tonight to talk about the proposal to restructure Red Clay's high schools. The plan responds to declining enrollment without addressing why enrollment declined in the first place. It's because our system has not served all students equitably, especially those from our most marginalized communities. Red Clay's own data shows that access to college level courses, extracurriculars, and enrichment is not equally distributed. Schools like Conrad and CAB offer twice as many AP and dual enrollment courses at traditional high schools like McKean, Dickinson, and AI. These gaps are not due to student interest or ability. They're the result of policies that privilege some students and exclude others. These aren't just program differences. They are life-altering disparities. A student who earns a year's worth of college credit

in high school can save their family 10 to $25,000. That's not just savings. It's generational opportunity. And when those options are concentrated in selective schools, we are protecting pathways for privilege. Meanwhile, students in underresourced schools get less fewer reg they get fewer rigorous courses, fewer clubs, fewer sports, fewer staff, and fewer chances to shine. That's not accidental. It's the predictable outcome of a system that siphons students and resources into exclusive programs. This proposal doesn't reverse that. It codifies it. By consolidating schools without fixing the inequities that caused the decline, we risk cementing a two-tiered system. One for students with access and advocacy and another for students told to make do. And let's be honest, those students are overwhelmingly from communities already underserved. So, I asked the board, how will this plan dismantle rather than reinforce inequities that harm our most vulnerable students? Will every high school, not just magnets, be guaranteed full and equal access to AP, dual enrollment, the arts, CTE, and extracurriculars? And will the district commit to an annual equity audit to make sure we're not tracking students by race, income, or neighborhood? Because equity isn't just about who gets in the door. It's about what they find when they get there. If we don't confront the structures that created these disparities, we're not solving anything. We're just institutionalizing inequity. 

Mark Pruitt: Six of us, including myself, from the committee will be presenting the work we've done over the past seven months on the Secondary Attendance Zone Enrollment and Programming Committee. The work actually initiated at the November 2024 School Board meeting when there was a recommendation for vote through a presentation that the Board approved the Secondary Attended Zone Enrollment and Programming Committee. It was amended and the amendment was that we provide a recommendation and an update at this July meeting. 

So the committee started work immediately. As many of you remember we put out requests for anyone who would be interested in serving on the committee to our community. 118 folks put their names in. We selected names out of a folder, one from each nominating district in your area. So we have seven public members that served on the committee including three board members, three RCEA members, three district administrators and three school administrators. I can tell you this, they came with different points of view, opinions and expertise but as someone who facilitated the committee I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of them for their willingness to meet our norms. We were respectful at all times. They were collaborative at all times. And had that not been the case, it would have been very difficult to herd 19 people and shepherd them along. So I really appreciate their willingness to serve on the committee. 

You're going to see some slides tonight. We're going to go through a lot of slides. It is just a small fraction of the work of this committee. The committee has a website. You can go to the website. It has everything that we've done, every piece of research that we put up. I would particularly note rolling slides which outline all seven meetings that we had, as well as every video recording in its entirety from every meeting.

The charge from the School Board in November was to evaluate the enrollment, programming, and attendance zones of Red Clay Secondary Schools and make recommendations to the Board at the July 2025 meeting. In doing so, our committee was to consider strong and balanced enrollments across schools, the impact of attendance zone changes and alignment of those boundaries to existing K-8 attendance zones when possible. There had been changes to kindergarten through 8th grade attendance zones in 2015. 

Part of our charge was to align the high schools with that, equitable access to quality education for all students and come back with the advantages and challenges of each of our recommended options and ideas through data analysis, community feedback and research. The committee met seven times. There were six initially scheduled. The committee felt that in order to meet our timeline, we added a May 1st meeting. You see some general topics of the work we did.

We spent the first two months on the committee looking at data, both historical data in the district and current data in the district, as well as lots of infographics that shared that information and after looking at that the committee came up with some key findings to sort of guide our work. 

The first was that high school attendance zones were last updated in 2002, resulting in no straight line feeders and a fragmented city of Wilmington. So, as I said, the colors of these schools, HB, the the four middle schools, Stanton, Skyline, HB, uh, and AI Middle School, they're in color. The green boundaries are the current boundaries last updated in 2002. I would point out two particular points here that I think show some of the problems with this:

One is McKean High School is sort of central and has all four middle schools feed into it. So there is no sense of community K-12 once you get to high school. There's no sense of a counselor working at one high school working at one middle school to bring those students in. The second is that the boundaries of the high schools in the city of Wilmington still exist from a desegregation order in 1981. Very fragmented when compared to K-8 attendance zones. 

The second finding was that high school enrollment has remained constant for the most part. It's fluctuated by a few hundred over the years, but during the last 20 years when enrollments remain constant, we've actually added two schools. And we went from five schools to seven schools. This has resulted in 1,000 extra seats, more than 1,000 extra seats in our seven high schools. Which also currently has AI high school with less than 600 students in it. But we've also seen that at John Dickinson High School in 2019 and McKean High School down into the mid 700s a few years prior to that. 

Another key finding was that AI High has less students in its attendance zone when compared to John Dickinson and McKean High School. We did a lot of work. Pulled this comes from 2022-2023 data. But we pulled out everyone where they live, including our own schools, our own charter schools, Newcastle County, Votech, other charters, and private schools. And you see that potentially a lot less students are available to go to AI than the other two schools. 

Very similar to the high school situation,  middle school enrollment actually declined a bit over the past 20 years, but again, we've added two more schools during that time period. And so again, you see a larger number of seats, than you have students to fill those seats and you see vacuums and low enrollment, for example, at a school like Skyline with a projected 420 students for next year with a capacity of 750. 

The next one is that the Warner community has no distinct feeder pattern. There are two elementary schools. Every one of our elementary schools feeds into one middle school - except Brandywine Springs and Warner. And that's fine. I'm sure that had to be done in 2015 and there had to be some decisions made. However, that group of fifth graders, 150 kids,  that moves on to sixth grade, they go to two middle schools and then three different high schools. That really resonated with the committee. 

After the key findings we showed the impact of underenrolled schools at the high school level. What you have is college access courses, dual enrollment courses, advanced placement courses, and IB courses at each of our five high schools. Another simple example is when you don't have enough enrollment, it's going to be hard to fill out. You see this a lot in the news, right? Like when we fold up a football team, everybody knows that there's not enough students in the school to fill 26 interscholastic sports, plus junior varsity sports for those programs.

Next, an additional piece of data which actually was released from the University of Delaware's applied demography and survey research center is that they released a 30-year projection of Newcastle, actually the entire state, but Newcastle County enrollment in public schools over the next 30 years. All five districts will decline according to their projections with Red Clay projected to decline by 3,000 students over that time period. Assuming of which about 1,000 would be high school students. 

Tawanda Bond: For those of you that may not know who I am, my name is Dr. Tawanda Bond. I am the senior director of teaching and learning and I'm part of the committee that's been working on this for the last six, seven months. So, one thing that we looked at when we talked about ideas coming out of this committee is really making sure that we had a platform for equitable voice on our committee. So, if you take a look here going back to Mr. Pruitt's goals that he expressed at the beginning of the presentation, we stuck to these four goals throughout our conversation over our six months of meetings. And then we talked about our rules. So, we really had a space where people could bring ideas. There was no criticizing. We encouraged. We built on each other's ideas and weren't afraid. So, no idea was too big, no idea was too small. 

These were some of the committee's ideas that we initially came up with and I'm going to walk you through these and then I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Jay Bastinelli who is the principal of HB DuPont middle school to talk a little bit about some of these things and also Mr. Shawn Snyder to talk a little bit about some of the next steps. 

So we looked at repurposing one high school as a technical high school innovation center that would result in two attendance zone high schools. Our second was to make this innovation center available to middle school students. So these were just brainstorming ideas. Move John Dickinson Middle School program to Skyline to allow for increased high school enrollment in the two attendance zone schools. Create virtual program opportunities for secondary schools. And this didn't mean like an online school. We kind of kept it open. We had a lot of conversations around what virtual programming may look like. Move Charter School of Wilmington to an existing high school and reduce down to two attendance zone high schools. Expand Dickinson as a 6-12 IB magnet program and reduce down to two attendance zone high schools, which would be McKean and AI. The last pieces of our committee brainstorm. We're reducing down from eight to seven middle school programs because many of these things needed to go together. Move AI middle to AI high to create one 6-12 A to Z program. We had some conversation around capping Conrad and CAB as smaller enrollments. And then of course like Mr.Pruitt shared before we looked at the information about Warner and how the students kind of go to different places. We talked about the possibility of creating a K-8 attendance zone school at Warner and creating a K-12 attendance zone school at Warner. So, we talked about both. And then the last thing that we tossed around was the idea of allowing choice busing for all students to all schools. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to one of my other committee members to take us through our next steps.

Shawn Snyder: Good evening. I'm Shawn Snyder. I'm the director of technology here in the school district. We invited Dr. Ammon and Dr. Heacock in to do some analysis and to offer us both some research and some statistical evaluations and analysis of our current facilities. So, let's take a look at a slide here where Dr. Ammon did a brief analysis of each one of the ideas to discuss five different domains. HR impact, transportation, tech, nutrition, facilities, and cost. He created a rating scale that was fairly broad but high, low or medium. Now, this is not a scientific study necessarily. It was an overview of what the analysis would yield. A high negative impact doesn't mean it's a bad idea or that we shouldn't consider it - just that we would need to be more thorough in our analysis and be prepared to mitigate any negative high impact. So, as you can see, there's the analysis right there. 

For example, the innovation center, a high HR impact because it would require significant staff moves, a high transportation impact because it would require busing during the day. It has a low tech and nutrition aspect cost to us because it would be moving materials around but generally providing the same services from a facility standpoint. It would be sort of a medium lift for us. We would have some retrofitting to do it all three of our high schools to accommodate these changes but it wouldn't be massive and the cost would probably be you know medium mid-range in that. Whereas compared to the MYP program over to Skyline if that were to be part of this a fairly low impact from all three of those. Obviously, if you're a teacher being moved, you feel the HR impact would be higher because it's affecting you personally, but overall, the analysis was that those were all moves that could be done with minimal impact to the overall school district.

Operations impact from various ideas. Once again, same idea. These are three other ideas that were discussed that range from a medium high or low impact. Let me go back to the last slide right there. Choice bussing was one that we talked about a lot. To kind of clarify what the challenges there are is the cost is very high. It's the only very high you're going to see on the entire spreadsheet. 

The research was provided by Dr. Corey Heacock who did some analysis to answer questions that came up through the process. One of the questions was are proficiency levels impacted by the size of a school? Dr. Heacock did some analysis of schools within Delaware. She did some research to try and determine if there was any definitive research about a magic number for the size of a school. That study doesn't really exist. 

But we did notice throughout the state that proficiency levels seemed to improve as school size increased to a maximum of 1500 students within our own state. Absences were lower in schools of up to 1400 students. Larger schools had higher rates of absenteeism and dropout. Increased school size over 1500 students seemed to correlate with lower reported feelings of engagement, connectedness and participation by students. 

She also did some research on economic outcome. Research on grade level configuration was inconclusive. If anybody wants to get a doctorate, please do a study on that because it doesn't seem to exist at this point. And then grade level configuration is typically based on student enrollment, building space, cost, and community influence. These tend to be the factors that lead to a decision about moving schools around, closing a school, opening a school. Generally, money tends to drive that decision. We have more options, thankfully. From an analysis of ideas, each idea was considered.  

Antonio Gomes: My name again is Antonio Gomes. I'm one of the members of the community that had the privilege and pleasure honestly to serve at this committee to really do an analysis. Honestly, I know there's been a lot of talk from everyone. I can say the fact that we were able to even come up this far in such a short period of time is astronomical to me. I know there's a lot to ask for. We talked a little bit about the data, right? We looked at the data, what the problem is. We had folks bringing in additional information for us to understand. What are the challenges? What are the opportunities that are out there and we brainstormed there. Honestly, we were a lot of people in that room with a lot of different ideas but we needed to narrow this down. Ultimately that's what we came up with. What are the things that we need to consider with all these great ideas that people have? Very different ideas. How do we consolidate that into something that's a little bit more manageable for us to ultimately come up with a resolution or a proposal for you guys. So we decided to look at all the ideas and kind of categorize them. Look at the relevance of the problem, the feasibility and the impact. Does this idea make sense to the core issues? We had a specific goal and objective for this committee. Did it meet it? What is the feasibility of implementing the solution? So we talked about just the analysis that we did. What's the cost? What does it take to make it happen? And then of course what is the impact to the community? Ultimately the ultimate goal. 

So we took all this information and the task was for us to all come together and decide hey let's narrow this down to four. What are the four things or four ideas that we came out there that we thought would be suitable for us to proceed and look into it a little bit further. And that's what we're looking at here. 

Here are the results of basically all of us coming up and deciding which ideas meant the most. As you can see, the innovation center was the one piece that stood out. But there's a couple things that we also decided during the conversation that could intermingle as well. So we didn't want to leave anything behind and we provided opportunity for folks to make their cases to really disclose why should we consider this idea or remove it altogether and we had the opportunity to discuss that which I think towards the end we all came to a consensus and took a vote of whether or not to exclude it which is where we kind of went to the next step. 

Maddie Reitemeyer  : My name is Mattie Reitemeyer. I am a school counselor at AI High School. I previously worked at Dickinson High School and for a couple years at AI Middle as a school counselor. So what I'm going to talk about is the audit that was presented to the committee. This is it. You can see it up here. And what was done is district looked at the CTE classes and asked sort of what stage are they in as far as what our goal is with the standard in teaching. So I'm just going to give an example. If you look at plant science and animal science, it met the standard. When you look at strategic goals and state standards for CTE, they're doing really well. If it's in red, they're still at the beginning stages. Some of the ones that are up there are brand new. So, it's not that they're poor programs, it's that they're only a year or two old and they're still getting off the ground. And then yellow would be in the middle. So, that's just to look at it. You can see a quick glance, McKean is further along than the other two high schools in a lot of their programs. 

This - I'm not going to take a lot of time on it. They put together some examples of schools that already have innovation centers within their district, but I think anyone that's interested should definitely check those out as standards and whatever the board decides to do, I'd really encourage you to look at other models as well. 

So kind of combining the two ideas, one question would be what is actually being offered at this innovation center if it were to go forward? And this would be some of the suggestions that came up based on programs that are already well underway. And then some areas where we don't have CTE. I think there was a mention of that in a public comment that there's areas that could be expanded too and they would look at that at the innovation center. 

So a big question that a lot of people have, I had it for sure, is what does it look like if we do this? So, this sounds like a big idea. It's great, but what are we actually doing day to day? And this is one idea that could potentially happen by the grade level.

So, your ninth graders at Dickinson and AI. What they would do is take a CTE exploration course. They do a couple weeks looking at each potential program that they could do. One thing that I would say definitely needs to happen if you're going to do that is get them to take a field trip over the innovation center and actually see these classes in session and what it would look like, what they get to do during the day. So that would be in ninth grade. They wouldn't commit to a program. Most ninth graders do pick a class and then they follow it through the next three years right now, and this would give them a time to explore it. 

In 10th grade, they would do their first year, but it would be one and a half credits. In 11th grade they would do their second year which would also be one and a half credits. So you're going to see a three-year program condensed down into two. But because they're spending more time in the class, they're still covering the same content. 

And then an idea with 12th graders would be some of them might move on to dual enrollment. I'm just going to give an example. If it was an allied health student, they might then go into something like anatomy and physiology at DelTech. So they're getting a credit, but they're still staying in the program that they want. Or you might have a student that would go out and actually do some work in the community in the program that they're studying. That's just an example. 

What would a student's day look like? I'm going to try and do a good job explaining this. I apologize in advance if I do not. One way that I think about it, because for me it makes a lot of sense, is if you moved kids by grade level. We said the 9th grade students, they're doing a CTE exploratory course. They'd have seven classes on their schedule. One of them would be that CTE in their home building. 

The next year you have your 10th grade students. In the morning they'll come to school, then they'll get on a shuttle bus. This would be at Dickinson and AI to go over to McKean and they would spend from 7:55 to 10:05 in that CTE course. So that's why it's one and a half credits because it's more minutes than would otherwise happen. They come back and they go to lunch. Then your afternoon students, they're at lunch while the other students are traveling back. 

So let's say it's 11th graders now. They're going to spend their afternoon at the innovation center. So they come in the morning, they're doing English and Math. They go to lunch and then they're going to get on the shuttle bus and they'll go over to the innovation center to do their CTE which would be their level two. So you have a large group of students traveling together. I'm just giving an example of how it could be. It could be half 10th and half 11th in the morning. It helps me think about it from a grade level standard. The morning students are doing their English and math. So, it's just a way to think about the schedule on a detailed level. There are others, but I think this is a clean way to think about it.  

Mark Pruitt: After brainstorming a relevance and impact analysis, asking for some more information, what might an innovation center look like? A counselor like Maddie did some work to give an idea. We then started to make some decisions. First of all, we looked at some virtual 6-12 programming. By unanimous consent, the committee agreed to go ahead and move forward with that as a recommendation that the district would further consider. We would not require anyone to take online courses but that would meet the needs of a family who was interested in that. That idea had no bearing on the other ideas. It had no impact on our current problem that we face. 

The next discussion involved the idea of reducing enrollment at CSS and CAB Calloway. 19 members, not one of them chose a tally mark for that. So by unanimous consent, we removed that from further consideration.

AI middle school to AI high school having a 6-12 attendance zone school did receive two tallies. Some discussion about that. I actually brought this up. This actually sort of memorializes the problem, right? When you take 500 middle school kids and 600 high school kids, you put them in a building. Now you've filled the building up and you've ensured that AI's high school population will never grow because there won't be any space to do that. So by unanimous consent we removed it from further consideration.

Dorrell Green: Mr. Pruitt, I think the thing to note is that’s the current issue right now at the John Dickinson school. We can't grow the high school portion because we've co-located middle schools. But then to look at the other issue around capping Conrad and CAB, inherently through the choice process, they're limited in their ability because you’ve got to be able to have specific cohorts to show that you have adequate programming in both of those schools. 

Mark Pruitt: It's a really good example, Dr. Green, of when Dickinson was at less than 600 students in its school. Hey, let's put a middle school there to try to get some of the high those middle schoolers to stay for the high school. Well, it worked. Now the building is at capacity, but we still have a top priority to let attendance zone students go to Dickinson. We have to let those students even by limiting IB choice students in the program. So it's a good example of what would happen if you did something similar to AI at AI high and AI middle. 

A lot of discussion and a lot of public comment about relocating the charter school of Wilmington. It received 4 tallies out of 19. After discussion, I made a motion to remove the idea due to not enough support by the committee. Further discussion ensued. The  motion was seconded because this was not unanimous. We did use a Robert's rules process for many of these and that was seconded. The motion passed 11-2, 11 yes and 2 abstain and the idea was removed from further consideration. 

Choice busing for all students received five tallies out of a possible 19. After a lot of discussion I did make a motion to remove the idea due to not enough support by the committee and discussion ensued. This is an interesting one. I don't think anyone doesn't want to take every student from their front door to where they want to go to school. So you're not really voting no because you don't think that's a good idea for kids.  But practically is it possible in a school budget? Is it possible with the number of buses you need, with the number of drivers you need, with the current driver shortage, which is corrected to a certain extent, but you know, it's just not a practical idea. 

Dorrell Green: And the local expense because a lot of those routes get approved by the state.

Mark Pruitt: Financially, obviously. Yep. Yep. Dr. Amman talked about that. That was an 11-2 to remove it from further consideration.

Now, we we’re down to just a few of our brainstorming ideas that had been discussed, talked about you could not have an innovation center at McKean and reduce down to two high schools and turn John Dickinson into a magnet program and reduce down. You had to make a choice there. A lot of discussion amongst these two. Ultimately, Miss Todd Dixon made a motion to move forward with the idea in the recommendation to move forward with the innovation center. Dr. Muffley seconded the motion and the motion passed 11 yes. Two people abstain from voting. 

The first part of it was removing Dickinson from further consideration.

Then the second part of that was to move forward with the innovation center. 

The next one was these two were sort of coupled. One of the ideas was big- we have too many middle schools. It's causing a vacuum at some of our current middle schools for programming and opportunity and access. One of it was a consolidation of middle school programs from 8 to 7. Another one existed moving the John Dickinson middle school program to Skyline. Both of those sort of fit together. After a lot of discussion, I made a motion to move forward with both ideas in the recommendation. This would allow for the increased high school enrollment needed at Dickinson High School. If you're going to move forward with one, the middle school has to move. The IB program has to move to another space. The motion was seconded by Mr. Leonard and all 12 members on the committee in attendance voted unanimously to move forward.

A lot of discussion about a K-8 program at Warner. Originally we were talking about K-12, and we removed that very early. Quite simply, it's not a facility for a high school. It doesn't have the athletic space, the outdoor space, the lab space, those kinds of things. But you know a lot of discussion about K-8 at Warner. We did feel like the idea contradicted with the goal of the committee which was to bolster enrollment at all of our schools. However because of concern around the city of Wilmington middle school attendance zones by unanimous consent. The committee agreed to include a future re-evaluation of middle school attendance zones, particularly as they relate to the Warner Elementary School community would be included in our final recommendation.

That brought us to what we sent out to the community at the beginning of June or right after the Memorial Day weekend.

We came up with three core principles that we put forward.Creating straight line feeder patterns that align high school attendance zones with existing middle school attendance zones. That we have balanced enrollment. Distribute students equitably across attendance zone high schools. That we have program equity. Ensure that all students regardless of high school have access to high quality academic and extracurricular programs. So that part of the recommendation was you know that we were put forward what we called our core principles as we move forward.

Two specific program changes. One, establish the Thomas McKean Innovation Campus. The committee recommended on May 21st that the Thomas McKean High School be reimagined as the Thomas McKean Innovation Campus through expanded partnerships with local colleges, universities, and the business community. This flagship hub will produce courses in CTE, industry standard credentialing courses and early college credit opportunities. 

As part of the change, a number of comprehensive high school attendance zones would be reduced from three to two. AI and Dickinson. These two comprehensive high schools would split the Red Clay high school attendance zones equally, allowing for increased enrollment and a more robust academic and extracurricular offerings. These two attendance zones better align with middle school attendance zones. We would then be able to use middle school attendance zones, where a middle school goes to a specific high school instead of being split to three high schools allowing for straight line feeder patterns and it would include a short shuttle bus transportation that would be provided from AI and Dickinson to the innovation campus. They would be there for one quarter of their program. We run on an AB schedule. So students would register for courses or do course selection for one quarter of their program at the innovation center.

Program change number two was to relocate the John Dickinson Middle Year's program to allow for increased high school enrollment at the John Dickinson School. The committee recommend recommended relocating the MYP middle school program from Dickinson to Skyline Middle School, allowing for a more balanced enrollment across middle schools. 

And finally, additional recommendations for future consideration of the district. Middle school attendance zones. Re-evaluate the middle school attendance zones especially as they pertain to the Warner elementary school community to improve feeder pattern continuity and equity particularly in that community and virtual high school programming. Explore the development of virtual high school coursework to expand flexibility and learning opportunities for red clay students. So that was where we were on May 21st. That was the recommendation that we put out to the community to collect their feedback in a survey. 

Tawanda Bond: So once we got to the point where we had all of our recommendations that we were preparing for the board, the committee came up with the idea to make sure that we had stakeholder engagement. So we embarked on two major pieces of stakeholder engagement. After our seven public meetings with public comment at all of our meetings, we had a June 10th community meeting that had Q&A. So, we were there for several hours, just open forum. We also conducted student focus groups and I'm going to talk a little bit through the student focus groups that we conducted to get student engagement and student feedback. Then after that you're going to hear a little bit from Mr. Jay Bastinelli about our community survey that was conducted by Hanover Research. 

So when we did our student focus groups, I'm going to give a kudos to my team on teaching and learning. We had Mr. Brian Maddox, the supervisor of science, as well as Mrs. Karen Ammon, our supervisor of instructional technology who conducted student focus groups on a really tight turnaround time working with our middle school and our high school principals. And really the big gist of it was looking at getting student input and student feedback around these three bullets. 

What CTE pathways do students wish were offered at their current school? 

What career affairs interest them the most? 

And what were their perspectives on the district's proposed CTE innovation hub? 

Now, at the bottom of some of these slides, you'll see some anecdotal notes. And these are truly from the mouth of the babes. And if you're there to hear Mrs. Ammon speak to the committee about the enlightened work that she did with the students, there was a lot of really good community conversation with the students. They went kind of off task a little bit when they were talking about their needs, their wants, their dreams with the CTE pathway idea with the innovation center. 

So this is our focus group demographic data. So you all have this information in front of you so you know who the participants were and our focus groups and this was the methodology. So we conducted it through Zoom. Each of them were one hour of course our moderators Mrs. Karen Ammon Mr. Brian Maddox and their focus areas were around CTE awareness, student interest, feedback on the proposed innovation center, equity, partnerships, and learning supports. And again, another anecdotal piece there for you to read from one of our AI high school students.

These are some of our key findings and over the next couple of slides, you’ll see some of the information that fell under these big buckets. We focused on innovation center course and pathway interest, professional college partner professional and college partnerships as well as learning environments and you'll see some of the themes that came out of the conversations with the students and again a student quote. 

When we talked about course and pathway interests these were some of the themes that came out from our middle schoolers and our high schoolers. The middle schoolers talked about how many of them only have four current pathways that match their student interests. Our high school students felt more access across schools would be valuable particularly for specific pathways like autotech, physical therapy, nursing, plant science, and animal science which Mrs. Wrightmyer shared in one of the previous slides about where we offer those at which of our schools. The kids talked about their willingness to travel. They opened up about shuttle transportation, some of their concerns about missing school-based opportunities, and they also talked about exploration matters. The middle schoolers really thought it would be pretty great to have a CTE exploratory experience where they could also have some access to that innovation center and preview pathways before they decide on one. 

The second big bucket was professional and college partnerships from our middle schoolers. They shared work experience and valued skill building things like time management. Our high school students were more vocal, they emphasized mentorship, networking, job readiness. They talked about entrepreneurship courses and mentor supported student businesses. They saw those as valuable. They wanted help with job searches and internships identified as a gap and an opportunity for our innovation center. And all of our students supported classroom visits from professionals, multiple speakers per field. That’s what they recommended and what they wanted. 

And then the last big bucket was learning environment. Of course, our students wanted and preferred a hands-on active learning over traditional instruction. High school students reported positive experiences in current CTE courses and work-based learning experiences. And then they had a lot of conversation highlighting the need for CTE programs to be more accessible with a focus on truly practical real world experiences that align to their learning styles. And they talked a lot about multilingual learners. And really again from the mouth of babes their concern and their value for bilingual support and they also recommended expanding it more into CTE classes. 

These are some of the recommendations that came from our student focus groups. They talked about outreach. They wanted to see a CTE fair for middle school students. Exploration offering CTE trial periods or exploratory courses for middle school students. Instructional design. They like shorter, engaging, hands-on project formats. Mentorship was a highlight. Expanding that access to career mentors, of course, MLL supports. This came up a lot. They wanted uh to ensure that we would have bilingual push-in teachers and CTE classrooms. They wanted high*interest pathways. There was a pathway conversation that we’re not currently offered at all of our high schools. The pathways. They wanted high-interest programs that are currently only offered at individual schools like automotive, nursing, and career prep. They want help with job searches, applications, as well as interviews. And now I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Jay Bastinelli to talk more about the community survey that was conducted.

Mark Pruitt: Pause at this point and say we are about 80% of the way through. It's a lot of information. It was a lot of work. Would anyone like to ask questions now or would we like to finish up and then ask questions? Finish. I know it's a lot of information but it's important information.  

Jay Bastinelli: My name is Jay Bassinelli. The first slide that I would like to share is we had 1,128 participants complete the survey. From the outside, you would think there's approximately 16,000 students in red clay. That's not a real high number. But if you look deeper, the last survey we sent similar to this was in regards to our strategic plan that Dr. Bond and her team worked very hard on. Only 500 people took that survey. So, more than twice as many took this. So, I think that says a lot about the passion people have for this committee and this potential plan. If you look closely at the survey participant background information, you will see who exactly filled this the majority were staff members followed by parent guardians. If you break it down even deeper in terms of the school, you're going to see the majority were instructional staff or teachers. Also looking a little deeper in terms of the survey participant background information. Just like we have at most our back to school nights in late September, elementary school always has the highest participation and that goes the same with this survey. The majority were elementary school parents or family members. In terms of feeder school attendance, it was most attended feeder schools and then a strong percentage not attending their feeder school. Some are unsure and you can also see the background information. The most was special education parents. In terms of participation background information the majority were white and the majority were female.

Then also looking deeper in terms of what did they feel most strongly about? What do they think was most important? 46% said ensuring all red clay students have access to quality college and career ready education. Even breaking it down deeper, you could look exactly how the community members felt, how the parents felt, and how the staff members felt. The highest percentage was having access to quality college and career programming. All right, so I'll turn it back over to Mr. Pruitt.

Mark Pruitt: After some general questions in the survey, it did ask a specific question about the two specific changes - the innovation center and the moving of the John Dickinson MYP program. You see that there were 51% somewhat supported or strongly supported the idea and 34% strongly opposed or somewhat opposed the idea. We then looked at that broken down disaggregated. 

We looked at the staff first. The district office 60% supported.  23% opposed. Elementary 60% supported, 20% opposed. Secondary schools a little closer 45% to 43%. But it is important to note and to be expected that the two schools, the staff at the two schools that were most directly impacted, their jobs will change. McKean High School and Dickinson, at least some of Dickinson's teachers, they are actually flipped and drove that number down. And I think that's to be expected. Those types of changes can be very difficult for our employees. So that makes sense. Move to parent totals. Very similar. 50% supported, 31% opposed. However, again, the most participants, and a flipped result between the McKean parents and the current McKean and current Dickinson parents. The AI Middle School was in there, but only four parents took that survey and three did oppose it. That was the community member results. 

We then looked at please say how much you oppose or support adjusting middle school feeder patterns to allow students at Warner to attend a feeder pattern closer to their home. 70% somewhat support or strongly support and only 7% opposed. So that was overwhelming support. Look at that disaggregated. It was similar. 

Dorrell Green: So, and just again for those in the earlier point that was made, when we talk about middle school for Warner specifically, they're split. Their cohort of fifth graders

either attend HB DuPont, which is the furthest part distance away, or they

attend Skyline Middle, which is the second furthest. 

Mark Pruitt: Then we asked them about virtual programming. 47% supported, 37% opposed. Look at that disaggregated. It is important to note that the educators supported that far more than parents, but also important to note that we're not requiring anyone to be involved in a virtual program. That would be by choice and didn't really impact the overall purpose of this committee. 

Dorrell Green: The other danger in that is if you say virtual program that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people too. So some assume virtual school. So again I think to unpack that a little. Why the committee left that on and didn't take that recommendation off. That's something that we can continue to look at especially post-covid in terms of learning options for students

Mark Pruitt: That would be the work moving forward you know if it were to be approved by the board.

Shawn Snyder: Part of the survey we collected comments from each one of the survey participants generated I think over 400 comments and questions digging through that data we leveraged some technology. We created an executive summary using some AI tools, chatGPT, and a few other ones to kind of take that massive amount of text and turn it into some more understandable data that we could put on some slides. This represents some of the main themes of those comments. Number one, there was general support for proximity-based schooling that came up over and over and over again. People would like the school to be near their house. The concerns about equity and diversity. That seemed to be a driving force. Actually was the charge of the committee. So, I'm glad that people were asking questions about that. Specific concerns related to McKean High School. That really I think crystallized some of the need to explain whatever decision we make thoroughly to the communities that it impacts, regardless of what decision is ever made. There will be work to do to explain whether it's this out of the box idea or whatever idea the board decides to move forward with. Impact on feeder patterns and program continuity. That was something that came up specifically from staff. Calls for stakeholder engagement. Several staff members emphasized the importance of ongoing communication with stakeholders, finding as many ways as possible to make sure that we have created opportunity for everybody's voice to be heard. Then finally, the last category was just kind of miscellaneous concerns and suggestions centered around transportation, staff assignments, building usage, many of the topics that we've covered throughout this presentation. Overall, the staff respondents demonstrated a thoughtful and engaged perspective on attendance zone revisions. They recognize benefits and challenges and surfaced those through the comments.  I also did an analysis of these comments using an AI formula that I developed along with a couple other people that looked at keywords and phrases in each one of the comments in the survey and described a negative, neutral, or positive attribution to those statements. Because when you're looking at this, it's easy to start to think, well, these are all negative comments or these are all positive comments. Really, the vast majority of the comments were questions that didn't have a negative or positive connotation. They just really didn't have all the information they wish they had. That made a lot of sense since we're in the process and not at the end of the process. So, that seemed right that we were proposing some things. An innovation center is not a thing that Delaware has done before. So, I would expect the majority of the people to have questions about what that looks like and how that works. Basically a tag was put on each one of them and then we counted them up and it explained based upon the response where that fell. So the most common themes of these were student needs and program availability, student attendance and community impact, quality of education at the innovation center, feeder patterns and school choice, middle years program and IB alignment. These are the most common words that appeared in comments associated with those topics.  

Mark Pruitt: We looked at data. We spent the entire June meeting looking at data. The student focus group data and the survey data that went out to the community. We analyzed that information. We left time at the end to get into small groups. And the bottom line, the overriding question was did the data compel us to edit the recommendation? We got into small groups and looked at those three questions.  Each of the three groups gave an update. I think there was overall sentiment from each of the groups was that the overall survey participation was lower than the committee had hoped. While for red clay, it was a good survey result, it was more than double our strategic plan survey, but still only 1100 surveys for a rather large community and and also that some survey respondents did not understand the recommendation like a lot of the questions in the comments had to do with like where is my kid going, are they going to be there - are they going to be here? Further explanation of that.

Then we allowed for two motions to amend. The first motion was to provide the current recommendation to the board, but also recommend that the board not take action until October 2025 to allow for better community understanding of the recommendation and more engagement from the community and stakeholders. There were 14people. We did operate on a quorum. So we needed 10 votes to move anything forward to the recommendation. There were 8 yes votes and 6 no votes. The motion did not pass.

Then there was a second motion to amend which was to engage in a campaign with stakeholders to educate and gather feedback on the current recommendation and then re-engage the committee and make a recommendation to the board in the fall. There were 4 yes votes, 10 no votes. That motion did not pass.

Questions? 

Aje English: I have a question. I didn't want to forget it. I have a comment about the last slide about the two motions that did not pass, but I don't want to forget my first comment that I had that was regarding the feedback and the survey results that 1100 number that you stated that you provided from Hanover. In that number, does that include any of our city schools or families or we do have that information?

Mark Pruitt: Disaggregated by each school for family. I can't pull that now. I can certainly get that for you. 

Aje English: Okay, yeah. I would like to be able to see that just because I know that Warner obviously is one of the city schools, and there are a number of schools in this plan that are going to be affected by this. So I would just like to, as the person with the city seat, I would like to see what their feedback is on that. As a city mom of a student  that is in the Red Clay School District. 

Mark Pruitt: And I agree that if we move forward, the recommendation says to look again at the middle schools, particularly as it relates to Warner. I think you have to get feedback from that specific community because certainly it won't be enough. It's 1100 surveys divided by - if it's evenly distributed - it's 28 programs, right? 

Aje English: So, my next comment would just be to say that I would be interested in with my fellow board members here to kind of further discuss motion number one regarding the opportunity to distribute the survey and additional time, just to see if we could get feedback. I don't know if there's an opportunity to do that, if I would have make a motion for that. Um, I'm open to discussing that further after everyone else asks their questions. 

Jose Matthews: I can weigh in on that. I'm of the opinion that moving forward with this doesn't mean that we're now going to stop engaging with the community. We're always going to engage with the community. It's an ongoing process. So the work here certainly isn't finished whatsoever. Really, tonight's recommendation allows us to get started in that work. Then it really is incumbent on the board to make sure that, as the governing body, that we make sure that we're receiving our monthly updates but then in addition to that - setting the direction to the district to what we want to see. That's certainly a discussion that we can have at our upcoming workshop. There's definitely going to be a lot of communication that's going to need to be happening and a lot of engagement that's going to be happening. It's our job to make sure that it does happen moving forward. But tonight's recommendation allows us to be able to initiate the process. But unless we provide the go-ahead to the district to be able to initiate that work, then we're really just putting ourselves at a standstill, right? 

Aje English: So as a rebuttal, Mr. Pruitt, if we do in fact approve this and move this forward, what is the next step? 

Mark Pruitt: I think the next step would to be come up with a planning document of what needs to be done between tomorrow or whenever it was passed, and backmap from a timeline which really needs to be done. The board had talked about having this new program operational in August-September of 27. To do that, the work really needs to be done by October of 26.  Because we needed to get the information out to allow families to participate in school choice at these new programs. That's really our deadline. What would that look like -  Whether it's engaging with RCEA regarding teacher movement if you're moving English teachers and CTE teachers…

Dorrell Green: and that would all be part of a part of that process. I think from November and the board setting forth and I just want to acknowledge the committee and the committee members because the board gave us a charge to establish a committee and really look at again those three broad areas in terms of enrollment balance, look at programming, and being mindful of equity. And as we've heard through many public commenters and different things, we here for a reason because too often in our district, we looked at situations in isolation and never looked at the district comprehensively just in terms of how we look at the Red Clay consolidated school district. And we've created options. We've created opportunities and forced ourselves into a corner where if we don't control the destiny and the vision of the district, something or someone else likely will. And so I'll just want and this isn't the buy all end all in terms of the recommendation that the committee put forward, but I just want to acknowledge the work of the committee because when we look at balance or just taking the John Dickson school situation as an example, we co-located a middle school program where now we currently actually have an underenrolled middle school and rather than look at it comprehensively across the district as a report we can look at it in isolation from one individual school perspective understanding that there is a domino effect that ultimately impacts a lot of our schools whether that's through magnet whether that's through choice so again I just think we're eventually going to have to address it through feeder pattern processes and in and alignment because again our middle schools and secondary schools are splintered and that really doesn't provide an opportunity to have community across the district. 

Aje English: Well, I don't want to and not to cut you off, I just have one last comment. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that I appreciate all the work that the committee has done because I do appreciate it. And I know that the previous board, we voted to set this plan in motion. And I'm not saying that we don't continue on with the plan. What I am saying is that in my role as an individual board member, my first priority is my role as a parent. Not just of my son in the district, but all of the children in the district. So I just want to make sure that in the timeline that we are still working to attempt to accomplish that we make the decisions properly and if we need to make adjustments that we can keep that in mind that we should make the adjustments and not make hasty decisions just because of the previous timeline that we put in place. When families select homes, they select their homes based on the schools and everything else that is provided in these communities. And so I just want to be sure that we are making a proper decision. So that's my final comment. 

Vic Leondard: I just want to say part of the charge is also to form another committee if we go ahead with this advisory committee. That was part of the charge. Correct? 

Mark Pruitt: That was amended out of it. So the initial one had two committees running. One ran through November and then the other one…Well we would certainly need to align feeder patterns but with this recommendation new attendance zones would be relative. The idea would be to have an entire middle school and you'd have to just make sure that there was equal enrollment as much as we could according to our attendance zone middle schools. So that work you're not parsing out neighborhoods or arguing, you're not doing the kinds of things that often you do when you look at it. You're just simply slotting in four middle schools into two high schools if this were adopted. 

Dorrell Green: So it's straight line feeders from our middle to our high schools which we currently don't have as he indicated. If you're going from Warner, you're going to two different and then those students are being splintered across three different high schools. So the eighth grade class at AI Middle actually still have three attendance zone high schools.  

Devon Hynson: I guess Jose's response to her question basically superimposes a requirement that we pass it to be allowed to get more information from the community. Because her question was germaine, but was specific that she wanted to get more information from the community and get more information feedback from the community and you're saying well this allows us to do that. 

?: Not necessarily. 

Devon Hynson: So let's just say that if we say we want to postpone it and give ourselves 45 to 60 days to be able to get to the community, and find out what they they're saying because the only person I've heard that are objective voices that weren't on the committee, that were parents of kids that are in the schools do not agree with this.

Jose Matthews: So, I'll -

Devon Hynson: Hold up, hold on. So my point is I don't know why that's being taken off the table, an opportunity to get to the community and get more information from them and what they feel about this plan. 

Jose Matthews: So, let me reiterate what I stated. What I'm stating is that passing this doesn't inhibit our ability to continue to work with the community. In fact, I think that this would help us continue to work with the community in forming what we want to see out of these plans. But passing this vote tonight does not inhibit us from continuing, which I know that we will continue to do as we have always done, making sure that we're

engaging with all of our stakeholders. And it's incumbent to us as representatives of the community -

Devon Hynson: Absolutely.

Jose Matthews: to be able to do that work as well and bring that information from the conversations that we're having with parents and stakeholders, and people that we represent at this table. So, a lot of that responsibility falls not just on the district and their outreach, but to us and our respective office. But it doesn’t inhibit that.

Devon Hynson: Well, I want to be clear. What does passing it tonight do?

Jose Matthews: It allows us to give the district a charge that we have appropriate amount of planning because there's a lot of work that's going to be happening over the next year. And in order for this to be successful, we have to make sure that we're giving our operations side of it. So, right now it's caught up in governance. That's our barrier right now. Operations can't do their work and planning unless we give them the directive to do so. So the charge of the board that directive in the mission

Devon Hynson: Let's just say we pass it and then the community says no, we don't like it. 

Jose Matthews: Then we can amend it. I mean there's nothing here that isn't amendable. There isn't. And I can tell you, Devon, from other initiatives that this board has done, we're constantly evolving plans, but we can't get to that operational piece, and that planning piece, until we've released it from governance and have given the charge. But we can continue to make amendments and as the community vocalizes, you know, the things that they want to see within the programming or the things that they want, you know, and I can tell you I even have additional ideas on my own. For one, I can give an example. I would love for the innovation center to expand their program. I think a lot of the list of programs that we have for now is great - but I think there are different, bigger, broader ideas. But it starts with planting the seed and we can't expand services - like I would love to see plumbing, I would love to see electrical programming. I would like to see HVAC, but unfortunately we're not at that point yet. And I think we definitely could expand and grow something really unique and really powerful. But until we release it from our governance perspective, operations will not be able to do their job and making sure that they can continue their work to plan for what is going to be an incredibly busy year. 

Aje English: And to his point, Mr. Hynson, it has to come before the board. It does have to come before the Board. So there will be, like Mr. Matthews stated, opportunities for us to flush this out at the workshop and us to continue to communicate with Dr. Green or Mr. Pruitt and his staff. And so we are voting to set this in motion - or not - but there's also an opportunity for us to continue to flush the details out. And that was the point of me posing my questions, not to disrupt, but just to ensure that all voices are being heard. 

Jose Matthews: And I want to make sure - the plans aren't binding yet. I mean, we have not approved a plan yet, but we haven't also allowed and given authority to Dr. Green and the district to be able to move forward with the planning process. So, nothing here to that level of detail is going to bind us. 

Devon Hynson: So, what does it say? Can I read what it says because I don't have a computer.

Jose Matthews: No, no, no, you're fine. 

Vic Leonard: Well, while we're waiting, Dr. Nesmith has a question online.

Kecia Nesmith: Thank you. Thank you, President Leonard. Uh, sorry. I'm sorry I can't be there. Um, so a couple things I just want to say to kind of piggyback on what Ms. English has said. I've been on the committee. I attended six of the seven meetings and I really appreciated all of the hard work. I have said that we need to include on the -if not the committee - the guests in the meeting of constituents. And we did not do that and it has been repeated over and over and over again. So to the point that oh we can get more input later, we could have gotten the input during. And so to that point, I do not believe that we did our due diligence to fully engage the community that would be the most affected. And secondly, when Ms. English said about when people buy their homes, that's a big, big deal. And so yes, we want equity. Yes, we want access, but to what extent will we compromise the trust of the community to get there? I believe that we should we should not make haste because we might waste an opportunity to make it really good. That is the end of my comment.

Vic Leonard: Any other comments? 

Kecia Nesmith: There's no motion on the floor. This was a presentation. We're not even under action items. This was a presentation.

Jose Matthews: Dr. Nesmith, I acknowledge the error. Thank you for pointing that out.  

Dorrell Green: It is the recommendation that the Red Clay School Board approve the recommendation of the Secondary Attendance Zone Enrollment and Programming Committee as submitted.

Jose Matthews: So moved Jose Matthews 

Susan Sander: second Susan Sander.

Vic Leondard: It has been properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? 

Kecia Nesmith: I have a question. So the recommendation - it was two recommendations that weren't passed by the committee. So what is the recommendation?

Dorrell Green: So I think based on the committee there was the unanimous vote back in May that the committee decided - In the June meeting, it was my understanding from the committee was they voted not to make any amendments to those motions. So it's the original recommendation that came before the committee and the last meeting. Again my understanding based on the committee was that they voted to not make any amendments to those original unanimously-voted recommendations.

Kecia Nesmith: Was that on May 1st because I don't know that we had enough people there to be able to make that recommendation properly. I don't know if that's correct or not.

Dorrell Green: I believe that was the May 21st meeting if I'm not mistaken, Dr. Nesmith. 

Mark Pruitt: We had voted item by item to come up with a recommendation on May 21st. That is the recommendation that went out to the community. It was also the recommendation that was used with the focus group of students. We then took that information, looked at that information at the June meeting. We then had an opportunity to amend the recommendation. We did not get 10 votes to amend the recommendation. And so that's where we stood at the end of the process.

Vic Leonard: Any other comments?

Kecia Nesmith: I'm good. Thank you. 

Vic Leonard: Shall we go for a vote? Okay. Um, Miss Stevens, please call a vote.

Miss English, yes. Mr. Henson, no. Mr. Matthews. Yes. Dr. Nesmith, no. Miss Sander, yes. Miss Twardus, yes. Mr. Leonard, yes. Five Yes. Two No. 

Motion passes.

🎙️Presentation to the Board: Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming July 9, 2025 

• 📄Red Clay Attendance Zone and Programming Committee Recommendation to the School Board For convenience, the full text of the document is typed below. 

Red Clay Attendance-Zone & Programming Committee Current Recommendation to the School Board 

Core Principles 

• Alignment of Attendance-Zones: Create straight line feeder patterns that align high school attendance zones with existing middle school attendance-zones. 

• Balanced Enrollment: Distribute students equitably across attendance-zone high schools. 

• Program Equity: Ensure that all students, regardless of high school, have access to high-quality academic and extracurricular programs. 

Program Change #1: Establish the “Thomas McKean Innovation Campus” 

The committee recommends that Thomas McKean High School be reimagined as the Thomas McKean Innovation Campus through expanded partnerships with local colleges, universities, and the business community. This flagship hub will provide coursework in the following areas: 

• Career and Technical Education (CTE) 

• Industry-standard credentialing programs 

• Early college credit opportunities 

As part of this change: 

• The number of comprehensive high school attendance-zone schools would be reduced from three to two: Alexis I. duPont High School and The John Dickinson School. 

• These two comprehensive high schools would split the Red Clay high school attendance-zones equally, allowing for increased enrollment and more robust academic and extracurricular offerings. 

• These two attendance-zones better align with middle school attendance-zones, allowing for straight line feeder patterns from middle school to high school. 

• Short shuttle bus transportation would be provided from AI High and Dickinson to the McKean Innovation Campus for career, technical, and early college coursework. 

Program Change #2: Relocate the John Dickinson Middle Years Program (MYP) 

To allow for increased high school enrollment at The John Dickinson School, the committee recommends relocating the MYP middle school program from Dickinson to Skyline Middle School, allowing for a more balanced enrollment across the middle schools. 

Additional Recommendations for Future Consideration 

• Middle School Attendance-Zones: Reevaluate middle school attendance-zones, especially as they pertain to the Warner Elementary School community, to improve feeder pattern continuity and equity. 

• Virtual High School Programming: Explore the development of virtual high school coursework to expand flexibility and learning opportunities for Red Clay students.

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee webpage

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Meeting Rolling Slides

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:05:10

   1. • 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

   1. • 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.

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.

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. 

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee webpage

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Meeting Rolling Slides

📹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. Muffly 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.

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 0:35:24

   1. • Board Member Jose Matthews provided an update on the Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee May 1 meeting. The meeting had strong attendance, and he noted an additional date was added for May 21; The July timeline is a point of discussion and the committee is narrowing down the recommendations. 

      • Board Member Vic Leonard asked how many scenarios remain; Dorrell Green explained that CTE Innovation and reduction of a middle school are remaining scenarios and discussed plans for stakeholder input.

Jose Matthews: So we did have a couple of meetings since our last meeting. Up first we have the April 15th meeting. We had several Board members in attendance and I believe that one was actually already presented on at the last meeting. But really, most importantly, we had our May 1st meeting was really well attended. We had to add an additional time for us to stick to the timeline that we have presented by the Board. The timeline continues to be a point of discussion. At this time we still are on target projecting to provide recommendations from the committee to the Board in at the July meeting. So they have until the end of June to submit that.

And the biggest focus and area of progress during the last meeting is that from all of the public recommendations that the committee has set out for consideration, they started to narrow down some of the ideas and recommendations that they want to provide.

So there still are a couple of meetings that are currently scheduled.This does not mean that we may not have additional meetings within this timeline, but our next meeting is Wednesday, May 21st at 6 p.m.as always at the District office Boardroom and our last meeting will be June 17th, 2025 at 6 p.m. District office in the Boardroom.

Also a big reminder, as Dr. Green presented in his Superintendent report, the website has been beautifully updated. This includes all of the committee microsites or pages within the website. So there is a lot of great information, and for anyone who may have missed any of the past meetings the minutes are there, but then the great thing about the site also is that it has the link directly to the meeting video recording for those who would like to tune in. There's contact information, for our chair Dr. Mark Pruitt, if there's any questions, that aren't answered within the materials that are provided.

Any questions?

Vic Leonard: Yeah, I’d just like to ask a question. I know we started, the last - I wasn’t able to make the last meeting - Secondary Attendance Zone, and I know we started, I believe, with 11 scenarios and we eliminated a few. So how many are there now as far as scenarios?

Dorrell Green: So there really were two really to prioritize. One was to looking at, the nature of a CTE Innovation Center or looking at expansion of IB and then the reduction of 8 to 7 in terms of middle school programs because they were interrelated. So if you did one there was going to be a domino effect in terms of changes that needed to be made in other areas. So the committee really had some fruitful discussion and wanted some additional information. We are also in the process of formulating a community survey to be able to support and get broader feedback, but then the process of what would a town hall and/or some focus groups look like to ensure that we're getting broad stakeholder input around concrete ideas and not kind of some philosophical things that were floating out there. So it kind of got reduced to really two secondary things that will have some domino effects in terms of the implications for the broader community.

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Rolling Slides 

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee webpage 

📹Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee May 1 Meeting Recording

📄Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee May 1 Meeting Minutes For convenience, the full meeting minutes are typed below.

May 1, 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 Jason Bastianelli, Tawanda Bond, Emily Carroll, Dorrell Green, Antonio Gomes, Jose Matthews, Caitlin Merto, Mark Pruitt Jr , Jennifer Recchiuti, Madeleine Reitemeyer, Eric Sanford, Shawn Snyder, Reggie Worlds 

Dr. Bond made a motion to begin the meeting, seconded by Mr. Worlds. Motion passed. 

Agenda Items 

Opening Items

• Public Comment - None

• Approve Minutes from April 15th. Mr. Snyder made a motion to approve the minutes from April 15th, seconded by Mr. Sanford. Motion passed. 

New Business

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

• Meeting Norms - Mr. Pruitt 

• Tentative Timeline - Mr. Pruitt 

• Brainstorming Recap - All 

• Analysis & Discussion - All 

• Straw Poll Data Discussion - All 

• Discussion around an online school 6-12(students would have A-Z homeschool). Discussion of how this item aligns with the committee’s charge statement. The committee agrees the idea has merit and enough interest to recommend the board look at this as a separate topic at a future board meeting. 

• Narrowing Possibilities -Discussion started with options that garnered little to no response from the straw poll. 

  • Capping Conrad and Cab at smaller enrollments. This action did not receive any consideration via the straw poll and was removed from further consideration. 

  • Move AI middle to AI High to create one 6-12 A-Z program. This action received 2 Red Clay Consolidated School District 1 votes of interest to move forward. Discussion - this move would limit high school capacity enrollment at AI High. Not aligned with the committee’s charge. It was removed from further consideration. 

  • Reduce to 2 attendance zone high schools and relocate the Charter School of Wilmington to the open site- Mr. Pruitt made a motion to remove the idea due to not enough support by the committee. Discussion- what to put here? Motion seconded by Ms. Metro. Motion passed 11 yes 2 abstain. It was removed from further consideration. 

  • Mr. Pruitt made a motion to remove “provide equitable choice bussing for all students to all schools.” Discussion - available resources and funding to offer neighborhood bus stops to 26 schools for any Red Clay student who accepts a choice seat within the district is lacking. Mr. Gomes seconded the motion. Motion passed 11 yes 2 no. It was removed from further consideration. 

  • There was broad discussion on remaining ideas. 

Public Comment - Dr. Triebenbacher, Nate Bird, Jennifer Howard 

Adjourn - Mr. Matthews made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Ms. Merto. Motion passed. 

• Action Items Provide current enrollment statistics for Red Clay CTE programs. 

• Provide possible models for CTE center. 

Next Meeting May 21, 2025 @6pm at RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:13:16 - 25:20

   1. • Charles Lockerman (Friends of AI) Advocated for increased bussing and redrawn attendance zones to boost enrollment and equity,

      • Jenny Howard (parent): Raised concerns about the long-standing facilities and financial arrangement between the district and CSW

      • Gianna Howard (student): Opposed CSW speaking at AZ Committee about their desire for one of Red Clay's buildings. 

2. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 1:01:12 -1:08:31

   1. • Board Member Vic Leonard provided an update on the Secondary Attendance Zone and Programming Committee March 20 meeting; The committee reviewed 12 attendance zone and consolidation scenarios, examined feasibility costs, CTE program disparities, and school size data. Ted Ammon, COO, joined the meeting to discuss reiterated the cost feasability with those scenarios. Superintendent Dorrell Green joined the meeting to discuss possible scenarios related to the outcome of Redding and city schools. 

      • Board Member Vic Leonard provided an update on the Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee April 15 meeting. and Charter School of Wilmington wanting to expand to middle school. Research around school size and student achievement was discussed; Charter School of Wilmington made public comment about wanting a better facility; the committee discussed needing more time before making a recommendation to the Board in July.

      • Board Member Kecia Nesmith urged for more diligent communication about the committee's work; Both Board members acknowledged and commended Mr. Pruitt’s organization in guiding the committee’s work. 

      • Superintendent Dorrell Green remarked that sustaining CTE programs requires significant facilities investment and emphasized that the committee’s charge is limited to balancing enrollment, reviewing attendance zones, and evaluating programming within Red Clay providing ancillary space for schools outside of Red Clay.

Charles Lockerman: Good evening, Members of the Board. I've been here before. My name is Charles Lockerman. I'm speaking on behalf of Friends of AI. AI is doing a lot of great things. We plan next year to have more involvement with students. We're trying to help with some of their end of the year stuff helping kids with prom etc. We also want to communicate the benefits of AI not only for the students but the community. I also want to start by speaking to a survey that was done I think in the last couple years that was sent out to parents within the zones that said hey you know are you interested in sending your child to AI and a lot of them responded and said we are but the bus hub stops aren't conducive to our work schedules or the locations just aren't they can't the parents can't get to work and drop the kids off where the buses are. So that's direct feedback to say hey increased busing you know may help increase enrollment at AI. Also I wanted to continue to emphasize the need for redrawing the attendance zones as there needs to be a consolidated effort to have a balanced school district to be considered rightly consolidated. Right now things just aren't equal attendance-wise and our goal is to change that but we got to do it together. Last thing I wanted to speak of is just an idea that I had to campaign at the middle school level where you guys are looking at what the kids are doing right now. And just, you know, when I was coming out of high school, I, you know, there were college fairs.You can meet people in the gymnasium at the table, talk to them about the different programs that each institution has. But I don't know if that same approach has ever been done at the middle school level. And if the middle school kids, you know, have a voice and an opinion going into the world because they're going to be more independent in high school than, you know, having, you know, members of each school, AI, etc. McKean, you know, go to the middle schools to try to like, you know, for better, lack of a better way to put it, recruit the kids and just tell them why it's, you know, good to come there, what the benefits are, etc. You know, I think that also helps to educate the kids and that's what we're all here to do. And you know, they have to be aware of the world and they're walking into, so they should have input into where they're going a little bit. Um and the more information they have, the better decisions they can make. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. 

Jenny Howard: Hi, good evening. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight. I want to talk about the Charter School of Wilmington, known as CSW, and how it has historically benefited from a special arrangement with the Red Clay Consolidated School District. First, a reminder to the public. Charter schools are public in name, but they are privately operated. They're funded with public dollars, but they're managed by private boards, not the district. Students who attend charter schools like CSW are not considered Red Clay students even though the district authorizes the school. And while Red Clay oversees CSW's charter, it's important to understand that Red Clay does not owe CSW any facilities. Yet, for nearly 30 years, Red Clay has provided CSW with access to one of its own buildings, the former Wilmington High School, at little to no cost. CSW paid $1 a year in rent for the first 12 years. Today, CSW and CAB Callaway share the Wilmington campus, but CSW enrolls more students and uses more space, yet still only pays for 31% of the building's cost based on an outdated formula from a time when four other programs were in that building. That number has never been updated. To make matters worse, under the new lease, Red Clay is now paying CSW $50,000 a year per CAB students to participate in CSW athletics. This is a complete reversal from past agreements where CSW reimbursed the district. And while CSW students can take over 20classes at CAB, CAB students can only take three courses at CSW. That imbalance speaks volumes. Meanwhile, CSW is actively trying to expand and is now seeking to take over one of Red Clay's public school buildings. That's a problem because again, the district is under no obligation to give away space, especially when that space could be used to serve the broader Red Clay community. Let's not forget the equity concerns. CSW has historically enrolled few students with disabilities, limited numbers of low-income students, and has consistently failed to reflect the diversity of our district. The bottom line is this. CSW is a charter school that operates independently, yet continues to receive preferential treatment, public subsidies, and physical space at the expense of transparency, fairness, and district students. I'm not here to criticize excellence, but we are here to demand equity. It's time for Red Clay Community to take a hard look at this arrangement, protect its public assets, and ensure that every student in this district has a fair and equal opportunity. Thank you.

Gianna Howard: Hi, my name is Gianna. Last night, I listened to the CSW students share their perspectives at the attendance zone committee about expanding and potentially moving into one of Red Clay’s buildings. Today I want to offer a different point of view. As a student who attends a traditional Red Clay public school, if CSW expands and more students leave Red Clay schools to go there, that means less funding for the schools we actually attend. Our programs, electives, and supportive service services could all get cut because funding follows the student. CSW is selective. Not everyone gets in and many students who need more support or learn differently don't even apply because they know it's not built for them. If CSW expands, it might create even more separation between schools for some kids and schools for the rest of us. CSW is trying to move into one of Red Clay's public school buildings. That space could be used for new district programs, career pathways, or help reduce overcrowding. Losing that building to a charter means fewer options for traditional public schools students like me. It feels like one school is getting all the special treatment, extra funding, nicer facilities, and more opportunities, while the rest of us are being told to settle for less. That's discouraging. We want investment in all public schools, not just one. CSW expanding might make it harder to unite the community around improving education for everyone. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight.

Vic Leonard: Okay. I just want to say that we had two meetings and again it's a very intense group. We have the public and administration, teachers, etc. And it's very important for this committee to determine new attendance zones and any other school consolidations that we may have or some of the proposals. And at this meeting, we had some public comment from Charter School Wilmington. Mr. Pruitt, this is from the 20th March meeting. Mr. Pruitt reviewed the charge and a committee of the meeting norms. 

Dr. Green offered some insight into possible scenarios from the Redding Consortium and WLC concerning city schools. And this is just a brief overview. Dr. Green also offers some different models from around the country on CTE Innovation Centers and so forth. Since that's one of the scenarios we're talking about in this committee. We had a guest speaker - Ted Ammon Red Clay Chief Operating Officer - presented the very detailed feasibility study for each of scenarios we had 12 scenarios at the time the cost that would be associated with those scenarios, which was very useful to the committee. Then at the end Mr. Pruitt made a motion to have the April town hall meeting be used as a regular meeting so the committee could continue discussion and brainstorming on the many scenarios within the project. And that motion was passed. We had that meeting last night. 

And at that meeting there was a lot of discussion. Again we had several representatives - five I believe and all from Charter School Wilmington comments about the need for a new building. There also was a lengthy discussion for the need for more time to discuss the different scenarios that were brought up through the committee. It was agreed by the committee members to add additional meetings - possibly two per month and extend the deadline for final presentation to the School Board for vote from July to possibly August - September when no later than October 2025 so we can meet the deadlines for choice applications. Ms. Corey Heacock, manager of assessment and professional learning, gave a presentation on the state data concerning the correlation between school size with enrollment and student performance and research showed that the threshold for consistent student learning was around 1,500 but state of Delaware data was not consistent with that and for reasons suggested were demographics and magnet charter schools. 

Mr. Pruitt presented the results of an internal Red Clay CTE audit of all three comprehensive high schools AI High, McKean and Dickinson. The audit showed that Mckean had the most robust programs. They had seven in all CTE programs that were thriving while AI and Dickinson both had one each. And then Mr. Pruitt separated the committee into four groups for discussion and brainstorming. We are now down to 11 scenarios. Because the one was voted down by the committee to combine the AI middle school with AI high school for a 6 through 12 program. 

So it was a great discussion we had and we have a lot of work to do. So we did add another meeting on May 1st which means there'll be two in May and then we will decide then how much more time we need for the presentation to the Board for vote on the four scenarios that were outlined. Next meeting will be May 1st 2025. Thank you. 

Kecia Nesmith: Can I add to that? I just really briefly first I just want to say I am really impressed by the administrative team led by Mr. Pruitt. Okay, Mr. Pruitt with his organization and his leadership around this process - is it's very intricate and well planned. So, thank you for that. And then Dr. Heacock's information about the data in terms of comparing schools was interesting as well. And so lastly, I did mention the need for us to expand our communication around this committee's existence. Possibly a direct email to families in the district so that they are aware ahead of time before any decisions are made because we don't want us to make the recommendation and - I know there's a survey going out but just being very transparent about what we're doing and very uh not just not we're transparent but being very diligent about the communication so that if there's any ideas or concerns that they can come out before we make our recommendation from the committee to the Board. So, I look forward to continuing to do this hard work. It's a very difficult decision, but I know that Red Clay is ready to move forward. Thank you. 

Jose Matthews: Thank you, Dr. Nesmith. Any questions? Moving on. Wilson Learning Collaborative - 

Dorrell Green: Yes. No, I just wanted to clarify for the record that McKean and AI do have more than one CTE program. So I don't - I mean again - I know there's an imbalance and we're working on that imbalance. So I'm not sure, I wasn't present at the meeting. 

Kecia Nesmith: I'll answer that. So that was my other point. I forgot to say the data just a quick correction. It was in terms of the facilities and the the the viability of those programs within the facilities. It wasn't the programs themselves having more. It was more the spaces were more conducive to their programs within McKean. 

Dorrell Green: Right. Okay. So, I just wanted to be clear and I think that's one of the the challenges when we look at CTE programming and and how things are laid out in terms of us being a traditional school district - what it requires when you have CTE programs, what are the capital, minor cap needs to outfit spaces. Too often we wet CTE programs to individual staff members. That staff member leaves and that program goes with them. It takes a lot of investment. So I think part of this committee's efforts are for us to really look at not just from a programmatic need but a facilities need as well. 

I will go on the record to say that based on the direction that the Board provided with us with the charge. Providing or looking for ancillary space for schools outside of Red Clay is not a part of this charge in terms of what we're looking for. I know that media has grabbed this information and has kind of taken it and run with it. We're focused on balancing enrollment, looking at our attendance zones, and looking at programming across Red Clay Consolidated School Districts. I just think that needs to be stated clear for the record.

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee webpage 

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Rolling Slides

📹Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee March 20, 2025 Meeting Recording

📹Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee April 15, 2025 Meeting Recording

📄Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee March 20, 2025 Meeting Minutes For convenience, the full meeting minutes are typed below. 

March 20, 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 Thomas Brucker, Emily Carroll, Dorrell Green, Antonio Gomes, Val Gould, Vic Leonard Sr, Jose Matthews, Caitlin Merto, Jodi Muffley, Kecia Nesmith, Mark Pruitt Jr , Madeleine Reitemeyer, Eric Sanford, Shawn Snyder, Kendra Todd-Dixon, Reggie Worlds 

Vic Leonard made a motion to start the meeting, seconded by Shawn Snyder. Motion passed. Meeting called to order at 6:05pm. 

Agenda Items 

Opening Items 

• Public Comment - Hadrian Cissell, Jenny Howard

• Approve Minutes from February 19th. Jose Matthews made a motion to approve the minutes, seconded by Jodi Muffley. Motion passed. 

New Business 

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

• Meeting Norms - Mr. Pruitt 

• Tentative Timeline - Mr. Pruitt - discussion of changing April meeting to a committee workgroup instead of public town hall 

• Redding Update/Implications - Dr. Green 

• Brainstorming Results - Mr. Pruitt - setting D building removed as possible solution from results, not tied directly to committee charge due to special education considerations 

• Models from Around the Country - Dr. Green and Mr. Pruitt 

• Guest Speaker- Ted Ammann, Chief Operating Officer- discussed the feasibility of brainstormed ideas. 

• Motion made by Mark Pruitt to push back April public town hall and instead schedule April as regular meeting. Seconded by Shawn Snyder. Motion passed. Red Clay Consolidated School District 1 

• Public Comment - Brenda Steffon 

• Adjourn - Caitlin Merto made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Jodi Muffley. Motion passed. Meeting adjourned at 8pm. 

Action Items 

• Moving analysis & discussion, straw poll to next meeting. 

• Additional research on the following models K-8, k-12, 6-8 

Next Meeting April 15, 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.

Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee April 15, 2025 Meeting Minutes For convenience, the full meeting minutes are typed below. 

April 15, 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 Jason Bastianelli, Tawanda Bond, Thomas Brucker, Emily Carroll, Amin Farooqui, Antonio Gomes, Val Gould(remote), Vic Leonard Sr, Jose Matthews, Kecia Nesmith, Mark Pruitt Jr , Jennifer Recchiuti, Madeleine Reitemeyer, Eric Sanford, Shawn Snyder, Kendra Todd-Dixon, Reggie Worlds Dr. Corey Heacock - guest speaker 

Mr. Matthews made a motion to begin the meeting, seconded by Mr. Leonard. Motion passed. 6:01pm. 

Agenda Items 

Opening Items 

• Public Comment - Chonnie Blair, Elaine Guo, Arianna Li, Amy Reynoso(Zoom), Kate Terranova 

• Approve Minutes from March 20th. Mr. Matthews made a motion to approve the minutes from March 20th, seconded by Mr. Worlds. Motion passed. 

New Business 

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

• Meeting Norms - Mr. Pruitt 

• Tentative Timeline - Mr. Pruitt - Group discussed timeline of committee, possible adjustments, and goals for board presentation. 

• Mr. Pruitt shared a CTE Audit summary focusing on the facilities readiness of CTE pathways across Red Clay’s 3 A-Z high schools. 

• Dr. Heacock shared limited research on optimal comprehensive high school sizes and grade configurations for K-12 schools. 

• Three groups completed a relevance, feasibility, and impact analysis of ideas presented to date. 

• The committee agreed that Mr. Pruitt will send out a straw poll allowing each Red Clay Consolidated School District 1 committee member to “tally” up to four ideas they support most at this point in the work. This information will be made available at the next meeting. 

• Public Comment - Jason Gleber 

• Mr. Matthews made a motion to add a meeting May 1st, seconded by Mr. Gomez. Motion passed with 9 yes votes and 5 no. 

Adjourn - Mr. Gomez made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Mr. Farooqui. Motion passed. Meeting adjourned at 8:20pm.

Action Items 

• Mr. Pruitt will email a straw poll for committee members' response. 

Next Meeting May 1, 2025@6pm at RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805 May 21, 2025 @6pm at RCCSD Board Rm, 1502 Spruce Ave, Wilmington, DE 19805

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Public Comment
   ⏯ 0:10:52

   1. • Charles Lockerman (Friends of AI) Advocated for increased busing and redrawn attendance zones to boost enrollment and equity,

2. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 1:12:16 -1:16:06

   1. • Board Members Kecia Nesmith and Vic Leonard provided an update on the Secondary Attendance Zone and Secondary Programming Committee February 19 meeting. They emphasized the importance of diverse community input and praised the brainstorming of committee members.

Charles Lockerman: Good evening and welcome. Thank you for your time tonight. My name is Charles Lockerman. I am speaking with Friends of AI as an advocate for AI. It's well known that this school is in need of help and changes the zone feeder patterns to strengthen the AI enrollment. I mean, you can't have Dickinson and McCain thriving at a thousand students and that's optimal numbers. But the disparity is right in front of you. And AI is only at a at 550 students. And like a house that has needs that need to be updated due to building code changes, the Red Clay feeder pattern zones are outdated and no longer reflect equal distribution of registered students within all district schools. So a consolidated district would have equal dispersion. And right now the numbers say we don't have that. There's also been rumblings in the past couple months of closing AI and I was wondering if you any of you could speak to that because that would be a travesty. The legacy of AI both as a historical school and also bearing the name DuPont who is you know you can't say Delaware history without DuPont being mentioned they need to be carried on and that's why I'm here today because there's a five-year plan to create a charter school Wilmington but how will that affect our middle schools how does that affect the other patterns So, like I said, the numbers tell the story here. The zone distribution, the feeder patterns outdated. It's not distributing equally to all the schools within the district. And to be consolidated, you need equal distribution. So, please, like I said, the numbers tell the story here. The zone distribution, the feeder patterns outdated. It's not apologies for the technical distributing equally to all the schools within the district. And to be consolidated, you need equal dist. We have a playback. No. Okay. I'm I'm not a ventriloquist. I'm not I'm not that skilled. I thought you were working some magic down there. The only magic I want to work is to get AI back to 700 to a,000 students and help those students in any way they need it. Thank you. 

Kecia Nesmith: I was there with Mr. Leonard. Yeah, I have a couple things to sum it up. So it was held we talked about a number of things. It was a really good meeting. I just have to say I think kudos to Mr. Pruitt and those who are supporting helping him put these together. I think they were very engaging. I liked that we were kind of assigned to certain tables because it gave us a chance to interact with people that we didn't know and share ideas respectfully and it was really a good chance to be able to brainstorm ideas and so I heard something in public comment about you know different things that came up. They're literally just ideas. And so I think it it's a safe place hopefully to be able to share thoughts and then come to consensus at some point. Some of the big pieces that we talked about were a review of the middle school and instructional capacity data. Then this helped inform our discussions on enrollment patterns and facility usage. We talked a little bit about that. We had again a brainstorming session on how to improve the attendance zones and the programming. And a key takeaway was the importance of gathering input from community stakeholders particularly ensuring that we have a diverse representation of Wilmington families in our discussion. And then uh we identify additional data needs which we'll we'll discuss when we have our meeting tomorrow. And then we also have tomorrow's meeting and we'll be looking at our charge and our goal and how the Redding Consortium for educational equity whatever their decisions are and the implications and we'll be focusing on improving educational opportunities for all of our schools in in current initiatives. Equitable school funding because this is a big piece of the work that we do that's not only within our school system but also this at the state level how we how we reconfigure schools how we expand access to highquality programs and so I really commend everyone for their work I know this is going to be long work it won't be a perfect solution in 10 months but I think engaging the community and our legislators because there are some areas that we do not have control over. So, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's meeting and I think Mr. Leonard has something to add. 

Vic Leonard: Yes, I do. Just a couple general comments about it. The group's very productive not only identifying and highlighting some of the inequities and inconsistencies in our attendance zones and programs across the secondary schools but also brainstorming possible solutions to some of these issues our schools may be subjected to. To make up the group is pretty pretty neat. We have educators, administrators, community members, Board Members, and district personnel that provide a wide range of experience and expertise with an atmosphere of varying opinions and ideas that enables a robust discussion. And it was robust. I enjoyed it tremendously. The work will help make the district, schools, institutions of opportunity for all students that enables them to be successful in education and life. A big shout out to Mr. Pruitt for doing a great job organizing these meetings with relative activities and information to help stimulate our thinking while we're in the meeting. Thank you, Mr. Pruitt. Appreciate it. And one other thing I'll add as one of the variables besides Redding and WLC is whether Wilmington Charter will expanded to 6 to 8 or not. I know that was in their five-year plan.So, thank you again, Mr. Pruitt. Great job. 

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee webpage

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Meeting Rolling Slides

📹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.

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Board Committee Report
   ⏯ 0:53:56

   1. • Board Member Kecia Nesmith provided an update on the Attendance Zone and Secondary Programming Committee January 21 meeting.

Kecia Nesmith: Hi, this is Dr. Nesmith. I'd just like to say say that I thought it was a very well planned out and strategic approach to it welcoming the members of the committee and setting the tone for and setting the stage for what we're our work is ahead. I love the game that we had. We had to do a puzzle game of the map of Red Clay and I just think it was fabulously put together. I'm looking forward to hearing more about how we can work together to ensure that our attendance zones are equitable and are meeting the needs of our community and I'm also - just to add in - for the next meeting I'm just going to be asking some questions about how the Redding Consortium plan is going to affect our work. The minutes are in the board docs if you'd like to see them and I know Mr Leonard was there, Mr. Matthews. I think that's it from our from us. Yes, that concludes my report.

🌐Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Webpage

📁Secondary Attendance Zone & Programming Committee Meeting Rolling Slides

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

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

January 21, 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 

Agenda Items 

Opening Items 

• Introductions 

• Welcome from Superintendent Green 

• Public Comment (If Requested) 

New Business 

• Strategic Plan Overview 

• The Committee’s Charge 

• Monthly Meetings 

• Resources Available 

• Meeting Norms 

• Opening Activity 

• The Connection Between Enrollment and Programming 

• History & Data 

• Requests for Additional Data 

• Homework- Begin Brainstorming 

• Adjourn 

Action Items 

Next Meeting TBD 

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

▼Full Transcript Below

1. Superintendent Report
   ⏯ 0:19:46-26:30

   1. • Superintendent Dorrell Green highlighted equitable College and Career programming - including AP Seminar expansion, IB participation, Dual Enrollment and Dual Credit opportunities, Pre-AP expansion, the Early College Academy (in partnership with Goldey Beacom College), and AVID. He noted increased student participation and applications, and shared that this progress will help inform the upcoming Secondary Attendance Zone and Programming Committee as it begins its work.

Dorrell Green: We’re also seeing advancements and success in our Secondary School programming. Our strategic plan focuses on Equitable College and Career programming for all secondary students. We shared with the Board how we’re looking at the AP Seminar course as a foundational course for all 10th graders across the district. We’re working to increase high school student participation in college-level coursework, which is part of the Delaware School Success Framework — whether that’s students scoring a four on the AP exam, a three on the IB exam, or participating in dual enrollment courses.

We’ve seen a 15% increase in the total number of seats in college-level courses, from 2,482 to 2,858. We’re also seeing a 13.3% increase in students taking at least one college-level course, increasing from 1,005 to 1,140. We continue to stay centered on ensuring Equitable College and Career programming for all secondary students, and these are just some of the highlights we expect to continue building on. This work is also helping inform the Attendance, Enrollment, and Programming Committee as it begins reviewing career pathways and advancing college and career readiness.

In keeping with this theme, we’re prioritizing College and Career Readiness through course selection and scheduling, Early College Academy partnerships with Goldey Beacom College at both Thomas McKean High School and Alexis I. du Pont High School, expansion of AP Seminar access for all 10th grade students, and expanded Pre-AP programming for equitable access to college-level courses.

College Board representatives recently toured the district and have invited district staff to present on a national stage at the AASA conference because of the work Red Clay is doing around AP programming. We’re also focusing on community education around college coursework opportunities.

We’re seeing growth in the Red Clay Early College Academy at AI du Pont and Thomas McKean, allowing students to earn both high school and college credits. There is a clear distinction between dual enrollment and dual credit. Dual enrollment gives students the opportunity to enroll in and take college-level courses. Dual credit means that coursework counts toward both high school and college credit. We’re looking to expand both opportunities to support College and Career Readiness and give students a head start on their college and career journeys.

We’ve seen a 32% increase in overall applications, from 198 to 261. At McKean, that represents a 41% increase, and at AI du Pont, a 27% increase. Students are also increasingly selecting the program as their first choice.

The program includes a 9th grade boot camp course designed to build the skills and readiness students need before beginning college-level classes in 10th grade. The course focuses on study skills, time management, goal setting, and other foundational skills for success. Students have shared that earning up to 30 transferable college credits is a significant opportunity, especially as they learn about the cost of college and the value of those credits.

The district remains committed to supporting students not only during their K–12 education, but also beyond graduation - whether that path leads to college, career, or vocational-technical opportunities. We thank our partners at Goldey Beacom College for their continued collaboration.

There is also a direct correlation between students who participated in AVID in middle school and their transition into the Early College Academy. Goldey Beacom supports the Early College Academy and works closely with Skyline Middle School through the AVID program. This anchor partnership continues to benefit students and the broader community.

🏫Red Clay Secondary School Curriculums

🧑‍🎓Advanced Placement AP / Pre-AP?

🧑‍🎓International Baccalaureate Programme

🧑‍🎓Dual Enrollment

🧑‍🎓Avid

🧑‍🎓Early College Academy

🎬Red Clay's Early College Academy - 2024 Video

📄Red Clay Board of Education Policy 7012 Dual Enrollment and Awarding of Dual Credit