Is Capacity Really The Issue In Red Clay?
Last week I wrote a post on the upcoming Red Clay Consolidated School District Capital Referendum. The ballot has been broken into two parts – renovations for existing schools and a new elementary school at Graves Road. I will not be voting for the new school, and here’s why…
The reason cited for the new school is overcrowding. The district also states that Choice is not the reason for overcrowding. I’m not convinced.
Let’s take a look at these 2011-2012 School Capacity numbers (info taken from RCCD power point presentation)
Schools Program….. Capacity 2011 Enrollment 2011 % Program Capacity
Baltz Elementary 600 532 88.7%
Brandywine Springs 990 1088 109.9%
Forest Oak Elementary 613 536 87.4%
Heritage Elementary 638 572 89.7%
Highlands Elementary1 356 367 103.1%
Lewis Elementary 645 475 73.6%
Linden Hill Elementary 710 822 115.8%
Marbrook Elementary 638 548 85.9%
Mote Elementary 578 555 96.0%
North Star Elementary 710 735 103.5%
Richardson Park 2 889 777 87.4%
Richey Elementary 516 402 77.9%
Shortlidge Elementary 572 311 54.4%
Warner Elementary 640 555 86.7%
Four schools are over capacity, but I’ll only focus on three since Highland’s overcrowding is not included in the referendum. These three overcrowded schools (Brandywine Springs, Linden Hill and North Star) are the reason Red Clay states they need a new school.
Those schools are overcrowded, but what about the other ten RCCD schools that are under capacity? Looks like Red Clay has capacity space… just not where they want it.
Moving onto Choice… Given the Neighborhood School’s Law I would assume that Feeder students trump Choice students. After all, you can only Choice into a school where space is available. Red Clay states that it closed Choice into these overcrowded schools in 2007.
Okay, let’s look at the number of Choice students (School Year 2011) in these overcrowded schools for this year.
School———– In-District Choice— Out of District Choice— Total Choice
Brandywine Springs 425 27 452
Linden Hill 95 35 130
North Star 116 7 123
Total number of Choice students at RCCD’s overcrowded schools: 705
Capacity of new school: 600
Number of empty seats at other Red Clay Schools: 1,055
I’m not seeing a capacity problem. 1,055 available seats does not justify a new school. What it should justify is the need to improve existing school programs.
On a final note… I believe this referendum will pass, in part because of where and when information meetings were scheduled.
1/25/11 – Board Workshop announcing initial plans – Linden Park
2/16/11 – Board meeting reviewing initial plans – Brandywine Springs
8/17/11 – Board meeting presentation – Warner
9/8/11 – Public Information Session – Linden Hill
10/10/11 – CFRC Meeting Information – Brandywine Springs
10/19/11 – Board meeting presentation – Brandywine Springs
1/12/12 – Board Workshop Referendum Update – Baltz Elementary
2/6/12 – Public Information Session – Shortlidge Academy (6:30)
2/15/12 – This Week In Red Clay –Referendum – Comcast Channel (12:30)
2/16/12 – Public Information Session – Highlands Elementary (6:30)
2/17/12 – This Week in Red Clay – Referendum – Comcast Channel (9:00)
From the opening announcement until today only one District meeting on the referendum was held in the city. At Warner. In August.
Tonight there’s a meeting at Shortlidge; next week at Highlands. I have a conflict, but am going to try and make tonight’s meeting. I should be able to attend the one at Highlands. Not that I think it will make any difference. All that’s left for anyone with concerns is to vote “No” on the new school on February 28th. At this point, the only way to reopen discussions is for the referendum to fail. Sad.
Tags: Education
Great job boiling down the number of available seats at existing schools, Pandora! 1,055!!! Wow – thanks for making it so clear.
This is very good, P.
One, highlighting the shenanigans Red Clay seems to be engaged in, trying to hide some of what they are doing from City residents.
Two, I’m interested in the question of capacity. Mike Matthews was here a week or so ago noting that the schools that look undercapacity are using all of their space. Is space usage the criteria for capacity? Because it seems to me that Red Clay isn’t doing a good job in determining capacity of its schools. 1000 empty seats at existing schools still leaves plenty of seats open, and space for kids. In theory.
But there is no reason for city residents to vote for this new school, as it looks like they will just be further undermining schools in the city.
Red Clay’s capacity numbers are ever changing. I used RCCD’s power point presentation for school year 2011. But… check out this article from the Community Pub based on 2010-2011 school year.
In 2010-2011 Warner’s capacity was listed at 1,000, now it’s 640. Perhaps the capacity was lowered due to accommodate additional programs? But…
I have based my numbers above on the District’s 2012 referendum power-point presentation – which should reflect the programs Mike Matthews referenced. I still come up with space.
There’s something else interesting in the Red Clay PowerPoint presentation. They don’t call it “school” capacity; they call it “Program Capacity” which means… what?
To me, Program Capacity implies that the school could potentially serve more students if the program were changed. I guess the devil is in the details on that. Does the nature of the current program somehow make the “program capacity” less than the “school capacity?” Do some schools contain sub-programs that, if moved elsewhere, would increase the school capacity?
Also, as far as I know the optimum capacity for a school is something less than 100%. The Red Clay presentation claims optimum is 85%. In other words, it is time to think about increasing capacity (or moving students) BEFORE capacity reaches 100%. Somewhere north of 85%, crowding apparently begins to affect students.
And it occurs to me – If we somehow did get a significant increase in teachers and reduction in class size – where would we put them all? I guess I would happily vote for building new schools on that promise.
School capacity (sometimes called Design capacity) is the number of students the school was designed to hold. Program capacity can differ from design/school capacity depending on what is housed in the school. RCCD moved offices into Baltz which lowered it’s program capacity since the offices took up space. Hopefully, that makes sense.
That’s what I figured, but then I’d like to see the school capacities, along with any programming decisions that may have affected them.
I would like to see capacity formulas looked at here.
For instance, my school, Richardson Park, is actually two schools. Richardson Park Elementary and Richardson Park Learning Center. Our enrollment (Elementary) went up by about 50 kids this year. I believe we were the highest jump among Red Clay elementary schools. We like when families want to choice to us! 🙂
That being said, it says our school is 87% filled. Come to our school. There is no room. Our support staffers (guidance, family crisis therapist, speech therapist, educational diagnostician, mentor coordinator) either share extremely tiny offices or don’t have an office/room at all. Why is this? Because our children have NEEDS that require space outside of this standard capacity calculation. The Richardson Park Learning Center has classes that are usually no more than 10 students per class.
I would be interested in having a discussion with this District on these formulas. Regarding Warner and why their capacity numbers went down: I really should know this and am ashamed I don’t, but isn’t there ANOTHER school in Warner Elementary? An alternative behavior academy?? That could be why their capacity decreased so dramatically.
Very good post, Pandora. I’m going to try and make tonight’s meeting. Send me a message on Gmail or Facebook if you’d plan on going and I’ll definitely make it!
Thanks for doing such a great job with this Pandora. Much needed analysis.
I will bring up these points to the Red Clay School District – they are sending reps to speak at the Feb. 20th monthly meeting of the Civic League for NCC (at 8pm at State Police Troop 2 –Paris Community Roon- in Bear).
( FYI – Sec. Bhatt is speaking at 7pm on the 20th and we are hosting Sec. Lowery in April)
Can’t speak to any of your numbers–but MM is on the right truth about building capacity, and program capacity. The building capacity refers to standard classroom size w/ dimensions that hold seated students at desks in a traditional classroom. That number is diminished to the more “real” number of program capacity–does your school house DFP programs, or alternative programs that are intended to be less students to a room for instructional needs/equipment? That space gets sucked up from design/building capacity to the program capacity number.
And on a disheartening note–your district wouldn’t even be going to a building referendum, if the state didn’t already sign off on the site location, and needs capacity. If you truly have that many vacant seats, you would hopefully be tasked w/ redrawing your feeder patterns, than coughing up a new building–especially in these budget strapped times. Interesting. Good Luck.
Hey Joanne!
My numbers (the 1,055 empty seats) are based on Red Clay’s program capacity numbers as stated in their Referendum PowerPoint presentation. So… I would think that the programs MM referenced would be included in these numbers?
What needs to change at the state level is this: when a district sites overcrowding and submits the enrollment numbers at each schools, those numbers should be broken down into feeder students enrolled and choice students enrolled. As of now, the district seems to only have to report “actual” students in the building.
WOW–all I can say, is it blows my mind, that w/ the exception of district employee’s children–how you can defend keeping choice at high levels AND ask for a new building.
Consider this as well… All of this started with the opening of Brandywine Springs – a school whose existence was voted down in two (maybe three?) capital referendums. And yet, it exists.
The capacity numbers game is very convoluted. Some schools house pre-K, but that is not included in the capacity numbers according to Delaware Dept of Ed rules.
Also, the high poverty schools keep the student teacher ratio around 14:1, but capacity is calculated at 24:1 under the “formula”. These schools also have “School Community Centers” which house counselors and nurses and other serices. The centers are not accounted for in the capacity numbers.
The myriad of capacity formulas and numbers and things not reported in the numbers presented make it almost impossible for the public to make an informed decision.
Based on what I am seeing in the information put out by Red Clay and the information I see that has been researched and shared on this blog it seems the district can play all kinds of games to get the “certificate of need”.
It really shouldn’t be this hard to separate fact from fiction when you are trying to do what is best to offer all of our students a fair chance at education.
That’s crazy. Program capacity is different from design capacity because of the various programs (pre-k, school community centers, offices, etc.) taking up space in the school. Why even have a “program” capacity numbers if you aren’t counting, ya know, programs? Why not just design numbers? At least design numbers are concrete.
And keep in mind, several years ago Red Clay was telling everyone that Warner was under capacity (which I believe was about the same enrollment as today) and that’s why they wanted to put Prestige Charter school in the building. Hey, plenty of empty space then… but not now.
Seems like Red Clay uses capacity figures for whatever suits their purpose at the moment.
“All of this started with the opening of Brandywine Springs – a school whose existence was voted down in two (maybe three?) capital referendums. And yet, it exists.”
It was voted down twice and Red Clay got “creative” in funding. The sold their district office located on Washington Street and some how secured other funding?? The move in the annex build at Brandywine Springs and then once parents demanded K-8 vs K-5 Red Clay went into a multi-year least at Linden Park like $700,000 a year? And that don’t count $$$$$$ spent on renovations and Bob’s new Cherry Veneer Furniture. So we’re talking a couple of million. Pressure from the public forced Red Clay to give up the Linden Park tower of power. They found someone to sublease it. District offices are at Baltz now and that stop Baltz from going to K-8.
RE; Prestige may have been the one re: Warner. Many forget Red Clay did approve Prestige’s charter for another location but at the time the lawn did not permit single gender schools. Law was changed and DEDOE took over Prestige.
They screw with the numbers in efforts to justify building new schools. And again, the new dual language charter school a few blocks from Lewis will be approved. 600 seats and Lewis’s program will go down freeing even more seats in Red Clay.
I may vote for part one, repairs and upgrades for existing schools but a definite no for a new school. We have 10 more years on the last referendum bond from 2003 and will be 20 years for this round. But like I said, I might bent on the first question.
Does anyone know why Brandywine Springs is k-8 and all of the rest of the elementary schools are k-5 and not elementary+middle schools? It seems that removing 3 grades of middle school students 990/9 = abt. 330 and sending those kids to middle school, like all of the other kids in the district, would open up 330 elementary seats. Maybe we need another middle school?
Kilroy, I bet you know, but your site is so full of information my brain is full.
@19802–
BSS is K-8 for 2 reasons.
1. They had the capacity to add grades when they expanded.
2. Buzzy Cooke built that school from the day it reopened. Parents & students loved him & wanted to remain under his guidance for as long as possible.
Mr. Cooke has since retired. Parents, and especially students, feel less “warm and fuzzy” about BSS since Cooke’s departure.
Um… they didn’t really have the designated space when it opened. In fact, one of the reasons RCCD administration/board gave for going against referendum voters wishes to not open Brandywine Springs (still unsure how they got Brandywine Springs without capital referendum approval) was that it would house District offices, thereby saving money.
So… in order for Brandywine Springs to go K-8 district offices were moved out. What I’m saying is that BSS wasn’t presented to the public as a K-8 school. That may have been the plan, but it wasn’t shared across the district.
BSS was K-5 when it reopened & it housed district offices at the time. Are you saying the Red Clay administration was less than honest about their intentions when they reopened the school? I wouldn’t argue w/ that.
TNJ reports if the referendum isn’t passed they may need to redraw feeder patterns? Are you kidding me? Red Clay would rather build a school than redraw feeder patterns? This wasn’t done first in the economic scrutiny? Glad you folks in Red Clay have money to throw around, before heaven forbid you have to redraw a feeder pattern. If that’s the case, then why should the state be on the hook (an ultimately the rest of us taxpayers, having no business in Red Clay) for a new school, when Red Clay doesn’t want to redraw feeder patterns to maximize utilization? Appo. seems to have to redraw feeder patterns every 3-5 years–it’s not welcome, but it’s the responsible thing to do.
JC – “redraw feeder patterns” is coded language for “your kids will have to go to the city (with black kids)”
Does it make more sense now?
No light bulb needed here. But you don’t think perception is the enemy in every redraw? I’m just saying we have it here too, but the lines were redrawn and back to school we all went. Before ANY consideration of asking folks to fund a building.
I don’t know what their intentions were, anon40. I only know that BSS was initially promoted as an all-choice, K-5 elementary school and that district offices would be housed there.
Joanne, you and other school districts better hope the state doesn’t give all its money to Red Clay! 😉
I love it when LG spells it out clearly! Thank you!
JC – We in Appo have it relatively easier. There are no urban schools. The “stigma” of busing his from Townsend to Odessa or Middletown is nothing compared to Hockessin to Wilmington.
it has nothing to do with busing and going to school with ‘black kids’. It has to do with keeping your kids in a school closer to their home. My oldest was bussed to the city, an plus ride everyday. He left the house at 630 at the age of 10. That is too early for a kid of that age, Then he arrived home at 4. I saw a lack of interest, demonstrated by the amount of city parents at the school for various academic functions. And the school was packed with suburbian parents. But sporting events were just the opposite.Just speaking from what i saw. No racial tones here, unless you imply them.
Bullshit. Pure and simple.
I was a 9 year old bused in to Wilmington in the second year of deseg. I did just fine, thankyouverymuch.
If they sent the kids to Greenville instead of downtown, no one would make a peep.
what about community, local support for the city schools? how will busing them to the suburbs, which they do now, help them?
my son did just fine too, but why do they have to bus them. Why dont they bus your kids and hour and pass other schools in your school district.
Thats not the issue here. It is that you want your kids to go to a school closer to their home. And btw greenville is closer than wilmington.
Besides AI HS does pretty well on the test and is closed to choice, and has kids from the city going there. Just that as the years go buy, unfortunatly more of the kids from teh city drop out each year. Is that the schools fault or that of the parents and local commmunity?
“Is that the schools fault or that of the parents and local community”
Yes.
so ben how do we get the parents and local community more involved? why all the ownership on the schools?
WC, you asked “is it the schools or the parents?”… i said yes… as in, it is not a matter of OR, but a matter of AND. Parents DEFINITELY deserve blame for the sorry state of schools. I was rasied by teachers, im marrying a teacher and at one point aspired to be a teacher. Parents (for the most part… definitely NOT any parents here, especially the Pandora household 🙂 send their kids to school as if off to day care. they expect the schools to give THEIR child 100% of the attention and dont take any responsibility for at home follow up or try to keep track.
They then go in and blame the teachers for their child failing…. if the first time you see your kid’s performance is on a report card, you deserve that F more than they do.
Schools, st least from an administrative standpoint, must stand behind their teachers and their methods. This also means being able to determine and get rid of bad teachers… it is an important job, if you arent good at it….. and i mean this with all the pro-union upbringing imaginable… you should not be able to hide behind tenure and unions. it’s something that has to change in order to make the whole thing stronger. the mission of teachers is more important than an individual educator’s job if they suck at it.
finally community….. if you have ever voted NO on a referendum to raise your taxes by .01% so 5 school jobs could be saved, you are a part of the problem and have absolutely no right to complain. you have chosen not to do your part and have chosen to help destroy our education system. Every day people (parents included somewhat) shouldn’t have the power to decide what and how is taught. they didnt go to school for 4 years to learn how to be an educator. they are unqualified and only muddle things up. Pay your taxes, let the school do it’s job
ben I agree with you. The one last poinit i would have to say is that the parents and community should be held more accountable. I ahve been to board meetings where I hear parents get up and say that the board let the kids down, bull shit. The parents did. They are the ones who should ensure that the kids so thier homework, that they show respect when in class. The teachers are not parents and vice versa. It is a partnership that only works when all involved work together. I know my kids grade dip when I m not involved as much as i should be, but shit happens.
Also we should be able to get rid of the bad teachers easier. Agreed.
The taxes that we pay here in DE are very low. And besides Coon doubled our property (not school tax) to balance the budget and people dont bitch about that do they?
So get parents more involved and let the kids go locally to their schools.
my only issue with going to your local school is segregation. Wilmington is still far too segregated by neighborhood (thanks red lining) for that to be doable.
WC – do you not see that if you live in a depressed area, the advantages of neighborhood schools are diminished? If your neighborhood has 75% poverty, your school has 75% poverty (maybe more). As a result, teachers will tend to prefer to work in suburbia due to no wage tax, better parking, fewer barriers to success. Yes, some brave teachers will happily go to work in the city, but overall, the balance will be thrown off.
What we will end up with is what we see, a resegregation of our schools.
Perhaps your kid will better off, but a whole swath of children (inordinately minority and poor) will be robbed of a quality education.
Perhaps everyone needs to look in the mirror. Cassandra sent me this about a month ago. Here’s a bit of it:
Ben the school system isn’t doing the job. EVERY middle school in the district is on Academic Watch (Red Clay website) as are several elementary schools. But somehow all the High Schools except Conrad are rated Superior. There is a disconnect there.
As far as going to school locally, with the exception of Elementary School, if you live in the city you are very likely to NOT attend the closest Middle or High School.
but why do they have to pay more in taxes? So higher taxes hurt the city?
And why dont they feel safe? Is it because of the kids? I surely hope not. Is it because the area is depressed and in poverty? Why would crime be higher here?
Are you saying higher poverty leads to higher crime to schools that are worse off?
Are you also saying that minorities are in a greater number in poverty than than whites?
Pandora I agree with you it is “In the end, its on us”, so I am involved, how can we get the rest of the ‘us’ involved?
Oh, and what LG said. 🙂
If we don’t understand poverty, and what it does to schools, children, parents and communities we will never solve this problem.
If we don’t understand that not everyone owns a car, that everyone doesn’t have a 9-5 job that affords them the flexibility to volunteer at a book fair, that some people have more than one job, etc… then nothing will improve.
Pandora, I agree, not everyone may have a car. so then when the kids go to the schools not nearest their home, doesnt that impact them?
I and my wife both worked 50 some hours a week and an hour from home when one of our kids was in school. I also worked a second job for anotehr 20 hours a week. We struggled, but we were fortunate enough and lucky enough to make it. But we were involved in our kids education,
but you cant tell me that everyone that is in poverty, cant be involved in their kids education? How do we get more parents involved?
We can start by looking beyond our own school. I do not want suburban schools to be hurt. I want to make all schools great schools.
When I was researching today, I had no idea Red Clay had so many schools on academic watch. How did this happen? And what can we do about it?
Let me spell it out for you sport…
The teachers pay higher taxes in the city because of city wage tax. So the take home pay of teachers in the city is lower.
There isn’t usually a vast parcel of land for a parking lot. When I attended Bayard, I don’t believe there was anything except street parking in the residential area. Yet when I taught in the suburbs, there was always more than ample parking for staff and faculty in an easy to observe lot.
I never said a word about safety. I said that there are higher barriers to success, like hunger, lack of parental involvement, lack of materials at home, a lack of books at home and frequent absences, just to name a few.
so city wage tax hurts the education sytem- give the teachers a break on the taxes like the city does for businesses that they want to move their.
and then you agree with me that parental involvement is an issue. And materials at home should not impact how they do in school. I dont see where this should be an issue, and if it it, lets help the parents that want to get involved.
The frequent absences- thats the parents issue again lack of parental involvement.
and if not safety, then why would the “faculty in an easy to observe lot”, why?
There are a lot of specifics in the District Success Plans.
Go to that link, download the full Red Clay plan, and look at Red Clay’s answers to Goal 4: Accelerate achievement and improve outcomes for all students with deep support for the lowest-achieving schools (p. 80). It is rather unimpressive, consisting of a lot of administrative hiring, with some sections oddly crossed out.
Let’s find out who writes those plans, and get on that committee.
No one is saying that parental involvement isn’t an issue, but you keep acting like it’s the only issue. And yet I’d bet that not every parent is involved in their kids suburban school education, and that most of those kids are doing just fine. I’d also bet is it’s usually the same people at events, meetings, etc. Such is life.
And your safety comments confuse me. Have you been to RCCD city schools?
Count me in for that committee!
I suspect absences are probably attributable to healthcare access. Plus there are situations that we suburbanites don’t get, like staying home with a sick sibling because Mom can’t take a day off of work without getting fired. It isn’t a simple problem and the solution is probably as varied as the number of students.
pandora I mentioned saftey because LG mentioned “brave teachers”. I am sorry if i assumed he meant brave because of safety. Not sure what else he could have meant.
I have been to many RCCD schools and often at least one a week. So why would there be a safety issue? Not sure and dont think there is a corrulation between poorer schools, city/suburbs, poverty and safety? Your thoughts?
so if it is the same people, why cant we get more people- its there kids
It takes a brave teacher to work for less pay with harder students in an environment where your school it under continuous assault for under-performing. Most teachers would opt for the easier route of a suburban school.
so teaching suburbian kids is easier than city? and again the quesiton is why? same money, same teachers union, same district, what is different? Yes poverty, but does that mean that parents and community cant be involved?
I will give money to help with books and supplies at home. Kids get meals from the government (before, lunch and after school)
so you still havent answered why is there less parental involvement?
Yes, actually we did answer that question. You just don’t accept the answer.
And here’s a news flash: There are parents and community members involved at these schools. There may not be as many, but most have sacrificed more than you and me to be involved. Yes, yes… you and your wife drove 50 miles, uphill, both ways in the snow to work and still raised Rhodes Scholars. 😉
And teaching high poverty children in high poverty schools is more challenging.
Why is there less community involvement? Dad may be incarcerated or perhaps mom is. Or Mom works nights at minimum wage, shares a small home with an extended family. Maybe there is No mom or dad but a grandmom or an elderly great grand mom. That free food is nice if the kid can get there to receive it. You have no concept of the challenges a poor kid in the city faces if he has some support. If his mom is a junkie and his dad’s in Gander Hill a dedicated teacher is the child’s only shot.