Delaware

Opinion: Delaware’s charter schools must embrace a new standard of accountability

Published

1 year ago

November 16, 2024

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Opinion: Delaware’s charter schools must embrace a new standard of accountability

3-minute read

Kendall Massett
| Special to the USA TODAY Network

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.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

6 hours ago

January 8, 2026

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Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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Delaware

Delaware woman charged in Jersey shore hit-and-run that injured 92-year-old man

Published

18 hours ago

January 8, 2026

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Delaware woman charged in Jersey shore hit-and-run that injured 92-year-old man

VENTNOR, N.J. (WPVI) — A Delaware woman is behind bars in connection with a hit-and-run crash in November at the Jersey shore.

(The video in the player above is from previous coverage.)

The incident happened around 6:16 p.m. on Nov. 20 in Ventnor, New Jersey.

READ MORE | Video shows Jersey shore hit-and-run crash that left 92-year-old injured

Police said the 92-year-old victim was struck at Ventnor and Newport avenues. He sustained serious injuries and was transported to an area hospital.

Investigators said the driver, Leslie Myers, 51, of Weldin Park, Delaware, fled the scene after the crash.

She was arrested Wednesday on charges of assault by auto, leaving the scene of an accident and other related offenses.

Myers is being held in the Allegheny County Jail in Pennsylvania, awaiting extradition to New Jersey.

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Delaware

Delaware announces plan to tackle climate warming emissions

Published

1 day ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Delaware announces plan to tackle climate warming emissions

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.

From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch.

Delaware’s top environmental regulators have proposed steps to reduce climate-warming fossil fuel pollution, while protecting residents from threats like extreme heat and floods.

The state’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control on Wednesday released its 2025 Climate Action Plan. The nonbinding proposal outlines a path to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, as required by the state’s Climate Change Solutions Act.

Officials said Delaware residents continue to experience the impacts of climate change including severe storms like the 2021 Hurricane Ida, which forced people out of their homes, with some remaining unhoused a year later. In addition, sea level rise and beach erosion has flooded coastal communities and damaged critical infrastructure.

“Flooding, extreme storms and heat damage infrastructure that wasn’t built to withstand these conditions, including our energy systems,” said Susan Love, the agency’s climate and sustainability section administrator. “Sea level rise is drowning wetlands and uplands, and impacting water quality and availability. Damage from storms has increased costs for infrastructure and insurance coverage, and all of these impacts can negatively impact human health as well.”

Recommendations include strategies to reduce emissions from vehicles, industrial activities and electricity production — the source of the state’s top climate emissions.

The plan, which builds on similar goals set in 2021, comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has cut clean energy funding and prioritized U.S. reliance on fossil fuels.

“There is no doubt that the reduced funding in a lot of these areas from the federal government makes these goals and strategies harder to implement,” said DNREC Secretary Greg Patterson. “It is up to us to keep trying to work towards them, even knowing that it’s going to be a little harder to do without the federal resources that even a year ago we thought we could count on.”

Delaware officials plan to promote public transit, electric vehicles and clean hydrogen

The plan calls for increased bus and train ridership while improving access to electric vehicles and charging stations. Though lawmakers repealed a mandate that would have required manufacturers to produce a set number of electric vehicles, DNREC wants to expand programs that incentivize the optional sale of electric vehicles.

However, Love emphasized the state “can’t EV our way out of transportation emission.”

“A lot of work needs to be done as well to reduce the amount that we drive vehicles, by good land use choices, mass transit and making it easier for people to walk, bike and roll to their destinations,” she said.

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