Wilmington City Council Votes To Not Let In More Charter Schools
Yes, this is symbolic, but we’ve come a long way.
The Wilmington City Council sent a request to state leaders Thursday night: Don’t allow any more charter schools to open in the city for the time being, and give the city more say over which schools get approved.
Council approved 9-3, with President Theo Gregory absent, a resolution urging the Department of Education not to consider any new charter applications in the city to “allow elected officials and community representatives time to assess the impact of charter schools in Wilmington and throughout the State.”
Impact is the key word and one of the biggest problem with charters – their impact on surrounding neighborhoods and schools isn’t really considered – and even though the new charter law pays lip service to impact, impact alone isn’t enough to stop a charter from entering a community. Try building an addition to your house without community approval. Maybe labeling the addition as a charter school would be the way to go!
Whether or not a community wants a charter in their neighborhood doesn’t matter. As long as a charter follows state law they can pretty much go where they want. Westgate Farms fought against Odyssey Charter moving in. They eventually won by focusing on the historic location. Good thing a cemetery was located there. Otherwise, Odyssey could have moved in – no matter what the surrounding community thought or wanted.
Midtown Brandywine (a city neighborhood) is the latest community facing a charter school moving in. Their complaints are familiar – they have no voice. Exceptional Delaware covered this yesterday:
Freire Charter School, scheduled to open in the 2015-2016 academic year is already causing huge problems for the neighborhood it will be housed in. According to one area resident, this small neighborhood of 220 will be faced with an initial 224 students being transported to the school via DART or walking to the school. The school was previously going to be located at 920 French St. in Wilmington, but was moved to 201 W. 14th Street.
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Current estimates by the school are to have 560 students by the 2018-2019 year.
If you aren’t familiar with Midtown Brandywine, you should go take a look – go drive those narrow city streets. Freire (a charter whose “special interest” is zero tolerance) will be smack dab in the middle of that neighborhood. And the idea that the community won’t be impacted by this school is nuts.
Many years ago my kids attended the Academy of the Dance and the drop off and pick up of that small business created quite a back up in Midtown Brandywine. During that time the community was dealing with 15 – 20 ballerinas staggered over various class times. Now imagine 224 (eventually 560) students being dropped off and picked up in the morning and afternoon. No wonder this community is concerned. The traffic will be horrendous. And the idea that traffic will not be a problem because students will not be dropped off and picked up by car, or they will take DART or walk, is ludicrous.
A Midtown Brandywine resident shared their concerns on Facebook:
Thank you to Red Clay Education Association President, Mike Matthews, for adding Midtown Brandywine Neighborhood Wilmington DE‘s concerns as he addressed the State Board of Education today! Little did we know that on 12-31-14, the Freire School reps submitted a request for a Major Modification of their application for a Charter. Reasons: lower than expected student registrations; change in building (they had planned to be on French Street); need for less space (due to lower than expected enrollment); no cafeteria on site. The reason for the Modification request? To remain eligible for $687,000 federal/state start-up funds. My questions? Why wasn’t this mentioned by Freire reps at our Tuesday Board meeting, and why isn’t this money being spent to bolster our existing public schools that really need it, instead of a Philadelphia-based organization?
It wasn’t mentioned because Freire didn’t need to mention it to the community, and mentioning it could only cause problems for Freire’s plans. The resident sent a letter to the Secretary of Education about the neighborhood’s concerns which prompted this comment from Mike Matthews:
You sent your letter to the secretary of education. I’ve learned that he did NOT share the letter with the state board. Oh my!
Oh my, indeed.
I’m not sure City Council’s vote last night will make a difference, but it does send a message. A message I hope is heard. It’s past time residents have a say – and a vote – into what’s allowed in their communities. School districts can’t build new schools without getting community support. The same should be true for charter schools.
Excellent article! I only wish this bill was passed last year so our neighborhood did not have to expend so much time and energy fighting against a plan that is bound to fail — 560 students taking DART to school. I don’t think so!
I also think this is an Excellant article. At the Tuesday 1/13/15 Midtown Neighborhood meeting there was a City Representative that had to leave early due to another issue she was having with a school in Wilmington that was closing its doors. This will be a vacant building in the city. Why not utilize what you already have, and I am sure the existing school has a cafeteria on site. My main concern is how underhanded this has all been, tells me its not for the children it is being done for the money. Just my opinion.
Yeah, the DART claim isn’t believable. Every school has a lot of car traffic – Freire will be no different.
The city has become charter weary.
Time for New Castle County to also become charter weary. Like everyone, charter schools at one point seemed to me a good way to go… Like desegregation of the South after the Civil War also seemed a good way for those in Washington, to go…
But in our enthusiasm to fix the South, little did we know we were putting KKK officials in charge of desegregation. We thought judges and elected officials were above all that. Same with Charters.. Little did we know that we were putting the very people who were trying to privatize education for profit, in charge of destroying public education entirely.
Charter Schools are about only one thing. Profit. That becomes extremely obvious when you look at the balance sheets of all the new mega-companies coming into Delaware under the current Rodel administration. And when you look at the damage they leave behind (look at Philly, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, DC, Newark (one syllable) NJ, one sees that they are a dead horse entirely, within three years tops.
Who wouldn’t open a charter with $687,000 of free money being handed out? Then get paid well every year after? And be able to spend leftover transportation funds in any way you want, with not one single thread of accountability, as the the FFA Charter in Dover? New Mercedes. Trips, Trysts. Exactly.
Charters are a play thing for the rich. There may be a few tiny exceptions but they are dwarfed by the true reality of almost (rounded up) a trillion dollars spent yearly on education across America. If anyone is at all serious about keeping charters to help students.. yes, students, then they need to be funded by a line item in the state budget as are vocational schools for the exact same sane reasons. We need to stop charters from siphoning off necessary funds away from those who through no fault of their own, are dependent on public education… Then, since you have a new line item expense, tax the rich sufficiently to fund them for whatever it takes; after all, they’re the ones with all the money.
Racism is an ugly thing!!!!! Our children need every chance to have a fair education. But not in my neighborhood shame, shame, on you…….