Redistricting Town Hall Meeting November 16

You are invited to learn about the proposed redistricting plan in New Castle County, that would include the Christina and Colonial School Districts and the Red Clay District.

 THE SCHOOL REDISTRICTING PLAN

Speaker:  Dan Rich, Policy Director, Wilmington Education Improvement Commission, and Professor of Public Policy, University of Delaware

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2015, 6:30 P.M

PRESENTATION FOLLOWED BY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Kirkwood Library, 6000 Kirkwood Highway, Wilmington, DE 19808

SPONSORS:   American Association of University Women, Newark and League of Women Voters of New Castle County

THIS FORUM IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

The Wilmington Education Improvement Commission is responsible for implementing recommendations to strengthen Wilmington public education and to provide greater support for all Delaware schools with high concentrations of low-income students and English language learners.

The work of the Commission includes the development of a plan for redistricting in New Castle County, with the Christina and Colonial School Districts no longer serving Wilmington students  and the Red Clay District taking on these students.  The redistricting plan also will address the resources needed for redistricting  to be successful in better  supporting student learning. 

The forum will, provide an understanding of issues being addressed by the Wilmington  Education Improvement Commission. 

Parents Who Opted Out, No Need to Worry When Filling Out Red Clay Choice Applications Which Require Spring Smarter Balanced Scores

Exceptional Delaware published a post about Conrad Schools of Science choice application which requires Spring Standardized Test Scores which would be Smarter Balanced for all public school children in Delaware. You can read Exceptional Delaware’s post by clicking here. 

I wanted to make sure students were not penalized because their parents opted them out of the state assessment. Red Clay’s Superintendent Dr. Daugherty has assured me that will not happen. Conrad Schools of Science staff is well aware of the concerns and the lack of a state assessment score will not hinder any student’s chances of getting into Conrad.

Thank you to Red Clay School District for respecting a parent’s choice to opt out and not penalizing the child.

My Response to Governor Markell’s Veto Statement of House Bill 130

Below is a letter that was sent to Governor Markell in response to his veto of House Bill 130. As I stated in an earlier post, the Governor did not give me any indication that he had any intentions of vetoing House Bill 130. The first time I knew he had issues with House Bill 130 was when I received the call from his office stating the Governor was vetoing it. Click here to read his veto statement.

This bill creates a felony level offense for a person that is a health professional and in the course of providing professional health services to the victim, intentionally has sexual contact with the victim.  This bill adds to the existing crime of unlawful sexual contact in the second degree and makes the conduct described therein as a felony offense, rather than a misdemeanor, due to the vulnerability of the victim as a patient seeking services from a health professional.

View this document on Scribd

Some Examples of Why House Bill 130 is Necessary

In August, Governor Markell vetoed a bill that I sponsored, House Bill 130. These two articles really show why House Bill 130 is necessary.

A Michigan Doctor faces prison time for trading drugs for sex and Doctor’s license pulled for sex with patients

This just absolutely makes me sick what this doctor did to these two women. The doctor prescribed highly addictive drugs to at least two of his patients, there could be more victims. Once the women became dependent on the drugs, he demanded sex and money in exchange for new prescriptions. Not only were these women raped by this doctor now they are addicted to drugs.

In the other article, the doctor admitted to sexual encounters with three different patients he treated, with a resident he supervised and with an office assistant who worked for him. He further admits that his sexual behaviors persisted even after he knew he was under investigation by the Board.

The Medical Board of Ohio has suspended the license of Dr. Johnson for an indefinite period of no less than two years. The Medical Board of Ohio should be revoking his license forever.

I am still baffled as to why the Governor vetoed House Bill 130. I did forward a letter to him in response to his veto statement, I will share the letter in another post.

The Accountability Framework Working Group Made Their Recommendations, Will the Governor and the State Board Agree with Them

Delaware Online posted an article: Opt-out penalty for DE school considered. It is frustrating enough to know we are going to label our schools once again, but now we are going to penalize them as well. Schools and districts have no control over a parent who decides to opt their child out of the state assessment, so why should we hold a school or district accountable? The feds are requiring states to penalizing schools and districts for low participation rates and AFWG members were assigned to come up with the penalty; they selected the least destructive penalty. At this time, we are not sure if the Governor or the State Board will agree.

At the last AFWG meeting the members decided on the following:

• DOE reported they must add a consequence for not meeting participation rate. The group decided on the following:
  • School must write a plan for how they will address low participation rates.
  • Cannot be a reward school if the participation rates is less than 95% using NEAP.
• DOE did state the Governor recommended and would prefer the multiplier for schools that are below 95% only, as the consequence the participation rate, but members stated they did not agree with that choice.
• The group decided on using a 0 to 500 point system.

As I said in an earlier post, I got the impression that the Governor wanted certain things to come out of this group and I got the same impression from the State Board representative.

I will say it again, why do you put these committees/groups in place and waste their valuable time away from their schools if we are not going to listen to them, they are the experts. I hope the Governor and the State Board will respect the opinion of the experts and keep the final recommendations from the Accountability Framework Working Group as is.

DESS Advisory Committee (stakeholder group) agreed with the AFWG recommendations, it will be interesting to see what happens next, will the recommendations stay the same?