The Wilmington Learning Collaborative is a network of schools operating across the Christina, Brandywine, and Red Clay school districts, committed to improving educational outcomes and fostering a positive change across schools in Wilmington, Delaware.

“The Wilmington Learning Collaborative empowers educators, school leaders, families, and communities. Working together we can make sure every child in Wilmington is able to succeed. The hard work is just beginning, but I’m optimistic we can focus on doing right by the children in our State’s largest city with the WLC’s leadership.”

Gov. Carney

Mission of the WLC

Our primary objective is to establish a consistent learning experience for students, while simultaneously fostering the empowerment of educators, school leaders, and communities. Through these efforts, we aim to enhance overall student outcomes within the city of Wilmington schools.

What Schools Participate in the WLC?

Currently, our participating institutions include:

How are the WLC’s schools selected?

Districts may add individual schools to this agreement by a process determined by the districts and the WLC collaboratively. A district may also remove individual schools from the WLC if both the district and the WLC Council agree to such removal. New schools will only be added to the WLC if additional funding is made available by the state to support their participation in the WLC.

History of the WLC

In the early months of 2022, the Delaware Department of Education, in collaboration with Governor John Carney, initiated a groundbreaking joint project focused on shifting the educational landscape in Wilmington.

Today, our nine schools, networked across our Red Clay, Brandywine, and Christina school districts, have become the center point of a strategic effort with a clear objective: empower students, families, and educators by providing them a voice in policy-making.

The Wilmington Learning Collaborative (WLC) represents a carefully crafted agreement that stems from Governor Carney and his team’s extensive engagement with Wilmington’s families, educators, students, and community members. This initiative signifies a big step towards fostering an inclusive and outcomes-focused educational environment for our city’s students.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get to know the WLC! Explore our FAQs for informative answers to the most common queries that we get.

In service of our mission of establishing a consistent learning experience for students, while simultaneously fostering the empowerment of educators, school leaders, and communities, the WLC is developing an action plan for the 2024/2025 school year focused on Three Big Shifts. These initiatives are:

  • Students First – The WLC is focused on establishing a culture of learning centered on a shared belief that all children can achieve. We will continuously develop and invest in all adults serving the children in WLC schools, and will additionally develop success goals for all students, supported by a culturally relevant learning environment that affirms the whole child.
  • Connected Schools – The WLC’s aims to build connections and strengthen communication across schools, through shared resourcing and responsibility. This includes cultivating cross-school collaboration—through equitable access to learning opportunities that strengthen skills and experience—and authentically engaging with the broader Wilmington community, removing existing barriers, to sustain the work of the WLC.
  • Purposeful Partnerships – The WLC will Develop partnerships that build capacity, ensuring consistent resources, access to personnel, and information across all WLC schools. We seek to deliver a community-led partnership readiness and evaluation system and launch a citywide strategy to attract continued capacity and funding support ensuring the sustainability of the WLC.

To learn more about our progress, check out the WLC’s Opportunity Scorecard.
This impact report provides information about the extent to which students in our nine schools in the Wilmington Learning Collaborative have access to four key resources at the heart of high-quality academic experiences.

Our process for gathering this data includes collecting assignments and student work samples, observing teachers, surveying students in grades 3-8 every day for three days, and surveying teachers about their expectations for students.

View the Full Report

New programs and events are being added to our offerings on a regular basis. Please visit our What’s Happening Page for a full calendar and updated opportunities! You can also learn more about exciting innovation projects being developed by our Educational Leadership Team by checking out our ELT Projects Page.

If you are interested in connecting or working with the WLC team, please reach out to our Director of Operations, LaToya Winkfield at [email protected].

Transparency

Establishment of the WLC
WLC Bylaws
WLC Bylaws
Conflict of Interest Policy