Charter School of Wilmington

The Charter School of Wilmington is a high school in Wilmington, Delaware, with approximately 1000 students. It was one of the first public/private (self governed, state funded) charter schools in the United States, opening in 1996. It occupies the third floor and a wing of the second floor of the former Wilmington High building. Charter continually comes first in many state academic competitions including Math League and Science Olympiad, as well as sending many students to both All State Band and Orchestra. Charter students continually score high on the Delaware Standardized Test Program every year, leading the State statistics with the most students scoring a 5 (the highest grade on the test) in several subjects including Math and Science.

History

Charter schools in Delaware were authorized by Delaware Code, Title 14, Chapter five, enacted in 1995. The school is operated by a consortium of six companies: AstraZeneca, Verizon, Delmarva Power, DuPont, Hercules Incorporated, and Christiana Care Health System.

The Charter School of Wilmington was chartered by the Red Clay Consolidated School District, and was directly descended from the 'Academy of Mathematics and Science', an earlier (now defunct) math and science magnet school run by the the district. The school is a college preparatory academy that focuses on mathematics and science. Also occupying building that formerly housed Wilmington High School are the Cab Calloway School of the Arts and the James H. Groves Adult High School.

The Charter School of Wilmington is a member of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology.

The Charter School of Wilmington placed 127th in 2006 and 75th in 2007 in Newsweek's Top High Schools. Furthermore, The Charter School of Wilmington placed 41st in 2008 U.S.News' America's Best High Schools, earning the Gold Medal.

Novel approach to education

Rotating schedule

Charter has taken a research-based approach to class schedules. Rather than the commonly used block system or a simple rotating schedule, Charter students take part in a rotating schedule with classes of different lengths. The first two periods of the day are both over an hour long, with periods three through five 45 minutes long, and periods six and seven about half an hour long. This system was devised after research showed students' attention spans decreased throughout the course of the day, making it more appropriate to have longer classes in the mornings.

Shared classes with Cab Calloway

Periods C and E/F at Charter are fixed, including shared periods with the Cab Calloway School of the Arts. Students may elect to take Cab classes on museum studies, visual arts, drama, and the musical arts, UD classes or any other Charter classes during these periods. The other five periods of the day (A, B, D, G, H) rotate each day of the week with the period of E/F referring to the class/lunch period. Students either have 5A lunch in which case E is lunch and F is class, or 5B lunch in which E is class and F is lunch. Lunch lasts a half hour and 5th period class is 45 minutes. For example, on a Monday, students follow the schedule ABCDE/FGH. On a Tuesday, students follow the schedule of HACBE/FDG with a Wednesday schedule of GHCAE/FBD. This continues throughout the week and restarts the following Monday so all rotating periods of long and short classes balance out throughout the week.

Research projects

Students participate in four research projects over the course of their four year education at Charter. During the sophomore year, all students complete a Science Fair project as a necessary requirement of their Biology class. During the junior year, students complete a Research project for their English classes. Phase 5 History classes also complete historical research projects, which may be able to be entered into the History Day competition. These research projects are used to enforce, not introduce the MLA style and teach research for Liberal Arts fields. During the senior year, students are required to participate in a senior research project, involving either performing or investigating an empirical experiment, through creating an invention or shadowing a scientist. The project teaches the APA style and ends with a final presentation in front of faculty members.

Academics

General graduation requirements

Delaware state standards mandate semester-long health education and semester-long sophomore and junior gym classes. The Technology Utilization class satisfies the Delaware state standard for computer literacy. Three years of history and four years of math, science and English exceed the state requirements for these subjects. A senior research project completes the graduation requirements.

Advanced Placement

The school offers many advanced placement classes which allow students to earn college credit while still attending high school. Advanced placement courses include calculus (AB & BC), statistics, biology, chemistry, physics (C), environmental science, computer science (A & AB), English literature, English language, Latin (Vergil), Spanish language, French language, U. S. history, U.S. government and politics, world history, and economics. Many students choose to independently study for other AP exams or elect to take AP courses through the Cab Calloway School of the Arts.

Other Coursework

While not unique to Charter, there are some course offerings that are not seen at a majority of American high schools:

• Differential Equations
• Digital Electronics Design
• Robotics (introductory and advanced)
• Forensics
• Myths and Legends
• Advertising and Marketing
• Philosophy
• Stock market lab

University of Delaware classes

The Charter School of Wilmington offers several University of Delaware courses taught with University curricula and professors through the University's Continuing Education program. The UD Analytic Geometry and Calculus C and Ordinary Differential Equations classes have been successful due to the high number of students who finish AP Calculus BC before their senior year. The school introduced a UD Survey of Organic Chemistry class during the 2004-2005 school year, and a Data Structures class for the 2005-2006 school year.

Special tests

A challenge test administered to incoming freshmen allows prospective students to bypass mathematics classes up to Integrated Math III, the Introductory Science courses, or the introductory foreign language courses. These tests are not used to determine the phasing of students in each subject (Math, Science, English, History, and Foreign Language), which are determined by the admissions test. Phases range from 3-6, with non-academic classes (i.e. Driver Education and Gym) at phase 4, phase 5 being considered as honors, and AP and UD classes designated as phase 6.

Students

The student body is made up of 960 students as of 2007-2008, including 68% of students coming from area public school districts, and 32% of the students coming from Catholic and other private schools. 98% of students attend college upon graduation. Individual students have won many state and national awards in mathematics, general science, biology, physics, journalism, French, Spanish, Latin and forensics competitions. In addition, students have also gained recognition in Odyssey of the Mind, and sports.

Faculty

The student to teacher ratio is 18:1, with an average class size of 24 students.

Members of Charter's faculty were Delaware's English Teacher of the Year in 1997, Conservation Teacher of the Year in 1999, recipients of the Science/Math Excellence in Teaching Award from the Science Alliance in 1999, and Delaware's History Day Teacher of the Year in 2002.

Extra-curricular activities

Clubs

The clubs at Charter include:

• Academic Bowl - Five consecutive championships in Comcast Academic Challenge Delaware and five time state champion in the NAQT format. The Club ranked 2nd in the 2008 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament, 5th in the 2007 and 11th in the 2006 National Academic Championship.
• Chess Club
• Drama Club
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Engineering Competition- Three time state champion and two time national champion for Division 4 Varsity
• Envirothon- Perennial state champion, most recently 2008 champion of the North American Canon Envirothon competition, from among 45 states and nine Canadian provinces
• Math League- Perennial state champion since 1999, national champion of Math League Press in 2005, 2008
• Mock Trial- 3rd Place National Mock Trial 2008 - State Champions 2006, 2007, 2008
• Model United Nations Club
• Newspaper- The Blue Streak
• Physics Olympiad- Twenty-four semifinalists, nine finalists, and three traveling team members representing the USA at the IPhO since the school's inception
• USA Biology Olympiad- Two finalists and one traveling team member since the school's inception.
• Science Olympiad- State Champion since school's inception
• Ski Club
• Support our Soldiers- Raises funds and goods to be given to soldiers.
• VEX Robotics - Top 10 nationally in 2006
• Yearbook- Expectations, A potential candidate for the National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker Award and Columbia Scholastic Press Association Crown Award.
• Young Republicans
• Young Democrats

Music

• A Cappella
• Concert Band at Cab Calloway School of the Arts
• Jazz Band at Cab
• Marching Band at Cab
• Kymera Indoor Colorguard right after marching band, through Cab
• Red Clay Secondary & Select Orchestra
• Red Clay String Quartet

Sports

Boys

• Baseball
• Basketball
• Cross Country
• Football
• Golf
• Lacrosse
• Soccer
• Swimming 2007, 2008 State Runner-up
• Tennis
• Track- Indoor & Outdoor
• Volleyball 2005 State Champions
• Wrestling
• Skateboarding

Girls

• Basketball
• Cheerleading- Fall and Winter-2006 state competition cheerleading champion
• Cross Country
• Field Hockey
• Golf
• Lacrosse
• Soccer- 2005 State Champion
• Softball
• Swimming 2007 State Runner-up, 2008 State Champion
• Tennis
• Track- Indoor & Outdoor
• Volleyball

Club sports

• Fencing
• Martial Arts
• Roller Hockey
• Ski
• Table Tennis
• Ultimate Frisbee

Newspaper

The school newspaper, The Blue Streak, was originally a small newsletter, written by students and printed on 8.5x11 inch paper. In 2002, Journalism was offered as a class and the paper received more funding. Now standard newspaper size, The Blue Streak has dozens of reporters and editors, and is published approximately eight times annually. The paper won 20 awards in the 2008 The First State High School Press Contest including 2 first place awards.

Standardized exam achievement

All freshmen, sophomores and juniors at Charter take the Delaware Student Testing Program exams. Test scores at The Charter School of Wilmington are consistently the highest in the state with 100%, 99%, and 100% of Charter students in 11th grade scoring at or above expectations in reading, writing, and mathematics, respectively.

• Top-scoring Delaware high school in Math Assessments (1998-2004)
• Top-scoring Delaware high school in Reading Assessments (1998-2004)
• Top-scoring Delaware high school in Writing Assessments (1999-2004)
• Top-scoring Delaware high school in Science Assessments (2000-2004)
• Top-scoring Delaware high school in Social Studies Assessments (2000-2004)

Criticisms

On occasion, Charter's legality has been questioned. Delaware's charter school law defines fairly specific restrictions charter schools may use, including the requirement of a blind lottery after certain criteria have been met. Charter's admissions process operates in part upon an assessment test administered to all prospective students, which critics claim is an exclusionary policy. School representatives claim that a clause in the law allows the school to give preferential treatment to students who show "a specific interest in the school's teaching methods, philosophy, or educational focus", expressed through performance in school, teacher recommendations, and the admissions assessment. Delaware Governor [[Ruth Ann Minner] and other state politicians have condemned the school's apparent extraction of high-performing students from local schools across the state, citing that this has inflated Charter's statistics while hurting that of other schools.

Charter has also come under scrutiny for its expulsion practices. Charter officially publishes a 0% expulsion rate, which many students claim to be false. They suggest that Charter, rather than officially "expel" an unwanted student, "asks the student to leave" without an actual choice. Purportedly, this is done in order to prevent expulsions from appearing on the school's records.

Media Appearances

The Charter School of Wilmington has been featured on TruTV's The Principal's Office.

References

External links

• Charter School of Wilmington Alumni Association website. .
• The Blue Streak
• Satellite Image (Google Maps)
• Mr. Russo's Interview On WDEL