The Wilmington Education Improvement Commission has several committees, including one that focuses on children in poverty.
That group met for the first time on Monday afternoon in Wilmington. They discussed trauma-informed educational models, given the high rate of violent crime in the state’s largest city.
They discussed root causes of the achievement gap -- including racial disparities in hiring at the administrative level. Committee co-chair Chandlee Kuhn asked that the group take a closer look at The Neighborhood Schools Act, which has been credited with re-segregating schools.
Committee co-chair Michelle Taylor told the group she thinks of student success as a three legged stool. Those three legs are "what happens in the school, what happens in the community and what happens in the home," she said.
Taylor says she feels the first meeting was a good starting point.
"I think that it went extremely well. I think a lot of people came out, because this is an important topic. And we’ve had a lot of lively and important conversation and debate, which you would expect to have," she said.
The committee, which will meet for the next five years, hopes to release a time frame for developing a long term plan to address educating children in poverty in January of 2016.
Other committees, like the one tasked with creating a plan for redistricting schools in the Wilmington area, will have to present a plan to the State Board of Education by December of this year.
