Questions Surface About Newark Charter School's Applicant Pool - How Many NCS Students Live Outside The Five Mile Enrollment Criteria?

(Newark Post) Josh Shannon reports ~ Newark Charter High School ready to open

But is Newark Charter School lying about its five-mile limit-per-applicant rule? Are discrepancies Kilroy found on the DDOE website merely data entry errors? Can this many kids be teachers' children or kids of founding members - the only permissible way to circumvent the rule?

Kilroy posted the evidence. Click over to his site for the comments ~

OMG !!!!! Is this a DE DOE charter data snafu ?

Posted on August 18, 2013 by kilroysdelaware

Go to this DE DOE website and review this excel spreadsheet 

2013 Across and Within District Choice (Excel)

Go under “Home District Detail”

See “District Enrollment” for Newark Charter School! Notice the number of students coming from “Home District”

If I am reading this correct, Newark Charter School has a total of 1,347 students per this spreadsheet “Total Enrollment”! I checked the school profiles and this is correct.  So here we go, according to the data / spreadsheet, the follow Newark Charter students come from these ” Home Districts”, Appo 23, Brandywine 4, Christina 1278, Colonial 16, Red Clay 22 and Smyrna 4. Add the all up and yep! 1,347 students. That’s one big ass 5 mile radius! 

I am pretty sure I see the data entry errors! But you know, you’d think those making the big money in Dover could see this obvious error and correct it before publishing. As for Newark Charter School there still are questions re: 5 mile radius even with correct alignment of the data.  

OK here it is !!! Double click image for full view

• Citizen ~ I have also heard that NCS students whose families move outside the 5-mile are permitted to remain in the school (presumably they have to remain DE residents). Is this official policy, stated somewhere in the school’s documentation? Do other public schools allow this–can you rent for one year in the N. Star feeder area, for ex., then move to a less expensive neighborhood but keep your child there? That would be a sweet deal!

  Am I right in thinking that NCS’s five-mile enrollment radius makes it the only CSD middle or (now) high school that does not include a section of Wilmington as part of its “feeder” area (the five-mile is essentially the school’s enrollment boundary since there’s too much demand for NCS admission within it to allow other children in, unless they qualify under one of the exemptions stated above–or, it seems, unless they started as five-mile residents and then moved out).

  Also:

  Kilroy  ~ So charters are not “public schools”? Rather public schools who can cherry pick with preferences whereas TPS can’t, HOWEVER .magnet schools and votechs do! The reality is we end up with at-risk high poverty predominantly minorities students who have no parent advocating for them leaving them in TPS that are being mined by charter schools for the best and brightest and with parents who are engaged.
  

  We’re building an education system that allows parents to use choice option for what’s best for their kids while at the same-time not really care about those trapped behind due to lack anyone advocating for them. We no have a system that can be questioned as to being “fair” and “equitable” for all children and has a negative backlash for at risk children,