Reach Academy for Girls

“Hearing set on Reach Academy.” Delaware Online 28 Jun 2011 

WILMINGTON -- There will be a hearing July 8 in Chancery Court before Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster for the court case involving Reach Academy Charter School...

Reach is under review by the state for operational and financial mismanagement allegations. A new board for Reach took over in May and has been fighting to keep the school open...

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DELAWARE SCHOOLS: BOARD'S DISPUTE PUTS REACH ACADEMY'S FUTURE IN LIMBO /Takeover, closure possible for Claymont schools; April 7, 2011; The News Journal/delawareonline.com (DE) 

Two factions of a Claymont charter school's board are fighting for control after the state Department of Education threatened to shut it down unless the entire board resigns.

The Reach Academy for Girls, a first-year, all-girls school with about 200 students, is coping with enrollment issues and has churned through three academic leaders this school year. Citing those issues and other concerns, the state Department of Education in December began a formal review, according to court documents. A formal review comes before a school can be closed.

The department informed the school board in February that the school probably was not going to survive the review process.

But a solution was offered for keeping the school open, according to court documents and other correspondence obtained by The News Journal. If the entire board resigned and were replaced by directors approved by the state, the school would remain open, according to those documents.

In February, the Reach board agreed to resign. But the agreement began to fall apart when it was learned that Newark Charter School might take control. One board member objected strenuously for reasons that are not explained fully in court documents.

Responding to an email about the possible takeover by Newark Charter, board member Mary Ford wrote in a March 15 email to her colleagues: "This is outrageous!!!!! We need to rescind our vote agreeing to resign as a board immediately!"

From there, relations among the board members began to spiral downward…