Colonial
English Learners Lost Their Attendance Advantage
For five straight years before the pandemic, Delaware's English learner students showed up to school at higher rates than their peers. In 2016, their chronic absenteeism rate sat 2.8 percentage points...
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...
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...
19 Points Apart in the Same City
A student growing up in Wilmington will attend one of four school districts, depending on which side of a line drawn in 1981 their house falls on. In 2023, a senior in Red Clay had a 92.2% chance of g...
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...
Christina Graduates 73%. The State Wants to Redraw the Map.
In December 2025, the Redding Consortium for Educational Equity voted 19-2 to recommend merging the four school districts that share Wilmington's students into a single consolidated district. The prop...
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 Hits an All-Time High 88.9% Graduation Rate. The 90% Line Is Still 1.1 Points Away.
For the class of 2023, 88.9% of Delaware's public high school students earned a diploma within four years. That is the highest four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate the state has ever recorded, 4....
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...
Four Districts, One City, 6,476 Fewer Students
The four districts that share responsibility for educating Wilmington's children lost 6,476 students over the past decade, an 11.0% decline that left them serving 52,641 in 2024-25, down from 59,117. ...
15 Delaware Districts Hit All-Time Highs
Fifteen of 41 Delaware school districts set enrollment records in 2024-25. Only three established districts hit all-time lows. (Two additional charters, ASPIRA Delaware and the Bryan Allen Stevenson S...
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.
Cape Henlopen Grew 45%, and Its Schools Can't Keep Up
Most Delaware superintendents spend their winters worrying about enrollment loss. In Cape Henlopen, the problem is the opposite: where to put everyone.
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...
Delaware Lost One Year to COVID, Then Set a Record
Eighteen of Delaware's 39 school districts enrolled more students during the first pandemic year than the year before. Not after the crisis. During it. Cape Henlopen added 534. Caesar Rodney added 432...
Appoquinimink Adds 3,867 Students and Transforms Along the Way
In a state where most traditional school districts are shrinking, Appoquinimink keeps building schools. The southern New Castle County district added 3,867 students over the past decade, a 39.9% surge...
Christina Lost 4,006 Students. The State Grew by 11,546.
Delaware added 11,546 students over the past decade. Christina School District lost 4,006 of them.
Delaware Defies National Decline: 150,591 Students and Counting
In a country where most states are watching their school enrollment shrink, Delaware is doing the opposite. The state's public schools enrolled 150,591 students in 2024-25, the highest figure in at le...
Three in Four Delaware Districts Are Now Majority-Minority
A decade ago, fewer than half of Delaware's school districts enrolled a majority of students of color. By 2024-25, 30 of 39 did. The shift from 41.2% to 76.9% majority-minority districts between 2014-...