Red Clay
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...
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...
Delaware's Hispanic Graduation Gap Nearly Doubled in Three Years
In Laurel, about two in three Hispanic seniors graduated in 2023. In the same town, nearly nine in 10 white seniors did. The 24.3 percentage-point gap between them is the widest in the state, three ti...
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...
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....
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...
Odyssey Charter's Greek Experiment Draws 2,375 Students
In 2014-15, Odyssey Charter School enrolled 948 students and was majority white. A decade later it has 2,375 students, no racial majority, and a waitlist that exceeds the enrollment of most Delaware c...
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 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-...
Delaware Publishes 2024-25 Enrollment Data
A year ago, Delaware public schools enrolled 149,324 students, up for the eighth time in nine years. Administrators talked about the state as a bright spot, one of the few places in the country where ...