While we are always looking toward the future and how we can bring the best education to Delaware, we are rooted in a history of innovation and collaboration, starting with the original Rodel, Inc. all the way to the present day.
Rodel, Inc. founded as a garage start-up in the home of William “Bill” Budinger. The firm produces specially surfaced rollers used to sweep dust and other bits off printing press plates. With a focus on constant innovation and an insistence on quality, the company grows to about 1,000 employees with plants in Delaware, Arizona, North Carolina, France, Germany, Japan, and Malaysia.
The Rodel Foundation is established as a support organization of the Delaware Community Foundation.
Rodel helps launch Social Venture Partners, a cooperative philanthropy model that engaged partners and investors around quality early childhood education programs and supports. The effort raised $1.5M over the years and led to bigger investments down the road.
Rodel founds Innovative Schools and the Delaware Charter Schools Network to inject innovative ideas into Delaware classrooms and boardrooms.
Rodel releases “Opportunity Knocks,” a report that provided an objective, data-driven assessment of the state of public education in Delaware relative to the rest of the nation.
The Delaware Business Roundtable Education Committee is convened in partnership with Rodel.
The Vision Coalition of Delaware is convened and formally launched by Rodel, and later releases Vision 2015, an influential 10-year roadmap for Delaware public schools. Around 75 percent of its recommendations were enacted.
Teach For America-Delaware is launched in partnership with a range of private and public sector partners, led by Rodel.
Rodel helps establish Schools that Lead.
Delaware earns $119 million in the federal Race to the Top grant competition, thanks in part to Rodel’s research and support.
Rodel partners with Teach For America-Delaware to bring Relay Graduate School of Education to Delaware.
Rodel supports the state in writing a winning entry for the federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge grant, which netted the state $49 million in funding to support early learning.
Rodel helps secure the nation’s first state-level partnership with Harvard’s Strategic Data Project.
Rodel unveils “Delaware Public Education At A Glance,” a snapshot of state-level data highlighting the latest trends in Delaware public education.
The first Rodel Teacher Council is convened to elevate the voices of teachers, represent the diversity of the teaching force in Delaware schools, provide a venue for teachers to weigh in on important issues affecting their work, and help set the course for the next generation of teaching and learning in Delaware. Their Blueprint for Personalized Learning in Delaware identifies state and local policy improvements that would enable personalized learning.
Thanks in part to funding from Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge grant, Rodel and other partners help forge the Delaware Readiness Teams, a statewide initiative of volunteer based teams that strengthens communities at a local level and help children from birth through age eight get ready for school and life.
Rodel works with public and private partners to broker a partnership with the national Pathways to Prosperity Network. That effort grows into Delaware Pathways, which today furnishes thousands of students with relevant career training, early college credits, and professional certifications.
The Vision Coalition of Delaware releases Student Success 2025, a collaborative plan that involves input from 4,000 Delawareans and aims to prepare students for an increasingly interconnected and complex world.
Rodel joins and supports the Education Equity Delaware coalition, a group of more than 30 community organizations advocating for a more equitable education funding system.
Rodel partners with Jobs for the Future and a range of supporters in the DBREC to produce one of the nation’s first landscape analyses of postsecondary supports, Supporting Postsecondary Success in Delaware: A Landscape Analysis of Student Opportunities.
Rodel, in partnership with the Delaware Hispanic Commission, the Arsht-Cannon Fund, and Delaware English Language Learners Teachers and Advocates, create a series of English learner fact sheets to raise the state’s overall knowledge of ELs, while drawing attention to the urgent need for Delaware to update its public school funding system, which puts EL students at a unique disadvantage.
Education First and Rodel release A Broader Vision of Student Success: Insights and Opportunities for Social and Emotional Learning in Delaware, one of the most comprehensive statewide landscape analysis studies of SEL in the country.