May 11, 2016
Delaware
Cape Gazette
Tyndall, Hanwell elected to Cape school board
Cape Henlopen School District voters elected newcomer Jessica Tyndall of Milton and former Cape Assistant Superintendent Janis Hanwell of Lewes May 10 to fill two open seats on the school board. Tyndall won the area A seat over Teresa (Terri) Carey by a vote of 853 to 715. She will serve the remaining two years on the term of Noble Prettyman, who held the seat until his death in 2015. With 669 votes, Hanwell was elected to the at-large seat left open when board member Spencer Brittingham decided not to run for re-election.
Delaware State News
DSU joins program for immigrant students
Tracing back to its roots of serving those without access to higher education, Delaware State University announced Tuesday a partnership with TheDream.US to make a college diploma an attainable goal for children of illegal immigrants. “There was a time in this country where African-Americans didn’t have the privilege to enroll at historically white institutions but the state felt it was important that those who had been denied access should have the opportunity to move into the middle class, and that’s what an education will do for you,” said DSU President Harry L. Williams.
Kent County school board members elected
Kent Countians in three school districts elected new board members Tuesday. In Capital, Caesar Rodney and Lake Forest three candidates were running for one at-large, five-year term in each district. Chanda Jackson of Dover won the Capital seat with 38.62 percent of the vote. She received 190 votes. Andres R. Ortiz received 183 votes and Kevin Ohlandt 119 votes. Both are of Dover.
Delaware 105.9
Voters in Cape Henlopen School District concerned over crowded classrooms; Hope for redistricting
Sussex County voters had varying reasons behind their votes in the school board election. Voters from Cape Henlopen School District showed up in droves, ready to vote on who they think is best to make some major changes to the education system. Voters at Cape Henlopen High School were concerned about crowded classrooms, with hope for redistricting.
Appoquinimink School District updates suicide prevention measures
Suicide prevention measures in Appoquinimink are being updated. Appoquinimink will have a new suicide prevention measure in schools next year. Assistant to the Superintendent Kittie Rehrig explained the new wrinkle to Appoquinimink’s already-in-place procedures. “The newest thing with this new Delaware law is the 90-minutes of training for staff.
Newark Post
Paige narrowly re-elected to Christina school board
Elizabeth Paige was elected to her first full term on the Christina School District Board of Education on Tuesday night, edging out challenger Desiree Brady by 21 votes. Paige, a social media and marketing consultant for W.L. Gore and Associates, earned 429 votes to win the District F seat while Brady, a Boys & Girls Club staff member, fell just short with 408 votes. In Tuesday night’s other election, former CSD principal Meg Mason ran unopposed for the District B seat after incumbent David Resler withdrew his candidacy for a third term.
Newsworks
Delaware State opens doors to ‘locked-out’ undocumented students
Delaware State University announced Tuesday it will be one of two colleges to enroll undocumented students through a novel, privately-financed scholarship program. The scholarship, offered by a non-profit organization called TheDream.US, is available to students who live in states that either don’t allow undocumented immigrants to enroll in state schools or require undocumented students to pay out-of-state tuition.
Rodel Blog
May 2016 Teacher Newsletter: Take action!
The Rodel Teacher Newsletter is a resource for Delaware’s teachers to learn about teacher leadership opportunities across the state, nation, and world.
Sussex County Post
Incumbents, challengers school board winners
Votes are in and winners in Tuesday’s school board races in Sussex County districts included incumbents and newcomers. Unofficial tabulations from the Sussex County Department of Elections show current board member John Barr retained his Woodbridge board of education seat, topping Alberta Smith by a 453-230 count. In Laurel’s race, Shane McCarty drew 516 votes to top incumbent Patrick Vanderslice (294) and challenger John Bowden (115).
The News Journal
Low voter turnout keeps school boards static
School board incumbents across Delaware kept their seats on Tuesday as most of the elections weren’t contested. Turnout all over the state was low – the highest voter turnout barely topped 1,500 in Cape Henlopen and some districts were as low as a few hundred, according to unofficial results from the boards of election in each county. In New Castle County, the only district that had an election was Christina, where incumbent board member Elizabeth Paige kept her seat representing the Bear area of the Christina School District – she had been challenged by Desiree Brady.
DSU among first to take DREAM scholars
Delaware State University will be one of the first colleges in the country to take on the children of undocumented workers who are locked out of higher education in their home states. The university has partnered with TheDream.US, a privately endowed scholarship fund launched in 2013 after President Barack Obama’s executive action allowed for the children of undocumented workers to stay in the country legally and access privileges like drivers’ licenses and working papers.
National
Forbes
If you want to improve education, you need to unscale it
Education reform needs a new strategy that takes advantage of the forces that allow startup companies like Warby Parker or Airbnb to inject new life into old industries. It’s an approach that is, in many ways, the complete opposite of what’s been tried over for decades. Let me tell you about the forces of unscaling. For more than 100 years, businesses and institutions have sought scale.
NPR
Fact check: Did Hillary Clinton introduce a new approach to early education?
This week Hillary Clinton was in Virginia to talk about women, family and workplace issues. She met at the Mug’n Muffin coffee shop with local participants in a program called Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters. In HIPPY, as it’s called, parents receive free books, educational materials and weekly home visits to coach them on how to get their young children ready for school — for example, by reading to them daily.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Bill to end seniority in teacher layoffs heads to Wolf
Republicans who control the state legislature have pushed through a hotly contested bill to allow public schools to circumvent seniority when laying off teachers. The bill passed the Senate by a 26-22 vote Monday that fell largely along party lines. It now goes to Gov. Wolf, a Democrat, who pledged to veto it. Through a spokesman, he said the state’s focus should not be on mass layoffs but rather on “how to invest in our schools, which already have the tools to evaluate underperforming teachers.
The Washington Post
The problem that school choice has not solved
A child’s access to a decent education shouldn’t be limited by his Zip code. That mantra has helped drive the school choice movement during the past two decades, pushing a growing number of cities to embrace policies that allow children from poor families to escape troubled neighborhood schools and enroll elsewhere. But has it worked? Has school choice been able to interrupt the strong link between home environments and academic success? Not yet, according to a new analysis of New York City high school graduation rates.
U.S. Department of Education
U.S. Department of Education launches $65 Million grant competition for creating, expanding high-quality public charter schools
The U.S. Department of Education today announced a competition to award $65 million in grants to as many as 20 Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) across the country to create and expand charter schools that support students from underserved communities. Since the inception of the Charter Schools Program (CSP), the Department has awarded over $3 billion to schools across the country to provide students equitable educational opportunities.