Every year in the wintertime, Delaware beaches undergo a transformation.

Stores and restaurants close, stores and restaurants open, rules change. By Memorial Day weekend, for the most part, everything is in its place, and ready to serve the masses.

This winter, the price of parking went up in Lewes, several storefronts and restaurants changed hands in Rehoboth Beach, and notable changes were made further south.

If you’re among the more than 7 million visitors headed to Delaware beaches in late spring or summer, or even if you’re just a local who hasn’t gotten out much lately, here’s what’s changed in Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island as the season heats up.

Rehoboth Beach

The osprey are still nesting atop the fire siren in Rehoboth Beach, but “The Nation’s Summer Capital” has one change this year visitors are sure to notice.

Two drop-arm or swing gates and numerous bollards are being or have been installed in the area of the boardwalk and bandstand on Rehoboth Avenue. Bollards are sturdy, vertical posts designed to prevent vehicles from driving onto sidewalks or the boardwalk, while the drop-arm or swing gates will provide access to emergency vehicles.  

Over on the corner of Wilmington Avenue and Bayard Avenue, there’s an empty space where several restaurants once stood. Many remember it as home to the beloved Chez La Mer in the 1980s and 90s, but it was demolished over the winter. It’s slated to become a two-story building with retail on the first floor and an apartment on the second.

What’s happening with the two major hotel projects on the boardwalk? Nothing right now. Construction on the planned One Rehoboth hotel is paused until the fall, and demolition to make room for the planned Belhaven has not yet begun, either.

New and closed Rehoboth restaurants

The Market at 59 Baltimore is Chef David Kneller’s new gourmet grab-and-go kitchen, with the concept’s adjacent restaurant to open in the coming weeks.

School board elections are one of the highest-leverage, lowest-participation decisions in Delaware. Turnout is low. Margins are small. In some cases, candidates run without a real contest. When voters do not engage, leadership is not selected. It is decided by default. When governance is decided by default, the system performs accordingly.

It’s clear that when residents fail to vote, it can have consequences — ones that most people recognize, but rarely connect to the ballot box. It shapes whether schools are focused on clear priorities or pulled in competing directions. It determines whether resources are invested in what improves student outcomes or spread thin. Those decisions show up in real ways: in the preparedness of students, the confidence of families, and the strength of Delaware’s workforce and economy.

In 2024, fewer than 5% of eligible voters cast ballots in Delaware school board elections, even as concern about outcomes, funding, and district leadership remained high across every sector of public life. The disconnect between what communities demand and how they participate is one of the most significant, and most solvable, barriers to progress in our state.

Data from the 2026 Delaware Opportunity Outlook reinforce this disconnect. A majority of Delawareans believe school board members have a direct influence on the quality of K–12 education, yet far fewer report understanding how improvement efforts are being carried out, or how decisions are made at the local level. In other words, people believe boards matter, but are not consistently using the one mechanism they have to influence who serves and how decisions are made.

What governing actually requires 

A strong board member asks clear, outcome-focused questions and expects specific answers. They connect decisions to priorities, work through tradeoffs with colleagues, and ensure decisions are understood before the board moves forward. They listen for whether information reflects progress or activity, and press for clarity when it does not.

These are not intuitive responsibilities. They require preparation. School board governance is often treated as something individuals can step into without training, but these are complex roles that involve setting priorities, interpreting data, making tradeoffs, and ensuring decisions lead to results over time.

The Delaware Opportunity Outlook suggests that this is not how the role is widely understood. While Delawareans recognize that school boards influence the quality of education, far fewer identify training and professional preparation as essential. 

That gap has direct consequences. As the state advances new priorities, the effectiveness of those efforts will depend on whether local board members are prepared to implement them, monitor progress, and make results visible.

Delaware’s moment 

Delaware has established a clear direction for public education: defined priorities, a statewide literacy commitment, and a funding reform that will place significant new responsibilities on local boards. Plans set direction. Boards determine whether those plans turn into results.

What happens next will not be determined by those plans alone. It will be determined by how effectively school boards translate those priorities into decisions, how consistently they track progress, and whether they make results visible to the public.

Candidate evaluation

Evaluating a candidate is straightforward: Can they name a small number of district priorities and explain why those matter? Can they describe what data they would review regularly and how they would use it? Can they explain how resources should align to outcomes and what they would do if results do not improve? Candidates who can answer those questions demonstrate an understanding of the role. Those who cannot speak to governance beyond the issues that brought them to the race may find the role more demanding than they anticipated.

Make your voice heard

Voting in a school board election is one of the few places where individual participation has a direct and immediate impact on how the system performs. School board elections are decided by small numbers of voters. Your decision to engage, or not, determines who governs. Choosing not to participate is not neutrality. It is a choice, and it carries the same weight as the vote itself.

Today, a decision will be made about who governs Delaware’s schools. You can be part of that decision, or it will be made without you. Either way, the results will show up in classrooms, in communities, and in the long-term strength of this state.

Find out who is running. Evaluate them on the work the role requires, not only on the positions they hold. Vote, and encourage others to do the same.

For more details about voting in today’s elections, visit First State Educate’s 2026 School Board Elections page.

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