Capital
Seaford's Graduation Rate Has Fallen 5.8 Points. No Other Delaware District Dropped.
At Seaford Senior High School, the class of 2023 walked across the stage with a 74.0% four-year graduation rate. That number sits 14.9 percentage points below the Delaware average. But the aggregate m...
The One Subgroup That Beat Pre-COVID Attendance
Every subgroup in Delaware's chronic absenteeism data tells some version of the same story: rates spiked during the pandemic, then came partway back. Black students recovered 84.8% of the way to their...
9th Grade: Where 1 in 4 Delaware Students Goes Missing
At Colonial School District's William Penn High School, the hallways thin out noticeably once students cross from middle school into 9th grade. Across Delaware, the pattern repeats: something happens ...
Only 8 of 35 Districts Beat Their Pre-COVID Absence Rates
Smyrna School District, in the heart of Kent County, has posted a chronic absenteeism rate below the state average every year for a decade. Its 2025 rate of 12.1% is among the lowest of any traditiona...
Lake Forest Crossed 90%. No District Gained More.
In 2019, Lake Forest School District graduated 78.3% of its senior class. That was a crisis number, 10 points below the Delaware state average, the worst rate Lake Forest had posted in the data window...
Delaware Cut Chronic Absenteeism 8.6 Points Since 2022. The Gap by Income Hasn't Closed.
In Capital School District in Dover, 35.0% of students who are economically disadvantaged were chronically absent in 2024-25. That means roughly one in three of these students in the district missed a...
Delaware's Racial Attendance Gap Is Wider Than Before COVID
At Red Clay Consolidated, Delaware's largest school district, 27.0% of Black students were chronically absent in 2024-25. The rate for white students in the same district: 9.9%. That is a 17.1 percent...
Dover's Capital District: 1 in 4 Students Still Missing School
In the middle school grades at Capital School District in Dover, more than three in 10 students are chronically absent. In 9th grade, the number is closer to four in 10. Across the district, where mat...
One in Four Colonial Students Misses Too Much School
At Colonial School District in New Castle County, the average student missed 13.2 days of school in 2024-25. That is nearly four full days more than the Delaware average of 9.6. The district's visitin...
1 in 2: Delaware's Students Who Are Homeless and the Attendance Crisis
At the Hope Center in New Castle County, Delaware's largest family shelter, more than half of the 300-plus residents are children. They sleep in converted hotel rooms, ride buses to schools across the...
Delaware Claws Back 81% of Its Attendance Crisis
Three years ago, more than one in four Delaware students was chronically absent. In 2022, 37,520 students missed 10% or more of the school year, a rate of 25.7%, more than 10 percentage points above t...
Nearly One in Three Christina Students Receives Special Ed
Christina School District added 767 special education students over the past decade. It lost 4,773 general education students over the same period.
Delaware's English Learner Population Has Doubled in a Decade
In Sussex County, where poultry processing plants and agricultural operations line the coastal plain, the Laurel School District enrolled 199 English learners in 2014-15. One in 12 students. A decade ...
Every Year, 2,000 Extra Freshmen Appear in Delaware
Look at Delaware's enrollment by grade and one bar sticks out like a fence post in a flat field. The state enrolled 11,504 students in 8th grade in 2024-25, then 13,633 in 9th grade: 2,129 more freshm...
Delaware's Special Education Rate Hits 22%, Seven Points Above the Nation
Delaware added 11,546 public school students over the past decade. It added 11,728 students with Individualized Education Programs. The entire net enrollment gain, and then some, came from special edu...