During the April 2014 State Board Meeting, the State Board placed Delaware Met on formal review. I found a letter to Delaware Met from DOE placing them on formal review back in 2014. Attached to DE Met’s letter is a list of conditions, the only issue is this list of conditions is for Delaware Design Lab High School and not for Delaware Met. I have requested from DOE the list of conditions that were placed on Delaware Met back in 2014. Below are the State Board of Education meeting minutes, view page 3.
The Department is seeking the consent of the State Board to place Delaware MET on formal review to review concerns relative to economic viability and compliance with enrollment within their charter. A motion was made by Mrs. Rutt to consent to placing Delaware MET on formal review. The motion was seconded by Mr. Coverdale, after discussion on the action item by the Board with the representatives from the Department of Education presenting the item; the action was voted on and carried unanimously. Mrs. Rutt was excused at this time due to a prior commitment.
Below is the April 2014 letter from DOE placing Delaware Met on formal review. Look at the last two pages, you will see the conditions are for Delaware Design Lab High School and not Delaware Met.
DelawareFirstState 
If you read the Scribd letter, it states the DOE didn’t realize they had put in a letter for a minor modification request prior to the State Board meeting that April. For any charter that has “low enrollment as of April 1st before the August they are going to open, they get put on formal review. The financial concerns come in because they are below 80%. Delaware Design Lab actually did the same thing as well. You only get one shot at the one-year delay. Here is a link to the minor modification application input by the DOE: http://www.doe.k12.de.us/cms/lib09/DE01922744/Centricity/Domain/141/DelawareMet_ModificationRequest.pdf
LikeLike
The minor modification from DE Met is dated after the State Board Meeting, if they put a request in prior to the 2014 April State Board Meeting why is there no copy of it online?
LikeLike
I have never seen an actual minor modification request letter from any charter, so that is a good question. If you look at the format on these minor modifications: https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/seven-delaware-charters-bow-out-of-dpas-ii-teacher-evaluation-system/ it is the exact same format as this one: http://www.doe.k12.de.us/cms/lib09/DE01922744/Centricity/Domain/151/DelawareMet_ModificationRequest.pdf Short of asking the DOE for the original request or submitting a FOIA, there is no way to tell when they submitted a request for their minor mod for the one year delay.
LikeLike
I have requested the letter and the conditions that were placed on Delaware Met.
LikeLike
The application was submitted on April 28th, after the State Board put them on Formal Review. But there is a loophole in the administrative code which allows for them to submit the minor modification request for the one-year delay after the Formal Review process is voted on by the State Board but prior to the initial meeting of the Charter School Accountability Committee: http://regulations.delaware.gov/AdminCode/title14/200/275.shtml (Section 9.5)
LikeLike