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MIXED-USE
COMPLEX DEFENDED: Development along the Concord Pike corridor is
necessary to enable Woodlawn Trustees to continue providing rental
housing for families with limited incomes in Wilmington while promoting
land-conservation in the area, according to Elke McGinley, president of
the organization. She told a community meeting sponsored by the Council
of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred that, while about 500 acres
next to the highway "will be developed for the benefit of the community
and Woodlawn," the 1,000 or so acres along the Brandywine will be
preserved as open space.
The meeting on Sept. 25 was called to
provide Stoltz Real Estate Partners with a forum to present information
about the large commercial and residential project it proposes to erect
on Woodlawn land at the Concord Pike and Beaver Valley-Naamans Road
intersection. The firm gave a previously shown Power Point presentation.
When an attender soon after that questioned the need for additional
retail establishments, Stoltz lawyer Pam Scott insisted on adhering to
an agreed-upon format of taking questions in separate small-group
sessions in lieu of open discussion. About 40 members of the general
public were at the meeting. (CLICK
HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)
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TICKETS REPORT: County
code enforcers issued 2,368 violation
tickets to 803 property owners during the first two months of the
'instant' ticketing enforcement program, County Council was told. Of the
properties cited, 256 came into compliance after receiving the ticket
and another 857 did so during the 12-day grace period after receiving a
warning letter before a ticket was issued, Al Washington, of the
Department of Land Use, told a Council committee meeting on Sept. 23. He
said the largest number of complaints involved an accumulation of junk
and debris with overgrown grass and weeds the second most frequent
complaint. (CLICK
HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)
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The Brandywine school board approved a
$136.9 million preliminary operating budget,
up 5.3% from last year, with a projected $6.7 million surplus for the
current fiscal year.
While financial officer David Blowman
told the board before its unanimous vote on Sept. 22 that district
finances are "on track," he warned that state government's financial
situation is likely to have a significant adverse impact on the
district. "It looks like it's going to be another grim year," he said.
"We have to be very careful about how we spend out money,"
superintendent Jim Scanlon added. As a result of cuts in budgeted state
spending, Brandywine 'lost' about $1.1 million. The approved budget
contains $938,000 in service cuts, including mandatory summer school and
staff development, with additional ones being considered.
As previously reported, the district is
experiencing an increase in enrollment of about 150 students, mainly as
a result of initiating full-day kindergarten. Blowman said closure of a
charter school in Wilmington and failure of two others to meet federal
No Child Left Behind Act standards has reduced the number of Brandywine
students in charter schools by about 80 from a record 637 last academic
year. When the official student headcount is completed at the end of
September, Brandywine expects to have 670 state-authorized teaching
positions, up from 643 last year.
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'CHOICE'
POLICY: Because it will have two fewer schools in the 2009-2010
fiscal year, Brandywine School District "isn't going to be as generous
as it has in the past" in honoring applications submitted under the
state's school-choice law, according to district lawyer Ellen Cooper.
Because of excess capacity, she said, more than 95% of applicants
received their first choice to alternative assignments. The loss of
seats available for 'choiced' students is a necessary trade-off for
closing schools in order to be able to "direct more money to
classrooms," superintendent Jim Scanlon said. "We can't have it both
ways."
Looking for a rush of applications as a
result of closure-related changes in attendance zones, Cooper presented
and the school board at its meeting on Sept. 22 unanimously approved a
'choice' policy authorizing a new procedure for receiving and processing
applications. Kim Mathews, head of the district Parent-Teacher
Association Council, cautioned that the plan to receive applications in
person on a first-come-first-served basis beginning at 7 a.m. on Nov. 3
carries the risk of problems as parents vie to be at or near the head of
the line. (CLICK
HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)
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A relatively small portion of
Brandywine School District students had
disciplinary referrals during the last academic year, but there was
an increase in the number of reportable incidents.
Members of the district's just-formed
discipline committee were told at its recent initial meeting that 4,703
students, or 4.6% of the total, were involved in disciplinary activity,
down slightly from 4,769, also 4.6%, during the 2006-07 year. There
were, however, 169 incidents which reached the level required to be
reported to police as criminal activity and 1,373 that had to be
reported to Delaware Department of Education. The numbers from the
previous year were 148 and 1,241, respectively. There were increases in
reportable incidents in the elementary and intermediate grades with
middle and high schools showing drops.
The school board expelled 38 students
during the 2007-08 year, down from 46 the previous year, but up from 22
in 2005-06. Ellen Cooper, the district's lawyer, said most expulsions
and disciplinary problems occur among ninth-graders. The committee was
told that of the total 28,509 disciplinary referrals last year, 15,572,
or 54.6%, were for lateness either to school or to class or skipping
class. "We're spending a lot of time on a few kids" who cause problems,
superintendent Jim Scanlon said. The committee is to make
recommendations to the school board for more consistent discipline
policies and enforcement and preventive programs. (CLICK
HERE to read previous Delaforum article.
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REVENUE
ESTIMATES: Despite an infusion of an estimated $144.1
million as a result of financial measures enacted by the General
Assembly, the state's official forecasters expect only modest revenue
growth -- 1.8% this fiscal year and 1.3% in fiscal 2010. Delaware
Economic & Financial Advisory Council's revenue committee was told on
Sept. 12 that Global Insights, the state's economy consultant, is still
looking for "a short, shallow recession but the brunt of it still lies
ahead of us." The federal economic stimulus package, it said, pushed
recession back into the fourth quarter of this year and the first of
quarter of 2009.(CLICK
HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)
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FULLY SUBSCRIBED: Brandywine
School District is offering only
full-day kindergarten this academic year. Superintendent Jim Scanlon
said only nine parents opted to enroll their children in half-day
classes and all but one family have since agreed to enter the full-day
program. State law required districts to offer shorter sessions if at
least 18 children were enrolled. Brandywine and neighboring Red Clay
districts, combined, barely came up to that level, he said. According to
preliminary enrollment data, Brandywine has about 770 kindergarteners,
about 120 more than last academic year.
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Students displaced by Brandywine's
school closings will get first call on 'choicing'
into a school other than the one to which they're assigned, but parents
will have to get up early if there's a rush.
When it next meets on Sept. 22, the
school board is scheduled to vote on revising the district's procedure
for honoring applications under the state's school-choice law to put
displaced students and others whose attendance zone will be changed when
Hanby Middle and Darley Road Elementary are shut down next year into the
first of five groups of applicants ranked by priority. Children already
attending a school under the 'choice' program also will be in that
group. Their brothers and sisters fall into the second-ranked category.
The board also will determine how many 'choice' slots will be available
in each school.
Superintendent Jim Scanlon said the
district will continue to consider 'choice' applications on a
first-come-first-served basis. Another procedure revision will move the
starting point for accepting applications to 7 a.m. on Nov. 3, when,
under the law, a two-month open-enrollment period begins. In past years,
the starting time was 8 a.m. "We've not had people camp out [overnight],
but they get here pretty early in the morning," Scanlon said at a board
'workshop' meeting on Sept. 8 at which it received the proposed
revisions. "We think it will be a very fair process," he said referring
to the expected new arrangement.
The board also was told that
preliminary figures show district enrollment in the new academic year to
be 10,280, up from 10,118 last year. The increase was attributed to
full-day kindergarten and closure of an elementary-grades charter school
in Wilmington.
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IT'S
APPARENTLY WORKING:
Seven pending development plans include provisions for a total of 475
'workforce housing' units, considerably more than double the 200-units
first-year target set by the ordinance which allows builders increased
density in return for voluntarily providing a portion of
residences that households with moderate incomes can afford to buy.
James Smith, acting co-general manager of the Department of Land Use,
told officers of area-wide civic organizations that two of the seven
proposals are revisions of approved plans. Not included is the approved
plan for Renaissance Village in Claymont which provided for 'affordable'
housing before the ordinance was enacted.
At a meeting with Jeffrey Bullock, County
Executive Christopher Coons's chief administrative officer, on Sept. 4,
Frances West, president of the Civic League for New Castle County,
objected to approving increased density without providing for
increased traffic volume and other infrastructure on the basis of "vague
generalizations" about the need for such housing. "It's a nice
catchphrase ... [but] are there really people waiting to get into these
units?" she said. "Someone is going to have to put the brakes on some of
this stuff." Bullock said that much of the objection to such housing is
the result of its "negative connotations." (CLICK
HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)
Last updated on September 26, 2008
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