The reported proficiency rate for Social studies is 11%.
Original Research by School Decision on Freire Charter School Wilmington
Freire Charter School Wilmington is a single-school charter district in New Castle County, Delaware, serving grades eight through twelve. It operates as both a school and its own district, which is common for charter entities in Delaware. The school follows a publicly reported five-year college-prep model, and available sources describe its current operations but point to no major policy, curriculum, referendum, or tax changes in the recent past.
The enrollment is small for a school covering five grade levels, which gives the place an intimate feel compared to larger comprehensive high schools in the county. The student body is predominantly Black, with smaller Hispanic, White, and multiracial populations. This demographic profile is a plain characteristic of the school and reflects the community it draws from in Wilmington. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data, special education counts, and English learner figures were not available, so the economic background of the student population and the level of specialized services cannot be characterized from the data provided.
Academic performance is the area where the picture is most concerning. State assessment results for the most recent year in math, English language arts, and science were suppressed, meaning the state did not release proficiency rates for reporting or privacy reasons. The school does serve grade eight, which falls within the tested band for these assessments, and tested counts were reported, so the suppression appears tied to the state's reporting rules rather than an absence of testing. What is visible in the trend data tells a difficult story. English language arts proficiency has bounced around at low levels over several years, with the most recent reported figure still well below what most county districts post. Math proficiency has been persistently low across the years where data was reported. In eighth-grade social studies, the one result available for the most recent year, proficiency was also low.
Placed among New Castle County's districts, Freire's overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile. Its chronic absenteeism rate is also in the bottom quartile among county districts, which is a serious challenge. High absenteeism and low proficiency often reinforce each other, and a parent considering this school would want to ask directly what attendance interventions and academic support systems are in place. The per-pupil spending level sits in the middle range of the county, upper half, so resources are not obviously scarce relative to neighboring districts. How those resources translate into classroom support is a question worth raising with school leadership.
No graduation rate was available for this entity, which limits the picture for families thinking about the high school years. The school serves through grade twelve and has a senior class, so a graduation rate would be expected to exist. Its absence from this dataset may reflect reporting delays or how the state classifies charter district outcomes, but the reason is not stated in the data. A parent should ask the school directly for its most recent graduation and college-enrollment figures, since the school's stated model is built around college preparation.
No information on AP courses, dual-credit partnerships, career pathways, extracurriculars, or other program offerings was available. For a school that markets itself as college-prep, the absence of program detail is a real gap. Families should request a current course catalog and a list of postsecondary partnerships before drawing conclusions about how the upper grades operate. No data on discipline, staffing ratios, attendance policies beyond the absenteeism rate, or school environment was provided either.
Freire Charter School Wilmington is a small, predominantly Black charter school with a stated college-preparatory mission and per-pupil resources in the middle of the county range. Its academic results as captured by state assessments are low, and chronic absenteeism is a serious concern. The data gaps are substantial enough that a family would need to go directly to the school to fill them in, particularly on graduation outcomes, course offerings, and what the daily academic and support experience looks like for students.
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