Delaware's General Assembly has shown its support for the removal of Christina School District from Wilmington.
Nodding to the Redding Consortium's work earlier this spring, the state's Senate and House of Representatives passed a resolution formally supporting its recommendation to the same end. That's underscoring a call to "begin purposeful steps" to plan for the withdrawal of Christina, while immediately granting greater support to its current students.
Thursday afternoon saw the measure pass unanimously in the Senate.
And it all connects to broader goals for redistricting the schools across Delaware's largest city.
Wilmington with two school districts? Delaware’s latest redistricting vision to take shape
Wait, what's happening in Wilmington?
The Redding Consortium for Educational Equity has a redistricting strategy in the works.
It isn't new, per se. The consortium, created in 2019, comes in the shadow of several similar task forces, committees and studies tracing similar lines since the turn of the century. As recently as 2015, a "Wilmington Education Improvement Commission" recommended that Red Clay Consolidated School District absorb Christina. That led another comprehensive redistricting plan to make it all the way to the Legislature in 2016 — to lapse.
Such recommendations for Wilmington have historically stalled. This General Assembly may have signaled some initial support in passing this resolution, but the path ahead remains unclear.
Consortium membership had been working on a modified “River Plan” proposal — recommending all Wilmington students be served by Brandywine and Red Clay, while seeing Christina and Colonial removed entirely. But earlier in May, they pulled back to allow " more space and time " for a final strategy recommendation, as previously reported, while sharing an interim framework .
Starting this summer, according to the draft framework, one subcommittee will focus on determining the exact redistricting approach. Recommendations will show Christina removed from the city, though many other details remain unsolidified.
The consortium will “publicly deliberate” proposals to come and vote, while other subgroups dig into operational planning, fiscal impacts both state and local, as well as community engagement events to come.
Such planning is now expected to last until fall 2025, “at the latest." October 2025 is earmarked for submitting a final plan to the State Board of Education; January 2026, a fiscal note; and spring 2026, submission of a final plan to the General Assembly.
It stands to be a long, complex process.
How did we get here?
On the heels of desegregation, a 1971 lawsuit ended with a court order that required a new busing plan to send suburban students into Wilmington, and city students out, until the mid-1990s. Since the lifting of that order, and the Neighborhood Schools Act of 2000, experts say changes unfurled in state law have largely amounted to the resegregation of schools in Wilmington and its suburbs.
Charter, magnet, School Choice Act of 1996: trickling decisions over decades further fueled this reality for public schools. It has left Wilmington with several racially identifiable, high-poverty schools, per the consortium.
“For the quarter of a century since, these negative dynamics have continued,” the consortium's drafted plan reads, harming "multiple generations" of Wilmington students and communities.
Today, city students are 69% Black, 54% from lower-income backgrounds and 23% living with a disability, according to consortium statistics. Those figures are higher than that of each Delaware county. They also experience higher rates of crime, housing instability and poverty — alongside educator turnover and persistent underachievement.
Penned in interim plans, there’s hope the Wilmington Learning Collaborative will also help supply “immediate help and assistance” to its Christina schools. That could range from educator support, reducing class sizes, boosting mental health intervention, math and reading specialists and more before redistricting takes shape.
“There are so many intersecting histories that are challenging here,” said Sen. Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman, consortium co-chair, back in April.
“This is about: How do we create a context for transformative change that's going to benefit students across these school districts?”
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Got a story? Kelly Powers covers race, culture and equity for Delaware Online/The News Journal and USA TODAY Network Northeast, with a focus on education. Contact her at kepowers@gannett.com or (231) 622-2191, and follow her on X @kpowers01.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware lawmakers signal support for removing Christina School District from Wilmington
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