Input sought on new school website

The Delaware Department of Education is looking to give its school profiles website a facelift, and it wants to know what the public thinks.

School profile pages display information on all public schools in the state. Student enrollment, demographics and teacher ratios are among the information provided.

Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, DOE is required to hold public meetings to develop school report cards – information that will be included in the state's existing school profiles site.

Public meetings began Oct. 9 in Lewes, but will continue throughout the state until June 2018, said Alison May, spokeswoman for the Delaware Department of Education.

“Guided conversations are occurring throughout the state in October regarding defining report card elements, determining priorities and understanding educational terminology,” she said. “Starting in December the department will be holding focus groups and offering surveys for input regarding data visuals and navigation.”

May did not say whether parents would be allowed to suggest information they would like included on the new website, but she said community members would be able to rank by importance information provided by the education department.

Broken into groups, May said, community members rank whether information is on a “need to know” basis, “nice to know,” or “don't need to know.”

Some of the areas include measuring a school's learning environment, teacher qualifications, percentage of students in AP/IB or college-credit earning classes, cost per student, test scores by socioeconomic groups and school attendance rates.

May said community input is encouraged. She said opportunities to contribute and updates will be provided on the report card website - https://www.doe.k12.de.us/Page/3553 and questions can be sent directly to the Report Card email at Delaware.ReportCard@doe.k12.de.us.