“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including The Morning News and The Evening Journal. See the archives at delawareonline.com.
Aug. 25, 2000, The News Journal
With the start of school just two weeks away, Sussex County’s first charter school opened its doors this week in Georgetown.
The $3 million building with an old-fashioned school bell above the front door is the first charter school in Delaware built from the ground up.
Grants from several foundations and low-interest loans from the federal Department of Agriculture Rural Development agency helped pay for the building just south of Georgetown off Sussex Pines Road.
The school for sixth- to eighth-graders had its start three years ago when a group of Sussex County residents envisioned a school where teachers would work together to integrate reading, writing, math, science and social studies.
They came up with the Sussex Academy of Arts and Sciences and later won a state charter to open and run the school.
“This is a break-the-mold example … in middle-school education,” said Leslie Ruhe Lesko, president of the academy board.
With the start of academic classes set for Sept. 5, the school has a full enrollment of 225 children and 90 on a waiting list.
The school is public but is not affiliated with the existing school districts in the county. A community-based, independent board runs it. The state supplies money to run the school.
Teacher Terry Kopple, who will be part of a sixth-grade team, said one of the activities they have planned for the first day of school is for students to pinpoint where they live on a map of Sussex County. They they will learn navigation skills by participating in a scavenger hunt around their new school….
Kopple, a social studies teacher, said the small classes – about 20 students – make creative, hands-on learning possible.
“It’s a teacher’s dream,” she said.
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Aug. 27, 1975, The Morning News
“If I had to stand in line here, I’d be disgruntled, too,” said Gov. Sherman W. Tribbitt, perspiring in his shirt sleeves yesterday at the unemployment line.
Tribbitt spent about half an hour moving in and among the lines of claimants at the State Labor Department Building, 8th and West streets.
After his visit with claimants and discussion with Secretary of Labor J. Thomas Schrank and Director of Unemployment Compensation Frank P. Vavala, the governor said, “I guess the Labor Department people are trying to do the best they can, but I can understand why so many people waiting there were disgruntled.”
The official unemployment rate in June was 9.4%, compared with 9.2% in May and 11% in March….
Tribbitt arrived at 3 o’clock and moved on into the large room where people had been waiting for various reasons from one hour to several hours….
Most of the people who talked to the governor said they didn’t always understand why they have to wait in line or why they must return so many times before they get unemployment checks….
Along with gripes about getting parking tags outside the Labor Department Building, the governor heard charges that people pass out in the waiting room because of the heat, that weeks pass before they get checks and that they make many telephone calls and get no responsible answer….
The governor said he received complaints about long waits inside the Labor Department Building and that was why he decided to make a surprise visit yesterday….
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Aug. 29, 1925, The Evening Journal
Wilmington Superintendent of Police Black this morning expressed himself as much pleased with the inauguration of the new system of policing the city, which became effective yesterday morning.
The superintendent said that after the system is in operation for a few days, those now criticizing the change, doubtless, will be ready to admit that it has greatly aided the Bureau of Police in better guarding the city at night, the time when most police protection is needed….
The system last night evidently caused would-be wrong doers to be on their guard as only five arrests were made by the police last night up to midnight, and none after that prior to the holding of Municipal Court this morning.
Henry P. Scott Jr., acting president of the Directors of Public Safety, when asked this morning as to the rumor that 20 new men are to be added to the Bureau of Police, said that while more men could be used to advantage in the Bureau of Police, he saw no way by which they could be obtained for that purpose, as he knew of no one willing to work without pay and the directors have no available funds from which to pay extra men….
Reach reporter Ben Mace at [email protected].
