Photo Courtesy of Mike Matthews.
Today in Dover, the State Board of Education voted down the WEIC plan. Then attached an amendment regarding the Christina School District plan for its priority schools, changed the word “shall” to “may” in the statement about the state providing funding for any redistricting activity, voted again and passed the WEIC plan as amended.
If you’re like me, you know the law states the State Board of Education must vote yea or nay on WEIC as a whole package, as it is submitted by the Commission. No amendments, no language changes, just a straight yes or no, and they had to vote. If you’re like me, you may also remember that in January the State Board decided to not vote at all on the plan, as they were legally required to do, and handed it back to Tony Allen with their reasoning for not supporting it. Remember that part about having to vote? Pepperidge Farm Remembers.
Fast forward to today. The revised plan is brought up for a vote, and the vote fails to pass. After some sketchy off-the-record conversations with the State Board’s counsel, the funding language was altered, and the Christina priority schools plan was attached as an amendment. Remember the part about voting on the entire WEIC package as a whole and being unable to modify it? Pepperidge Farm remembers that too. In any case, the vote on WEIC as amended passed.
Follow with me on this. The State Board changed the funding language from “The State shall provide funding”, to “The State may provide funding.” Remember when it was decided no funding = no redistricting? Pepperidge Far- wait! I’m not done. The WEIC plan called for the Red Clay Consolidated School District to absorb all city schools, right? Christina School District’s Priority Schools plan calls for re-working how three of Christina city schools operate. We’re moving all city schools to Red Clay, but we’re also letting Christina work on their priority schools? HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?
If you ask me, and I’m only going on second hand information, this was the State Board of Education voting WEIC down without actually voting “No”. They yanked funding and attached a plan that directly competes with it as an amendment. You know, just once I’d like to see the State Board of Education actually respect the needs of our school students in the City of Wilmington. A no vote would have been more respectful than what they did today.