Violence in Delaware Schools
Social Justice Reform & Isolation Create Fertile Ground Sowing Violence & Hatred
The safety of the students and staff of Delaware schools is in a steep, rapid decline.
Following the return to full-time, in-person learning, an amassing amount of anecdotal reports indicate that violence is rising in K-12 schools.
Teachers are reporting breaking up fights in schools and are raising concerns about their own safety.
The BJA, another three letter bureaucratic government organization, which is part of the DOJ, awarded Wilmington a subsidy for S.T.O.P.1, an intervention program for middle and high school students to prevent school violence. More on that later.
Wilmington was the most dangerous place for 12 to 17 year olds in the country, with a rate of 3.4 kids injured or killed per 1,000 from 2014 to mid 2017
The violence, which was already at a National high, is in part due to the damage caused by nearly two years of isolation2 which had severe consequences on mental & social health.3
Another major aspect of the rise in violence is the implementation of “social justice” programs under the innocuous name of Restorative Justice or Restorative Practice.4
Through a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request by Citizens for Brandywine School District [now Citizens for Delaware Schools], it is clear that Brandywine school district is putting those theories into practice.
Rutgers University, who’s professor hosted the above “Equitable & Restorative Approach to School Discipline” training, has a history of controversial policies / employees.
Rutgers University Says Grammar Is Racist, Gets Called Out For Assuming Minorities Can’t Write Correctly5
July 27, 2020 | Daily Wire
While I agree that teachers having the ability to de-escalate situations is an important quality, a valuable skill for anyone to possess, a teacher’s primary role is to provide academic education to the students. When teachers must spend so much time on policy & intervention, it takes away from academic instruction.
Below are additional pages from within the aforementioned FOIA request.
Upon review of the FOIA documents received, and unanswered concerns voiced to the school board, Citizens for Brandywine School District drafted a letter which was sent to each board member.
Here is an example of one of the more widely used “trauma-informed and restorative practices” programs.
The Foundations of Restorative Justice [Toolkit]7
Spring 2021 | Learning for Justice social program
Decarceration Begins With School Discipline Reform8
Fall 2022 | Learning for Justice social program
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the parent company of “Learning for Justice”, has a long history of fraud and controversy. The SPLC was exposed in a Pulitzer nominated article in 1995 for racist practices within its own organization. Its founder, Morris Dees, was eventually ousted from the company in 2019 for his controversial racist and sexist behavior. Former employees have come forward in popular media like The New Yorker exposing the “contradictory” working conditions of the SPLC, with minority employees often discriminated against. The SPLC has falsely accused several minority figureheads of extremism, and even settled a multi-million-dollar lawsuit in 2018 for falsely naming Maajid Nawaz as an anti-Muslim extremist.
An opinion piece9 in The Washington Post describes the harm caused from bypassing legislature and using prosecutors to implement “Social Justice Reform”.
A policy to not discipline violent, threatening, and out of control behavior is leading to huge problems in our schools. Teachers, principals, and students fear for their safety due to these ‘social justice’ reforms.
February 6, at the Brandywine school district board meeting, parents showed up to express their concern and outrage at the lack of action from the board after repeated cries for help. Bullying, fights, and other events have compromised the safety of student and staff.
Parents plead for safety in heated Brandywine board meeting10
February 7, 2023 | Delaware Live
Principal Woodson of Springer Middle School was taken out on a stretcher and left by ambulance. The school sent out an email stating that Principal Woodson tripped & fell, but that was an intentional lie! It was pretty evident that is not what happened, as seen in the video circulating on the internet of the fight where Principal Woodson was knocked to the ground and KICKED!
Mr. Woodson, if you are reading this, I wish you well. You are revered in the community.
Public comment from the January BSD board meeting below:
February 6th was the last BSD board meeting, the one referenced in the article above.
One mother’s son was told by Principal Woodson that a small group of students have over 100 behavioral referrals. Principal Woodson recently told parents at a PTA meting that he would not send his own children to Springer due to behavioral problems.
There is a growing number of American educators who would not send their own children to the schools where they are employed.11
Public comment from the Brandywine School District February board meeting starts here.12
It is this returning father’s repeated comments about violence in the schools & the lack of action which elicits a response from the school board. There is a policy where the board does not respond to public comments during the meeting, and they have asserted that policy plenty of other times. It appears that they have had that opportunity to respond since November, but chose not to. If anyone is to be offended, it should be the parents.
Below is that father’s public comment:
One student, who is disabled, speaks13 to the state of disrepair of Mt Pleasant HS. Sometimes she must use the elevator. The elevator’s certificate of operation has been expired since June of 2019!
This is UNACCEPTABLE!
There is no reason this student should ever have the concerns that she does. I feel terrible that this student had to come before the board to have her concerns heard!
School Bullies Beat Special Needs Student [Red Clay School District]
February 16, 2023 | International Business Times
In Red Clay school district, a 13 year old girl was jumped while in class at Stanton Middle School. The entire incident was recorded. When her friend intervened, she too was attacked.
"They're all surrounding my daughter and watching her get kicked in the head and watching her friend get kicked in the head. And they think this is okay?"
Their parents say the girls reported the threats to school staff prior to the fight, and requested protection at least four different times, yet the school did nothing to stop the event from occurring.
June 18, 2020 The Delaware ACLU penned a letter to the Red Clay School District in support of the effort to remove school resource officers (SROs) from Red Clay's schools.
Another recent, and very concerning incident happened at two separate Red Clay schools on the same day!
Unloaded guns found in backpacks of 8-year-old, 14-year-old at separate Red Clay schools14
February 3, 2023 | Delaware Online
An 8-year-old boy was found with an unloaded gun in his backpack at Shortlidge Elementary School on Thursday, shortly after a 14-year-old was also found with an unloaded gun in their backpack at A.I. du Pont Middle School, police confirmed.
The incidents do not appear to be connected.
These two incidents come in light of a recent event in Virginia where a 6-years-old brought a loaded gun to school and intentionally shot his first grade teacher.15
The teacher who was shot, alleged that four teachers, including Zwerner, and a guidance counselor all warned the school's assistant principal, Ebony Parker, about the shooter's behavior on the day of the shooting, but Parker failed to act when she was first notified, between 11:15 and 11:30 a.m., and when Zwerner was shot at 1:59 p.m.
This story has since gone away, and I believe there is a reason for that. It would bring forth discussion about the circumstances the child faces at home, and re-enforce the need for a solid family structure of morals, values, love, and discipline.
It was said that the child should not be held responsible, because he was not capable of understanding the consequences of his actions.
Yet many of those same people, say that children at that age are capable of changing their gender; going as far as to prescribe puberty blocking, chemical castration drugs in the name of “gender affirmation”.16
Delaware State Police Investigate Shot Fired at William Penn High School17
January 11, 2023 | DE State Police
On January 26, a student & sexual abuse victim addresses the Cape Henlopin School board to describe her trauma, the districts neglect, and failure to report. This young girl’s mother speaks as well.
This Cape Henlopen father speaks out after his Milton Elementary School daughter with Down Syndrome was punched by the aid on the bus, and the Cape Henlopin school district failed in notifying him.18
Delaware schools are constantly responding
Schools face pressure to take harder line on discipline
January 21, 2023 | AP News
As of 2020, 21 states and the District of Columbia had passed legislation supporting the use of restorative practices in schools, according to research from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality.
The AP tries hard to defend the use of Restorative Practices, but the anecdotal evidence shows otherwise.
Well before the Jan. 6 shooting of a first-grade teacher, not all educators were happy with the handling of student discipline. According to a spring 2022 survey of teachers and staff, only 60% of respondents said administrators were addressing negative student behaviors.
Other examples of this violence is shown below:
9-year-old girl viciously pummeled with rapid-fire punches to her head aboard school bus; main assailant appears to larger male; cops make arrest19
February 03, 2023 | The Blaze
CDC Announces Record High Rates of Sadness, Suicide Among Teen Girls20
February 13, 2023 | TimCast
Female high school students were more likely than their male peers to drink alcohol and use drugs
On Feb. 13, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention released The Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011–2021 – its annual report on health behaviors among the nation’s high school-aged students which now includes data from 2021.
There is a disturbing trend of increasing violence, bullying, and a failure to keep our schools safe!
Behavioral issues in school, growing increasingly more violent, are becoming standard. Parents no longer feel safe sending their children to government funded public schools. The children are being victimized, sexualized, and indoctrinated.
Alternatives are becoming more readily available, with options such as homeschool groups or ‘pods’, where multiple children homeschool together in more of a traditional “Red Schoolhouse” kind of way. Teachers were once highly regarded pillars of the community.
We, the parents, grandparents, and tax paying Americans must stand tall for our children, and form that solid foundation to which those pillars must once more be placed.
📣Call to Action
Show up to the next school board meeting.
Bring others with you.
Show those parents whose children have been let down by the districts that we will no longer accept their failure.
Monday March 20, 2023 - 7pm
Wednesday March 15, 2023 - 7pm
Thursday March 23, 2023 – HOB - 6pm
“We know they are lying.
They know they are lying.
They know that we know they are lying.
We know that they know that we know they are lying.
And they still continue to lie.” —Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Be sure to follow through with your commitment to our students and VOTE!
Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program
An intervention program for middle and high school students to prevent school violence.
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2021, $998,708)
Since 2015 when Wilmington, Delaware ranked third for violence among 450 US cities of comparable size and Newsweek first labeled Wilmington “Murder Town USA,” youth violence has remained a significant public health and safety concern. More concerning is the increasing number of middle and high school students engaging in violence. There has been a significant increase in gun violence and youth gun violence in Wilmington over the past two years, and more specifically in the neighborhood where the Community Education Building is located. Not surprisingly, violence in school, on school buses, and on routes to and from school is correspondingly increasing with community violence. Youth who experience violence as a victim, perpetrator, or witness are likely to experience toxic stress that negatively impacts healthy development and threatens the future of our youth. Youth violence disproportionately impacts African American youth in underserved neighborhoods where most of our students live. This grant will support 1,000 middle and high school students attending school at the CEB in Wilmington, their families, and their communities. The goal of this project is to provide immediate interventions to middle and high school students most at risk for engaging in violence to reduce incidences of school violence and minimize the negative impact that school violence has on youth. CEB will bring together several partners, including two public charter schools, the United States Attorney, District of Delaware, Delaware Department of Education, the Wilmington Police Department, and several community groups to create an integrated system of support for 50 middle and high school students. Using holistic case management, we employ school-based universal and targeted student interventions that are aligned with the strategies outlined in the CDC’s technical package for preventing youth violence. We will: 1) implement a universal school based SEL/violence prevention program including trauma informed de-escalation training for staff; 2) provide holistic, integrated, case management services so that each student will receive direct one-on-one support of a community-based advocate, mentoring, tutoring, opportunities for enrichment, and extended recreation; 3) provide families with life coaching and connections to services and supports that lead to economically and socially thriving families; 4) offer enrichment and extended afterschool opportunities for students; and 5) support safe routes to school.
COVID-19, a virus that has been known from the earliest days of the pandemic to represent only a vanishingly tiny threat of death, hospitalization, or severe disease to children.
The Children Never Had the Coronavirus. So Why Did They Have Antibodies?
November 12, 2020 | The New York Times
James Lindsay gives an in-depth analysis of ‘Restorative Justice’, part of New Discourses’s Translations from the Wokish
The English Department at Rutgers announced that it would be changing its standards of English instruction because proper grammar is part of white supremacy. The department argues that this is the case because students of “multilingual, non-standard ‘academic’ English backgrounds” are allegedly disadvantaged.
In a written response, the department would respond to recent events with "workshops on social justice and writing," "increasing focus on graduate student life," and "incorporating 'critical grammar' into our pedagogy." The "critical grammar" approach challenges the standard academic form of the English language in favor of a more inclusive writing experience. The curriculum puts an emphasis on the variability of the English language instead of accuracy.
Leading students to believe they are not capable of using proper grammar, and more-so, not correcting improper grammar (in the name of equity) only puts those students at a disadvantage in life outside the college bubble. Such real world examples would be writing a résumé, clearly articulate a point of view, or meeting the parents of a significant other.
‘Social justice reform’ is no justice at all
November 27, 2019 | The Washington Post [opinion]
