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Eastside Charter credits staff retention and STEM Hub partnerships for sharp gains on state assessments
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Summary
Eastside Charter School officials told the Wilmington City Council education committee that the school’s students have outpaced statewide recovery from COVID-era learning loss and that a new STEM Hub is expanding workforce and family services across Wilmington.
Eastside Charter School leaders told the Wilmington City Council Education, Youth and Family Services Committee on June 11 that the school’s same-student cohorts have shown large year-over-year test-score gains while a newly opened STEM Hub is expanding workforce-development training for families across Wilmington.
"The same students for us have increased by 25%... our students started off in '22 at 27% proficient, grew to 52%," said Dr. Aaron Bass, a presenter for Eastside Charter School, describing the school's English language arts results compared with state averages. He added that Eastside's eighth graders have earned more than $250,000 in private-school scholarships this year.
The nut of Eastside's pitch to the committee was twofold: classroom learning improvements and a community-facing STEM Hub intended to boost family employment. "One theory of action that we had was to focus on if our parents and our families are able to have better success in workforce development, then they would also then have better success as far as our children," said a presenter from Eastside before turning the presentation to Ray Rhodes, who described workforce cohorts based at the hub.
Rhodes told the committee the hub ran a first cohort with Delaware Technical Community College that drew "over 200 and some" expressions of interest and enrolled 25 students; 19 obtained certifications in areas including phlebotomy, certified nursing assistant and emergency medical technician, and several received job placements or placement help. "We were able to get 25 students in the class. 19 of them received certifications in phlebotomy, CNA, emergency medical tech, and dialysis technician," Rhodes said. He described a current BioConnect cohort that also enrolled 25 from more than 135 applicants and is working with employers for placements after an eight-week training.
Presenters described multiple private- and nonprofit-sector partners using the STEM Hub as a training site, including Fluxpace, Future First Gaming, University of Delaware, Code Differently and local employers; some programs are open to the public and include internships, stipends and certification pathways. Committee members asked about kindergarten coding, teacher retention and student demographics; Eastside said coding instruction starts in kindergarten and highlighted a staff retention rate above 93% as a factor in sustained student growth.
Committee members and presenters framed the hub as both a pipeline into living-wage work and a mechanism to support students’ academic growth by stabilizing family employment. "We're trying to uplift the entire community," Eastside's presenter said. The presentation closed with an invitation to council and the public to tour the STEM Hub and to use its workforce programs.
Ending: The committee did not take formal action on the presentation. Council members thanked Eastside leaders and said they would follow up on enrollment, partnership and replication opportunities across the city.
