Education Equity

2025 Priorities

During the 2025 legislative session, we are advocating for the Delaware General Assembly to pass legislation to: 

1. Prohibit the arrest of people at sensitive places such as courthouses, schools, hospitals, places of worship, etc. without a valid judicial warrant or court order to protect immigrant families.  

Our Legislative Priorities

Ongoing Priorties

Involvement

The only way to make equity in education a standard in Delaware schools is through collaborative efforts from parents, community members, educators, and of course, students themselves.

Parent engagement is vital to equity in education. Parent allies are effective advocates for safe and healthy schools that support achievement. Teachers, school staff and administration, and the Delaware Department of Education, all hold the bulk of decision-making power when it comes to education initiatives. Ensuring student perspectives are always an active part of academic planning and programming is key to bringing equity in education to schools state-wide. Bringing these groups on board and working collaboratively is essential in making equity a systemic part of our education system.

Civic Engagement 

Civic engagement and civic achievement programs can accelerate learning, raise expectations for performance, and normalize help-seeking behavior. Students who are involved in their larger communities through school programs often feel a sense of inclusion and belonging in their own school communities, leading to better education outcomes. Civically engaged students can also begin a path of civic engagement that can last far beyond their grade school years.

Discipline Reform

Children should be educated, not incarcerated. It's essential that we challenge policies and practices within public school systems and the juvenile justice system that perpetuate a school-to-prison pipeline in order to achieve equity in education.

Delaware educators need to address high school discipline rates by learning and adopting systematic approaches that encourage problem-solving and create opportunities for students to take responsibility for their behavior and learn new, better behavioral patterns.

Closing the Funding Gap

Centuries of racism have created an education system that offers vastly different experiences for children who live in different parts of our state. Historically white neighborhoods boast schools that are well-funded and well-resourced, while schools in historically Black and brown neighborhoods are left to scrape funds from the bottom of the barrel, leaving resource gaps wide enough for entire communities to fall through.

Realizing equity in education means addressing these demographic barriers at the academic level and on a personal level, so that all students can begin their academic journeys at the starting line with their peers.

Information

The Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." This is true for other fundamental rights, as well.

Our Know Your Rights work will help you learn more about what your rights are, how to exercise them, and what to do when your rights are violated. 

View KYR pages

Resources

You can work alongside us and your fellow Delawareans to make sure our civil liberties are protected. Please use this form to request materials for your community outreach work if you reside or work in Delaware

Request KYR materials

Trainings

Interested in hosting a Know Your Rights training? Our Know Your Rights trainings provide valuable information to help you understand and protect your rights when it comes to demonstrations and protests, trans and gender diverse youth, and more.

Request a training

Our Vision

Delaware schools should foster an environment where all students belong by including students in academic and enrichment experiences that prepare them for life after grade school – both academically and personally.

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Our Work

Scholars Engaged for Action (SEFA)
Students who are involved in their larger communities through school programs often feel a sense of inclusion and belonging in their own school communities, leading to better education outcomes and a path of civic engagement that can last far beyond their grade school years.

Learn more

School Discipline
Children should be educated, not incarcerated. We challenge policies and practices within public school systems and the juvenile justice system that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline. 

Learn more

Fair Discipline Online Toolkit
By replacing out-of-school suspensions with more effective non-punitive interventions, schools will consciously create more inclusive cultures. Comprehensive studies indicate that inclusive school cultures reduce sources of stress in the lives of children and families. Non-punitive, restorative discipline practices support the development of responsive relationships for young people with adults.

Learn more

Urge Gov. Meyer to Protect Delawareans' Civil Liberties

Governor Meyer has already demonstrated strong leadership when it comes to pushing back against policies that endanger immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, those seeking reproductive healthcare, and students.  

We need you to send a message to Governor Meyer thanking him for his commitments thus far and urging him to immediately issue an Executive Order refusing to cooperate with any action by the federal government’s that could deny Delawareans their constitutional rights.  

Send a message