Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/61011
Vol. 32, No. 5 I N S I D E THE VOICE OF THE DELAWARE STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION Newark community RA delegates take care of business Page 5 Winter Advocacy Retreat unites local leaders Pages 12-13 up in arms The Newark Charter School's request to double its size – by adding students to existing grades K-8 and by adding a high school – has more and more Newark residents and community groups speaking out, both for and against. petition drive, asking the State Board of Education to turn down the school's expansion request. At www.communities4educationde.org people can sign the petition, as well as add their own reasons for deny- ing this request. As of this writing, there were close to 300 posts. At the public hearing held on C We salute Teacher of the Month with WJBR 99.5 FM Page 10 March 7, DSEA's Frederika Jenner (president) and David Davis (president of the Christina affiliate) joined community leaders, legislators, parents of Christina School District students, and profes- sors from the University of Delaware in speaking out against the expansion. Speakers included Rep. John Kowalko (whose dis- trict includes Newark High School) and Lois Huff, UofD professor. The issues raised can be boiled down to: • Resegregation, because of dis- crimination and inability of a wider population of students to enroll. The fact that Newark Charter School's charter specifies that it will only take students with- in a five-mile radius of its building is at the root of this issue. ommunity members against the expansion request have even started an internet March/April 2012 Communities 4 Education! Advocating for ALL Children! Since the Newark Charter School expansion hearing, a group of concerned parents has set up a new website, www.communitiesforeducationde.org, urging people to send letters and sign their online petition, protesting the expansion request from Newark Charter School and urging a moratori- um on all Charter Schools so that the Charter School Law can be improved. • Duplication of quality pro- grams that already exist in Christina's high schools. Newark parents formed this school when the district's school board was, as they explained it, non-responsive to their concerns about elementary-age students attending schools in the city of Wilmington, far from home. They applied for a charter as an alterna- tive public school for their children to attend schools where they lived. The result? An elite school within the Christina District Student populations of NCS com- pared to the Christina School District are as follows: 11% African American versus 41%; 4% Hispanic versus 18%; and 15% low- income versus 61%. In fact, in a letter sent to Sec. Lowery on March 13th, the ACLU noted the same holds true within the five mile radius established by NCS for the selection of its student population. The K-8 school also does not have a cafeteria, so it cannot offer "free and reduced lunch" for students eli- gible – another concern raised at the hearing. Community members suggested that families in this situ- ation may not bother to apply to NCS since they can't afford to pay for lunch every day. As pointed out by Newark com- munity members, NHS parents and the Christina Educ. Assoc., the school has not demonstrated that its programs are uniquely better – in opposition to the legislative intent of the state's Charter School Law. Given these reasons, one would think that there is ample reason to deny this expansion request. More…. See pages 8 and 9.