Delaware
Opinion: Delaware’s charter schools must embrace a new standard of accountability
3-minute read
It’s charter school renewal season once again and now is the perfect time to reflect on what this means for our schools.
Every five years, charter schools are required to renew their charters. The charter is the agreement between the school and their authorizer, the governing body which grants them specific rights, powers, and responsibilities. This is a rigorous process that ensures they are living up to the promises made to their authorizer, board, parents, students, and communities. The process places charter schools under a lot of scrutiny – a level of oversight not typically experienced by district schools, which do not face such renewal requirements. Yet, despite this, there is a common misconception that charter schools operate with less accountability and lower standards.
Charter schools operate with a unique blend of flexibility and accountability. Flexibility allows them to be innovative and creative, but it comes at a cost — strict accountability measures that seem to increase over time. Unfortunately, while the accountability requirements have remained stringent, the flexibility these schools need to thrive has been slowly taken away.
The reality of charter school accountability
During the renewal process, each charter school must prove to its authorizer that it’s providing the outcomes promised when its charter was granted. This comprehensive evaluation covers everything from academic performance, including growth and proficiency, to financial transparency and organizational health. In addition to annual independent financial audits, charter schools must also ensure that they comply with most if not all regulations and maintain a safe and healthy environment for students and staff.
This year, six Delaware charter schools are up for renewal. Each school must provide a wealth of detailed information during this process, including their curriculum, how they plan to support students with learning differences, their academic progress over the past five years, in-depth financial information, and organizational health information. This intense evaluation process pushes these schools to reflect on their achievements and shortcomings, ensuring they are prepared to meet future opportunities and challenges.
A comprehensive review process
While a large part of the process is the review of academic performance, materials utilized and staff employed to meet these outcomes, our schools must also undergo an all-encompassing review of both their financial and organizational performance. Analysis of these areas includes many aspects of both, but two key areas are governance and fiscal management.
Boards of charter schools must receive governance training every three years to maintain high standards of leadership, ensuring they provide proper oversight without overstepping into the management of the school. This governance structure is critical in distinguishing successful schools.
In the financial area, each charter school is required by law to undergo an independent financial audit every year, ensuring transparency and responsible fiscal management. These audits are not only assessed annually and posted publicly on their website but are used as part of the extensive five-year financial performance review. Reviewing these measures is designed to confirm that charter schools are safe and healthy, financially viable and guarantee administrative integrity and full regulatory compliance.
Of note, while district schools are held accountable in different ways, they are not required to renew their existence every five years.
Flexibility paired with responsibility
One of the reasons charter schools are often misjudged is due to the flexibility they are given in how they meet their educational goals. This flexibility is critical — it allows schools to innovate, respond to the needs of their students, and adopt methods that might differ from traditional public school models. Flexibility is not synonymous with a lack of accountability or lower standards. In fact, it often enhances accountability and standards, as schools must prove that their methods are working.
In the end, we must ask ourselves: is there room to offer more flexibility across the board, in exchange for heightened accountability? The goal is the same for both charter and district schools — to provide high-quality education for our children. Charter schools have shown that this can be done through innovation and accountability. After 28 years, maybe it’s time for Delaware to think about how this balance could benefit the broader public education landscape.
Kendall Massett is executive director of the Delaware Charter Schools Network.
WILMINGTON, Del. (WPVI) — The family of Kadir Skinner is calling for criminal charges against the police officer who shot the 19-year-old after the release of officer body camera footage that attorneys say contradicts the police account of the incident.
The shooting happened June 24 after 11 p.m. at 24th and Jessup streets.
Calls grow for body cam video in deadly Wilmington police shooting
Body camera video shows an officer drawing and firing his weapon while yelling commands. In the footage, officers can be heard saying, “He’s got a gun,” as they approach Skinner, who is on the ground.
Skinner repeatedly tells officers he is unarmed and says he cannot breathe.
“I don’t got nothing. I don’t got nothing,” Skinner says in the video.
Footage shows officers handcuffing Skinner and kneeling on him while he continues to say, “I don’t got nothing. I can’t breathe.”
Skinner was shot in the rear.
READ MORE | ‘We need answers’: Family disputes details after man killed in Wilmington police shooting
A second body camera angle shows a crowd forming as officers instruct people to back up.
Video from a third responding officer appears to show an officer picking something up from the grass and returning toward the crowd and the officers with Skinner.
In the footage, an officer can be heard saying, “Secure the gun,” and the officer wearing the body cam says, “I have it.”
Attorneys for Skinner’s family, along with family members and community supporters, gathered at Shiloh Baptist Church in Wilmington following the release of the video to demand justice.
“Regardless if he had a gun or not, he was still shot in the back, running from police, not having been a threat,” attorney Harry Daniels said.
SEE ALSO | Family releases witness video after 19-year-old fatally shot by police in Wilmington
Attorney Chance Lynch said the footage showed “an unjustified killing.”
“What we saw and what we witnessed was an unjustified killing,” Lynch said.
Attorneys for the family contend the video disputes the police version of events. Wilmington police previously said Skinner came out of a home armed and waved a gun at a crowd before officers opened fire.
“The video that I saw, I didn’t see a crowd, and I did not see Kadir coming out of a residence. I did not see a crowd, and I did not see Kadir pointing a firearm at a crowd,” Lynch said.
Attorneys and the family maintain that Skinner was running from a loose dog.
The family also announced a $25 million claim against the city of Wilmington for wrongful death. They are seeking criminal charges against the officer who shot Skinner.
The Delaware Department of Justice is investigating.
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Delmarva Power objects to applying legislation to interim rate
The debate among commissioners over the breadth of their oversight on utility rates comes as the company has pushed back on the group, limiting its interim rate increase to half of its total request, even while it faced criticism from commissioners that it is “cruel” and “tone deaf” for continuing to press for rate hikes.
Delmarva Power, an investor-owned utility, serves 344,000 residential and nonresidential customers in the state. Its parent company, Exelon Corporation, is the nation’s largest regulated electric and gas utility.
Its customers pay a supply and a delivery charge for gas and electricity. The supply of energy comes from PJM Interconnection, a regional grid serving Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and several other states. Delmarva Power profits through the distribution fee.
Delmarva Power Region President Marcus Beal said they need to file rate hike requests to recoup money it spends on improving and maintaining the infrastructure.
“Our equipment is extremely expensive, the items that we buy, the transformers, they’re very large, complex things to build,” Beal said. “Even something as simple as a treated pole of a certain size can be very pricey, so we spend a lot of money on the grid itself.”
Under Delaware law, interim rates can be approved seven months after a rate case is filed, while the full petition is being considered by the commission. Prior to the legislation, 100% of the rate request could be implemented. The bill caps interim rates at 50% and allows 75% of the ask to go into effect after 12 months. The bill also puts limits on Delmarva Power’s infrastructure spending.
Delmarva Power spokesperson Matt Ford said the commission overstepped its authority to cut the interim rate as much as they did and the company has argued in its PSC submissions that SB 326 did not apply to the rate increase request filed in December because it had yet to be signed into law. Meyer said he signed the bill Monday.
“Delmarva Power further reserves its objections to the applicability of the legislation, should it become effective, including its impermissible retroactive application,” the utility company said in comments filed Monday afternoon with the commission.
In addition, Delmarva Power has objected to halving $23.2 million in distribution system improvement charges as part of the interim rate commissioners approved. The fee allows utility companies to recover project costs and depreciation between full rate case proceedings.
“My suggestion is, if you don’t like it, appeal it,” Iorii said.
It’s unclear whether the utility plans to appeal the order. Ford said they were reviewing it and its implications.
Tweedie said he hopes they decide not to appeal.
“If they appeal this, what they are essentially saying is, ‘We want to extract more money from our customers than the commission intended to allow,’” he said.
Delaware State Police have identified the man who was struck and killed by a vehicle while lying on the roadway in Harrington, Delaware.
On Monday, July 13, 2026, Jimmy Burgess, 62, was struck by a Chevrolet Silverado driving westbound near the 1500 block of Whiteleysburg Road.
According to police, the Silverado, which was operated by a 17-year-old boy from Milton, Delaware, was unable to stop once he saw Burgess on the road, striking him. The driver of the Silverado was not injured during the crash.
Burgess was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead, said police.
The roadway was closed for approximately three hours while the scene was investigated and cleared.
The Delaware State Police Troop 3 Collison Reconstruction Unit continues to investigate this crash.
Troopers ask anyone with information about the crash contact Sergeant M. Long at (302) 698-8518.
Information can also be provided by sending a private Facebook message to the Delaware State Police, or by contacting Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-(800) 847-3333
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