The Christina School District in 2022 said it was looking for a new model to evaluate Superintendent Dan Shelton.
Some important Christina School District news has been somewhat lost in coverage of the momentous decision by the board of education to suspend Superintendent Dan Shelton.
Christina board OKs work on middle schools
The board approved a plan to renovate Kirk and Shue-Medill middle schools and build a new Gauger-Cobbs School and then demolish the old building, WDEL reported .
The district public information office was asked for details of its facilities master plan, which WDEL said comes in at $165 million for the middle schools.
Gauger-Cobbs opened in 1972 with a capacity of 1,400 students but now only serves half that.
The Medill sdte of Shue/Medill would be demolished and replaced.
The board also discussed capital plans for its high schools and elementary schools.
The work on the elementaries is the top request on the plan, WDEL said, adding that there was no action on work at the high schools.
Construction faces several hurdles: the state must approve the plan before offering funding, and the district’s funding is likely to go before voters as a tax increase.
The district also needs to figure in the impact of the Redding Consortium, which could lead to removing the Wilmington portion of the district – and at least 500 students – from its boundaries, WDEL said.
Teachers union estimates cost of decision
The cost of the decision on Shelton – named Delaware’s superintendent of the year in 2022, the year when the board said it was looking for a new model to evaluate him – could exceed $750,000, the Christina Education Association estimated in an email to its members, First State Update reported .
“These expenses would cover contract buyouts, interim superintendent appointments and the search for a permanent replacement,” First State Update said, in referring to the email.
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Leaders of the association, a union for teachers and others serving the district, were asked for comment.
The district public information office was also asked about that estimate.
Commencements will stay away from UD
The board voted “to pursue holding the Newark, Christiana and Glasgow high school graduations at the Chase Fieldhouse for a second-straight year, despite it costing nearly $30,000 more than the 2023 ceremony at the University of Delaware,” WDEL reported .
The Chase Fieldhouse is a new, large-capacity facility on the Wilmington Riverfront.
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The board voted in 2023 to move commencements from UD after “an 18-year-old star student” was arrested in the graduation day earlier that year, DelawareLive reported .
Holding the graduation on UD’s campus has cost Christina $98,129 for access to the building and the parking lot and security.
The market for commencements will get another competitor soon when Wilmington University opens a building with a 2,000-seat auditorium.
Rep. Eric Morrison is upset
And back to the vote on Shelton.
Coverage of the decision generated a lot of comment on social media , including this post from state Rep. Eric Morrison, D-Glasgow:
“This is an absolute debacle and fiasco, and I am disgusted with the board members who voted for this. I am especially disgusted with the president of the board, Donald Patton. I was one of the five legislators signing onto a letter to the DOJ expressing our concerns about the board.
“It is unprecedented for the DOJ to have found enough violations on the part of a school board that they commit to monitoring it for a year. The superintendent is not the problem here. Donald Patton and several other members of the school board are.”
Patton shrugged off Morrison’s comments.
“He’s running for reelection in a tough re-election, and he’s trying. in my opinion, to make publicity,” Morrison said. “Eric Morrison hasn’t done anything with our schools. Eric Morrison hasn’t said anything about student outcomes … This is just the campaign that he’s in and that he’s probably struggling in.”
Patton noted he’d been on the board for three years.
“I’ve not heard from him one single time about how we’re going to fix the city schools, how we’re going to fix the suburban schools, how we’re going to fix the district performance. I haven’t heard anything from him about that.”
Patton said almost every school board violates Freedom of Information rules, partly because there’s been no training on it. That will change this year, Patton said.
If Morrison is re-elected, he said, he would welcome his support for better student outcomes, ways to keep the district from losing students and how the schools can benefit from the number of developments being built that don’t seem to benefit the schools.
“There’s a lot of things he can do to be proactive rather than try to pile on to something he doesn’t even understand and has never been a part of,” Patton said.
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