THANK YOU; CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
The Vision Coalition of Delaware would like to extend a sincere thank you to all who attended the 11th Annual Conference earlier this month.
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More than 250 Delawareans rallied at Clayton Hall in Newark to celebrate collaboration and discuss progress made in Delaware education.
The conference served as an opportunity to check in on the progress of Student Success 2025, the 10-year plan published by the coalition in 2015. The Vision Coalition’s 2018 Annual Report was also released during the event.
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| Mount Pleasant High School senior, Destiny Cheeks, opened the conference with a powerful speech about the importance of collaboration in creating opportunity and equity for all students. She has participated in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Communication Contest, now called MLK VOICE 4 YOUTH, since its inception and has made it to the final round each year.
Tony Allen, Vision Coalition Leadership Team member and Provost of Delaware State University, was so inspired by her words that he offered Cheeks a full scholarship to the university at the end of the conference. |
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| Conference attendees then heard from a keynote panel, which featured four successful collaborations in our state. The panel, moderated by Vision Coalition Leadership Team Member Dorrell Green, featured a charter and district collaboration, a higher education and K-12 collaboration, a healthcare and K-12 collaboration, and a government and community group collaboration.
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| Following the plenary, over 30 unique, small group conversations called Idea Exchanges, commenced.
Matched to the core areas of Student Success 2025, the Idea Exchange brought together education, government, nonprofit, and business leaders around a variety of topics, from innovative practices happening in classrooms around Delaware, to helping students achieve success in college and careers.
Each Idea Exchange table concluded its session by naming one “Big Idea” that can make an impact in that particular focus area.
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PROGRESS MADE IN THE SIX CORE AREAS
OF STUDENT SUCCESS 2025
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| The campaign, also led by Delaware Readiness Teams, encourages families and caregivers to register students for kindergarten and helps guide them through the process. |
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| The report also highlights that the First State exceeds the 100 kbps per student goal. Over the past three years, connectivity speeds in Delaware schools have increased nearly eight times from 82 to 638 kbps. |
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| After identifying priorities, they can apply for a portion of $5 million contained in the School Safety and Security Fund, a special appropriation that was set up following a bipartisan effort in the General Assembly. |
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| Last April, Eisenberg Elementary School opened a full-scale center with services provided by Life Health Center (LHC) in partnership with Nemours. The four smaller satellite centers were opened after LHC hired additional health care professionals to meet the needs of students in the above-named schools. |
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| The school board approved the district’s plan that will transform Newark, Glasgow and Christiana high schools by creating structured, concentrated pathways that will give each school a specific brand and focus in order to better compete with charter and vocational technology schools. |
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| Disability Mentoring Day is held each October during National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Several New Castle County school districts have again joined together to host their Second Annual Career Development Day at the Siegel Jewish Community Center in Talleyville. |
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FAIR AND EFFICIENT FUNDING
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Delawareans for Educational Opportunity and the Delaware NAACP are suing the state saying current education funding is failing students who are poor, disabled or English Language Learners. They’re also taking aim at artificially low property values. Eighty percent of property taxes go to public schools—and property reassessments haven’t been done in more than 30 years.
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SYSTEM GOVERNANCE, ALIGNMENT, AND PERFORMANCE
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Officials say the funding will support sharing best practices between charter schools and other public schools and strengthening the charter school authorization process. It will also provide sub-grants to new charter schools for planning and existing charters for expansion.
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ABOUT THE VISION COALITION OF DELAWARE
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The Vision Coalition of Delaware is a coalition of public, private, and civic leaders committed to moving education forward for Delaware’s students. The Vision Coalition Leadership Team includes:
Tony Allen, Ph.D.
Provost, Delaware State University
Jeffrey T. Benson, Jr.
President – One Direction Insurance – Benson Development Group, LLC
Susan Bunting
Delaware Secretary of Education
Heath Chasanov
Superintendent, Woodbridge School District
Ernest J. Dianastasis
CEO, The Precisionists, Inc.
Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Farley-Ripple, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Education and Public Policy in the School of Education and an Affiliate of the Institute for Public Administration at the University of Delaware
Dorrell Green
Director of Innovation and Improvement, Delaware Department of Education
Paul A. Herdman
President and CEO, Rodel Foundation of Delaware
Mark Holodick
Superintendent, Brandywine School District
Leslie Newman
Chief Executive Officer, Children & Families First of Delaware
Justina M. Sapna
Vice President for Academic Affairs at Delaware Technical Community College
Gary Stockbridge
President, Delmarva Power
Javier G. Torrijos
Chair, Delaware Hispanic Commission and Assistant Director of Construction at Delaware Department of Transportation
Margie López Waite
Head of School at Las Américas ASPIRA Academy
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