5 Champlain Ave
Wilmington, DE 19804

My daughter attends Richardson Park. I love the staff and how engaging they are with parents.

My daughter started 6th grade. The school was a zoo. No order or discipline. Children running wild. All middle schools are crazy it’s a crazy age for kids but what the teacher’s and admin’s excuse for being bullies themselves? A boy kept harassing her and following her he shoved her she shoved him back to defend herself. He was bigger than her and already had disciplinary issues on his record. My straight A student who was never in trouble for anything was give detention by the Vice Principal for the first time in her life simply for protecting herself from a bigger abusive boy. She chose to believe his side of the story and her decision was 100% racially motivated. I decided the day she came home crying and told me she had detention I had two choices I could go and fight with the V principal a retaliatory petty woman or I could empower my child with a better education. That was the first and last year my kid was in that school. I moved her to private school because we could. I know Not everyone is lucky enough to have those options. “Choice” is the worst thing to happen to DE schools. If you want to be fair keep the kids who come to school to educate themselves not the ones who come to cause trouble.

If you love your child, do NOT send them to this school. And good luck if they have no choice but to go to public school in Delaware. I visited several times since my child was disabled and not able to tell me what happened during the school day. It was extremely disturbing at each and every visit. Students have control of the teachers and staff, obscenities screamed in every hallway, disrespect and chaos throughout. In one class I visited, no one even showed up to teach the class even though the Vice Principal told me she texted the teacher the night before to tell him I was coming in for a visit and he assured her he would be there. That teacher rarely made an appearance, but nothing done about it. The students were actually going to sit there and do nothing like usual until I insisted that my child and the other disabled children in the class return to the homeroom. We went back to the class and the Vice Principal and I did work with them on the white board. There is very little learning happening- it's just bad babysitting. On another visit, a typical peer student threw a stool across the room as the Vice Principal, a male para professional, and I stood there in the same room. None of the adults except myself said a word to that student. That experience was unbelievably terrifying. I felt like I was in a jungle with wild animals and no one was interested in taming them. On another occasion I witnessed another typical peer being pulled to the front office because she had told another student that she was going to kidnap and murder her. Maybe she was joking? Whatever the case, it was not taken seriously. What type of person says those types of things- a person who needs serious help and isn't going to get it at this school. I could literally go on and on at about the heinous things our family observed and endured here. The worst one yet was what happened to my disabled child when his para forgot about him and lost him- the reason our child has panic attacks when there is a mere mention of McKean HS and we had to remove him from high school altogether. There are NO safe schools in Delaware for children with disabilities and if you REALLY want to see what is actually happening with your child at school, you will schedule an all day visit. Most of the parents I have spoken with just want to believe everything is fine. Maybe they don't have time for all day visit? I guess I just care about my my child more than they do theirs. We are all different