A committee focused on redistricting Wilmington schools as part of the Wilmington Educational Improvement Commission (WEIC), now has a plan that it will submit to the state Board of Education before the end of the year.
If you ask Dan Rich, WEIC’s policy advisor, about the current school district situation in Wilmington, he’ll give you a metaphor.
"The arrangement that we have now, this sort of crazy, quilt arrangement which I have said, if you look at the partition of Wilmington, the only equivalent I can think of in history is the partition of Berlin in WWII, and we did take down the Berlin Wall," he said.
His subcommittee has created a draft of a plan that they say will simplify things by sending most city kids to Red Clay schools. It lays out redistricting as a multi-year process -- kids wouldn’t even start changing school districts until 2018.
And under the plan, it will be up to the Governor, General Assembly, and school districts to allocate the money needed to support the redistricting transition. They’ll also need to provide support for schools with high concentrations of low-income students and English language learners.
Each school district will have to follow their own, more detailed plan, but the redistricting committee will oversee it.
Rich adds Red Clay residents won’t be taking on any undue burden, even though their district will take on most of the students from other districts.
Of late, there have been detractors of WEIC’s redistricting efforts, including State Senator Greg Lavelle (R-Sharpley). The Senate Minority Whip said last week that redistricting has gotten out of control.
"I understand, they may have concerns and apprehensions, but the plan is now out there," said Rich. "They should review it on its merits. What we need to avoid is deferral."
Rich says deferral has been the status quo because officials refused to act on redistricting. He says the city and the state simply can’t wait any longer.
We’re in the arrangements we’re in right now in Wilmington because we’ve generally had a 40 to 60 year abdication of any public decisions," said Rich.
The subcommittee will be soliciting public comment on its draft in the coming weeks.
