Why Should Delaware Care?
A state task force charged with reworking school district boundaries in Wilmington will vote on a redistricting plan next week — the latest in decades of such adjustments to Wilmington schools. The move, if adopted by lawmakers, will impact all four districts that currently serve Wilmington’s students.
Delaware officials’ years of discussions about where Wilmington kids should go to school are coming to a close next week.
And, with that, confusion about how upcoming redistricting plans may impact schools and communities has spilled into public forums and on social media.
Spotlight Delaware breaks down what you need to know about the group tasked with making the call, what the timeline looks like and how families may be impacted.
Who is the Redding Consortium?
The Redding Consortium for Educational Equity, as it is officially known, is a task force created by the Delaware state legislature in 2019 to study and recommend changes to the school districts that serve the city of Wilmington.
The body, which includes leaders from the affected Brandywine, Red Clay, Christina, Colonial and New Castle County Vo-Tech school districts, along with charter schools, parents, and teachers, was unanimously approved by both Democrats and Republicans in enabling legislation. The Redding Consortium is led by co-chairs, including State Senate Majority Whip Tizzy Lockman (D-Wilmington) and former Attorney General Matt Denn.
Legislators empowered the Redding Consortium and the Delaware State Board of Education to be able to redraw district boundaries for the four districts that serve Wilmington.
In a compromise, state legislators required that they too vote to affirm any final redistricting plan and that it be signed by the governor.
The redistricting plan does not need to be approved by the school boards of the individual districts.
What is happening now?
On Tuesday, Dec. 16, the Redding Consortium is likely to recommend to lawmakers that the Christina School District be removed from Delaware’s largest city.
While the district’s boundaries are centered around Newark, they also contain a noncontiguous island in downtown Wilmington and its adjacent neighborhoods. It is that island that officials from the Redding Consortium are likely to recommend removing from Christina’s jurisdiction.
The move would shift about 1,600 city students out of the district and into other nearby school districts. It would not impact kids in Kent or Sussex counties.
What are the redistricting options?
The Redding Consortium is currently considering three options.
1. Metropolitan Wilmington District
The first option is named the Metropolitan Wilmington District, which would combine the Brandywine and Red Clay Consolidated school districts, as well as all of the students in Wilmington, into one district.
This would remove concerns about educational equity between the two northern districts and ensure that city students receive the same education no matter where they live in the city.
It would dramatically reshape the education landscape in Wilmington’s northern suburbs though, creating new logistical challenges around leadership, staffing, and size. It would be by far the largest school district in the state with more than 20,000 students — more than twice the size of the current second largest district in the state.
Red Clay is the largest district in Delaware with more than 14,000 students.
2. Red Clay – Brandywine Split
A second option would divide Wilmington students between the Brandywine and Red Clay Consolidated school districts.
This approach is most similar to the current configuration, but pulls out the Christina and Colonial school districts.
The roughly 1,600 students would be divided between the districts in largely geographic terms, which would retain some concerns about educational equity depending on location.
3. Consolidated New Castle County
The third option would consolidate all four districts that serve Wilmington students — Brandywine, Red Clay Consolidated, Christina, and Colonial — into one large district.
It would be a seismic shake-up of Delaware’s educational landscape, making it politically risky, especially as Delaware enters an election year. Among the biggest questions in such a scenario would be who would lead it, how would school boards merge and what the tax rate would be.
But it would represent a chance to reduce the financial cost of education by reducing central office staff and directing more resources to the classroom,
In neighboring Maryland, each county operates its own singular school district. That model is also used in Florida, Nevada and West Virginia.
All of those states have much larger populations than Delaware’s roughly 1 million residents, yet the First State has 19 school districts.
Why is this being considered?
In 1968, Delaware’s 49 school districts were consolidated into 26. However, the laws excluded the Wilmington School District. Some community members believed it was to keep Black children out of “white” suburban schools. A group of city parents sued shortly after the act was passed, claiming the law led to segregated schools.
A federal court then found the state’s Educational Advancement Act to be unconstitutional in 1974, and New Castle County was ordered to desegregate its schools again.
In January 1978, Federal Judge Murray Schwartz issued a desegregation plan that affected nearly all students in Wilmington. It required kids in the city to be bused to suburban schools for nine years, while kids from the suburbs were bused into the city for three years.
Some students were forcibly bused more than an hour to school from their homes.
By 1981, Delaware created four districts within New Castle County: Red Clay, Brandywine, Colonial, and Christina. The goal was to assign a section of Wilmington to each district to enable equal access to high-quality teachers and resources for students.
By 2000, the desegregation order was lifted, and lawmakers passed the Neighborhood Schools Act. The act attempted to minimize transportation times for students by requiring districts to assign students to public schools closest to their homes. However, it did not account for housing segregation within New Castle County’s neighborhoods.
In 2019, the Redding Consortium for Educational Equity – named after the famed civil rights lawyer Louis L. Redding – replaced the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission to monitor the educational progress of students in Wilmington.
Today, Wilmington’s students are still bused into four school districts – Brandywine, Colonial, Christina, and Red Clay – that span from the Pennsylvania border down to the C&D Canal.
But for some Wilmington children enrolled in the Christina School District, their high school can be 15 miles away in Glasgow.
What happens after the December vote?
On Dec. 16, Redding Consortium members will vote on a redistricting recommendation to move forward with.
After the vote, subcommittees will meet to begin the redistricting draft. Those subcommittees will be tasked with looking at the fiscal impacts of the implementation and decisions of whether to start with younger or older students.
The draft created by the subcommittees will be shared in February with the full consortium and the public. That same month, the consortium may vote on their final redistricting plan, and submit it to the State Board of Education for approval.
According to the Redding Consortium’s timeline, the State Board of Education could review the plan anytime between March and May.
Even after approval, the Redding Consortium has proposed implementation to occur over a three-to-five-year schedule, allowing for classes of students to matriculate undisturbed for the next few years.
Get Involved
The Redding Consortium will meet to discuss and vote on its recommendation from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 16, at Delaware Tech – Orlando George Jr. Campus, West Building (West Conference Center – Second Floor), located at 300 N. Orange St. in Wilmington. The meeting can be viewed remotely here.
