Wilmington Learning Collaborative: Reimagining Education in Delaware's Largest City
The Wilmington Learning Collaborative (WLC) represents a significant effort to reimagine and restructure public schools in Delaware's largest city. Stemming from extensive engagement with Wilmington’s families, educators, students, and community members, the WLC aims to establish a consistent learning experience for students while simultaneously fostering the empowerment of educators, school leaders, and communities. The WLC is a voluntary network of schools in Wilmington across multiple school districts (Brandywine, Christina, Red Clay). The WLC's goal is to improve outcomes for students by empowering educators, school leaders, and communities.
Genesis and Structure
After two years of building support and six months of meetings and negotiations among three school districts, the governor’s office, and the State Department of Education, the Wilmington Learning Collaborative (WLC) is almost ready to begin its task of reimagining and restructuring public schools in Delaware’s largest city. Gov. John Carney, after the school boards of the Christina, Brandywine, and Red Clay districts approved the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will serve as the WLC working agreement, said, “Now the hard work begins”.
The structure of the WLC involves a 12-member governing council, which oversees the executive director and a small administrative staff. The management team is responsible for the oversight of schools participating in the collaborative. The districts would hold the collaborative accountable for its work. Also, the districts would retain responsibility for numerous functions at collaborative schools, including food service, maintenance, technology and transportation.
Secretary of Education Mark Holodick has primary responsibility for assembling the governing council and doing so “in a timely and very thoughtful manner.” The next steps are filling out the WLC’s 12-member council - six seats are already assigned to three district superintendents and school board members who represent portions of the city - and hiring an executive director and staff to begin planning curriculum revisions and staffing/management changes that would take effect at the start of the 2023-24 school year.
The remaining seats include a parent or guardian from each of the three districts, to be chosen by their superintendent and board member; a former city educator to be chosen by Holodick; an appointee named by the Wilmington mayor and approved by the City Council; and a high school senior, to be chosen by other members of the governing council.
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Participating Schools
At the start, nine schools in Wilmington will participate in the collaborative: Harlan Elementary (Brandywine); Bayard, Bancroft, Pulaski and Stubbs Early Education Center (Christina); and Shortlidge, Warner, Joseph E. Johnson (formerly Highlands) and Lewis Dual Language (Red Clay). The Brandywine and Red Clay schools serve elementary grades. Bayard and Bancroft serve grades 1-8. Stubbs enrolls pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students and Pulaski is expected to open a similar program next fall.
Schools may be added to or removed from the collaborative later, but a process for doing so has not been determined. Districts may add individual schools to this agreement by a process determined by the districts and the WLC collaboratively. A district may also remove individual schools from the WLC if both the district and the WLC Council agree to such removal.
Key Components of the Collaborative
Each school will have an educator leader team (ELT), comprised of teachers and support staff, that would work with the principal on key school-based decisions. Each school will also have a community council, comprised of parents, educators, community stakeholders and students, that would help develop school plans, strengthen family engagement and give advice and feedback on school plans and programs. Each school would develop its own plan for programming and improvement and submit it to the WLC council for approval.
School plans could include changes in curriculum and teaching methods from what is used in other district schools. In addition, there could be changes in school calendars and hours, additions in before- and after-school programming, as well as wraparound services to meet the mental and physical health needs of students and their families.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
The 20-page MOU lays out a framework for restructuring that emphasizes school-based decision-making with strong input from teachers and community members. The MOU starts with a page summarizing problems that have plagued Wilmington schools for decades and a page listing approaches packaged as potential solutions.
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Also, the first page of the MOU, which is devoted to listing major education issues in Wilmington, cites the lack of early education opportunities in the city, but the rest of the document does not mention pre-kindergarten programming.
Needs Assessment and Planning
One of the first challenges for the collaborative will be conducting what the MOU labels an “open and honest needs assessment.” By March 31, the WLC council and participating districts will have to complete a written agreement describing plans for improving student outcomes.
The idea behind the needs assessment, he said, is to document what’s working - and what isn’t - in each school, covering areas like academics, social-emotional learning, climate, and extra-time programs.
By calling for an “open and honest” assessment, Bohm said the MOU opens the door to discussing topics that some educators and politicians have tried to avoid, items like structural racism, segregation, the sharp differences in test scores between city and suburban schools, and “how racism and classism impact our schools.” Some of the conversations may prove uncomfortable, she said, especially for the superintendents on the WLC council. “We’re looking for inside information from people within the system - the concerns and experiences of parents, teachers, and administrators.
Addressing Collateral Issues
Some of the issues the collaborative will have to address are not associated with the elementary grade levels who will comprise the bulk of the enrollment at participating schools.
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For example, there are few opportunities for city students, especially those in the Red Clay district, to attend traditional middle schools in the city. Only Bancroft and Bayard in Christina and P.S. du Pont in Brandywine offer grades 6-8.
According to the MOU, the collaborative and the districts are supposed to work together to inform city residents attending suburban middle schools of options for enrolling at schools in the city. While the MOU doesn’t say so specifically, this suggests an attempt to encourage more of those students to enroll at Bayard, Bancroft or P.S. du Pont, or, at the very least, helping them find schools closer to their homes than the ones they now attend.
The MOU’s language about high school students is more specific. It talks about using space at Howard High School in Wilmington, part of the New Castle County Vocational-Technical School District, and beginning conversations about creating more high school options in the city. Those conversations could rekindle discussions about building a new high school in Wilmington, something Tucker said is “long overdue.”
Another concern involves city children who are enrolled at schools in the suburbs, either through the choice program or, in Brandywine’s case, through attendance zones established many years ago. It is anticipated that children at schools in the collaborative will have access to new services - before and after school programming, summer programs, health and social services, for example - that would not be available to city students attending suburban schools. The MOU asks the collaborative to see how to provide these services to city children who attend schools in the suburbs.
Recent Initiatives and Progress
Since its launch, the Wilmington Learning Collaborative has established a foundation rooted in careful planning, meaningful partnerships, and evidence-based strategies. In April, the WLC hosted its first Connected Communities event-the first in a series of open conversations to gather input from our community. The WLC is focused on establishing a culture of learning centered on a shared belief that all children can achieve. The WLC aims to build connections and strengthen communication across schools through shared resourcing and responsibility. The WLC will develop partnerships that build capacity, ensuring consistent resources, access to personnel, and information across all WLC schools.
With the Three Big Shifts guiding our work, the Wilmington Learning Collaborative has been making strides with new programs and initiatives being implemented at our WLC schools and within our community. These include:
- Community Councils: The WLC has been working closely with Children & Families First, establishing Community Councils at each school.
- The Chill Project: In partnership with Allegheny Health Network (AHN), the WLC is piloting a new behavioral health support system at The Bayard School and Maurice Pritchett Sr. Academy.
- ELT Convenings: The WLC has officially launched Educator Leaders Team Convenings. Our first convening, held in July, focused on school collaboration, capacity building, and visioning for the year ahead.
- Maurice Pritchett Sr. Academy: Last month, we celebrated a significant milestone with the opening of Maurice Pritchett Sr. Summer Learning Project with Reading Assist-Students at The Bayard School, Pulaski Early Education Center, and Stubbs Early Education Center showed incredible progress after participating in our Summer Learning program with Reading Assist. Data from the Summer 2024 Report indicated that students who participated grew in three out of three measures of foundational literacy.
- Wellness Wednesdays: As part of our commitment to empowering educators, the WLC is now hosting Wellness Wednesdays on the last Wednesday of each month.
- Teacher Assessment Preparation Program (TAPP) Spring Course: WLC is partnering once again with Your Teacher Tutors to launch the Teacher Assessment Preparation Program, TAPP, Spring Course. This opportunity is open to all staff working in Wilmington city schools, with a limited number of seats available for paraprofessionals preparing for the ParaPro exam. The 10-week virtual program runs from March 2 through May 25, with classes held twice a week. Sessions are designed around participant needs and may include Elementary ELA, Math, Social Studies, and Science, as well as Secondary English and Math. Upon successful completion of the program, participants will receive a voucher to cover the cost of the exam.
Three-Year Phased Approach
The WLC is implementing a phased approach over three years:
- Year One: The Planning Year (2023-2024): Focused on laying the foundation for meaningful change across Wilmington schools. During this inaugural year, the WLC completed a comprehensive teaching and learning analysis of all schools and released Opportunity Scorecards to provide clear insights into strengths and areas for growth. The WLC also brought the community together through the Connected Communities Big Shifts Kickoff, attended by over 100 members of Wilmington’s education community, and launched the ELT Innovation Fund to support school-driven teaching and learning solutions.
- Year Two: The Activation Year (2024-2025): The WLC was ready to translate planning into action. Community Councils were activated in all WLC schools, while quarterly convenings of the Educator Leaders Team fostered collaboration and shared learning among school leaders. Wellness and social-emotional support also expanded in Year Two.
- Year Three: The Commitment Year (2025-2026): The WLC is now ready to fully invest in the strategies, partnerships, and innovations developed over the first two years. Partnerships remain a cornerstone of the WLC’s strategy. The WLC Council is also actively defining Measures of Success for the Commitment Year, examining attendance, staffing, iReady scores, NWEA MAP assessment data to guide decision-making and track impact.
Challenges and Expectations
While Bohm anticipates “continued tension” as the collaborative begins its work, Bohm expects to see progress, but significant changes will take several years.
“By next year, you’re going to see some movement in a lot of city schools” as the curriculum is adjusted and new services are added, she said, “but you’re not going to see changes in test results for the first year or two.”
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