Home Care In Kenton, DE

GEORGETOWN, Del.- A former state representative can add another line to his resume: college graduate.

In June, 80-year-old Harvey Kenton graduated from Delaware Technical Community College, with a degree in Production Agriculture. Before serving as a state representative for the Milford area for eight years, Kenton worked for decades in agriculture. He also served in the Navy right out of high school. But Kenton says going back to school to get his degree proved to be one of the bigger challenges of his life.

"It's like a kid going to the first day of first grade I think, Kenton tells WRDE. "I was quite nervous. I got there at 7:30 in the morning and waited for the security guard to open up the building [...] I had a dozen donuts there for the kids when they came in. I was eo excited and I sat in the front row and I did so in every class. it was an exciting experience for me at a much older age."

Kenton says the technology aspect of school was the hardest part. But with the help of his teachers and fellow students, he aced the tech side and aced his classes--graduating Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0.

Classmate David Miller says "Mr. Harvey" taught him about professionalism, and exemplified the power of teamwork--especially during the pandemic.

"It's kind of a life lesson especially for people our age," says Miller. "I think if we come together just as me and Mr. Harvey did on our project we can work together and get through this."

Kenton's teachers say his age added a lot to the class at large.

"I was happy that he came in because he brought that generation to the classroom," says Adjunct Instructor David Mancuso. "That was my parents, and for the students, it's the grandparents. So he brought that ethics to the classroom."

Adds Academic Advisor and Instructor Dr. Daniele Kidd, "Many of our younger students are working and have family or children and it can be really difficult. Because of Mr. Harvey's experience [...] he was able to say 'Look, you're going to get through this. We are all in this together. We are taking this class together. We can do it,' He really was a huge motivator for many of our students."

Kenton says when he was discouraged, his teachers, classmates, and family lifted him up. He says he wanted to set an example for his two-year-old grandson, showing him the value of a degree at any age in life.

"Any of you seniors out there who are saying,' I always wanted to do that,' Go do it. It's there. Just reach out for it."

Vice President and Campus Director Dr. Bobbi Barends says stories like Kenton's are exactly what Delaware Tech aims to do.

"We want to provide opportunity and hope for all of those in our community," she says. "He's just persevered and showed grit the whole way through. That's what we love about our Delaware Tech students; they juggle a lot of things, they have a lot going on but they persevere and they cross that finish line and graduate."

Kenton was a member of the Honor Society and a recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Award. Now that his college classes are over, he plans to spend his days with family and friends.

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Posted Sunday, November 7, 2021 5:00 am

KENTON — Nancy W. Cook dedicated her life to public service, first as a 36-year state senator for the area west of Dover and then as Kent County’s register of wills from 2011-13.

And Ms. Cook, 85, of Kenton, has shown no signs of slowing down, as she was inducted into the DE Turf Sports Complex’s Wall of Fame on Sept. 16 and was honored by Kent County Levy Court with a Medal for Meritorious Service on Oct. 19.

She said she was both surprised and humbled by being recognized by the two organizations.

“I was very surprised, I’ll be honest with you,” said Ms. Cook, “and certainly very honored in both cases. I was overwhelmed.”

She was also caught somewhat off guard.

“When I went to Levy Court, I thought I was going to hear somebody else recognized for the work they did in soil conservation, so when they started reading the tribute, I had no idea it was about me until they said something about ‘Nancy,’” Ms. Cook said.

“I just think it’s truly an honor in both cases, and, obviously, to be recognized by Levy Court, another elected body, certainly is very close to my heart because, obviously, it represents that we tried to work together over the years, and I appreciate the recognition.”

Bill Strickland, chairman of DE Turf, just south of Frederica, said Ms. Cook was instrumental in getting the vision for the facility off the ground and running.

“She has meant the world to DE Turf,” he said. “Her involvement with DE Turf goes back to the days when the project was still on the drawing board.

“We were trying to secure startup infrastructure money from the Delaware Economic Development Office’s infrastructure fund, and Nancy was a tireless advocate, making phone calls and lobbying ... folks to support what turned out to be a $3.2 million grant that really got the project off the ground.”

DE Turf continues to thrive, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nancy has been tireless in her advocacy of the complex, both working with state officials to help us get open during COVID, to securing funds for additional lights, which will be constructed at the facility in December to alight all 12 fields,” Mr. Strickland said. “She’s been a member of our board for many years and has just been a true champion for us.”

When Kent County Levy Court honored Ms. Cook with its prestigious Medal for Meritorious Service, it noted her long and distinguished career in public office.

“Nancy W. Cook began her storied career as the very first elected female Democratic Delaware state senator and was soon thereafter appointed to the Finance Committee, before chairing or co-chairing the prestigious budget-writing Joint Finance Committee for the next 25 years,” Levy Court pronounced during the ceremony.

“During her long tenure in the Delaware Senate, Nancy W. Cook championed the Agland Preservation Program, the state’s ‘rainy day fund,’ the state’s AAA credit rating, among other legislation, and has been honored for her contributions by numerous organizations, including the (Delaware Women’s Hall of Fame).”

Sen. Tom Carper wrote a tribute for Ms. Cook when she stepped away from public office in 2010.

“An icon in the Delaware General Assembly, Nancy’s legislative accomplishments are vast,” Sen. Carper wrote. “During my terms as both Delaware’s treasurer and Governor, Nancy and I worked closely together on many financial issues facing the State of Delaware. Known for her immense knowledge of and experience with Delaware financial matters, I valued her input on many major decisions.”

Ms. Cook has remained plenty busy in recent years, as her accolades clearly show. She remains a member of the Polytech School District board of education and the DE Turf board of directors and serves on the board of the Delaware Strategic Fund, which distributes grants that attract new businesses to the state.

She is a proud supporter of DE Turf and said it’s amazing how the organization managed to endure through COVID-19.

“I became a member of the board in recent years, but what they have done to bring DE Turf to Kent County is just amazing. It truly is,” Ms. Cook said. “They had some obstacles along the way, but I think what a fine facility, and I think that it ranks high along the East Coast, as far as very few complexes have all turf (fields), and each year, we get more tournaments and national tournaments, and it just brings so much to Kent County.

“That wasn’t easy, but they managed to do it and, like other organizations, what a tough, tough time. In my whole tenure, I’ve seen a lot of downturns in the economy and things affected, but nothing like what has happened in the last year-and-a-half (throughout the pandemic),” she said.

“So I’m very busy, and I love it.”

One of Oregon’s most successful high schools at educating students of color is losing its building. Students finishing their freshman year at De La Salle North Catholic this spring will be the last class to graduate at the school’s current location, after Portland Public Schools rejected the private school’s effort to extend its lease of a former elementary building in North Portland.

De La Salle North Catholic was the first offshoot of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago, when it opened in Portland in 2001. Since then, 30 schools have joined the Cristo Rey Network across the country.

A hallmark of the Cristo Rey approach is its partnership with local businesses, as part of the curriculum. At De La Salle North Catholic, students spend one day a week working at a Portland-area business: Students gain work experience, the businesses get an entry-level employee for eight hours a week, and the school gets a portion of the student’s tuition paid by the businesses, as compensation for the student’s work. DLSNC estimates that the work-study arrangement helps cut the $15,000 per-student cost of education to less than $3,000 tuition for students (not including financial aid).

De La Salle North Catholic began on property owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, but had to move when the diocese entered bankruptcy. It moved into its current home at the former Kenton Elementary School building in 2007. PPS had closed Kenton the year before, as part of a district-wide restructuring effort, amid declining enrollments and tightening budgets. DLSNC's roughly 300 students have been at Kenton ever since.

Officials at the private Catholic school say 73 percent of DLSNC’s students identify as black or Latino, and only 15 percent are white. They enroll in ninth grade an average of one and half years behind, academically.

Yet of the students who stay for four years, school administrators say, 95 percent graduate and get into college, with 45 percent going on to earn college degrees.

Unlike Portland Public, De La Salle North Catholic does not publish four-year cohort graduation rates.

The average graduation rate for PPS high schools is 78 percent, and below 70 percent for both black and Latino students.

Initially, DLSNC had a 20-year lease agreement for Kenton through 2026, with options for up to three extensions of up to 10 years. Officials say they spent $2 million on renovations for the vacant building.

But before long, DLSNC leaders got anxious. They say the escalating payments of well over $400,000 a year were too steep and what felt initially like a 50-year lease, was feeling less certain as time passed. So they approached PPS in 2015 to discuss alternatives. DLSNC leaders offered three options: They could buy the building, negotiate a new 60-year lease extension or terminate the lease earlier than 2026.

“PPS denied the first two options outright and agreed to the third,” DLSNC officials told OPB this week. “They also stated that even though DLSNC had three 10-year extensions beyond 2026, they would not be extending them.”

The school decided to cut the lease short, rather than pay upwards of $400,000 per year for the indefinite future. Officials agreed in 2015 to end the lease in July 2021.

Fast-forward three years to 2018, though, and the small private high school has not found a place to go. School leaders have a tough set of criteria to satisfy: big enough for a high school (about 55,000 square feet), on public transit (to accommodate the transportation needs of their students) and as close to their North Portland roots (and students) as possible. Kenton satisfied all three.

So, this year, DLSNC leaders met with the new administration at Portland Public Schools: board chair Julia Brim-Edwards, board member Rita Moore and Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero.

“There had been so much change at PPS; we had such difficulty finding a permanent home, we felt like, ‘You know what, we need to ask one more time, with the new leadership,’” said De La Salle North Catholic’s board chair Patti O’Mara.

Since 2015, Portland Public Schools' executive offices have been revolving doors, with Superintendent Carole Smith and Chief Operating Officer Tony Magliano leaving amid the lead-in-water scandal, the brief tenure of interim Superintendent Bob McKean. It hasn't stopped with arrival of Guerrero last October, as former operations chiefs Yousef Awwad and Jerry Vincent, and chief strategic officer Laura Parker have left in recent months.

“To be honest, everyone we worked with in 2015 is gone,” O'Mara told OPB.

So O’Mara entered a meeting this spring with one main question about the Kenton building.

“Is there any ability to stay? And the answer was no,” O’Mara said.

PPS confirmed to OPB that it was not interested in changing its approach to DLSNC and the Kenton Elementary building, and instead was looking forward to adding an elementary school to its portfolio of facilities.

“When DLSNC asked us recently to extend the lease, we declined and explained to them that we are in a position where we need all our available facilities to accommodate our schools and programs,” said director of strategic communications and outreach Harry Esteve in an email to OPB.

“As recent events have shown, space is at a premium at PPS and we are having difficulties finding enough space to house all of our programs,” Esteve continued.

Related: PPS Superintendent Proposes Closing ACCESS Academy

Esteve was referencing, at least in part, the district’s repeated failure to find even a short-term home for the ACCESS Academy — a district-run alternative program for talented and gifted students who can show they're not well-supported at neighborhood schools.

The issue of "space is at a premium" relates to PPS making a different decision about a school tenant in a district building last year. PPS had initially intended for a public charter school called Kairos PDX to leave the Humboldt Elementary School building in North Portland, so that the ACCESS Academy could move in. But local elected leaders, like Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Speaker of the Oregon House Tina Kotek, D-Portland, spoke out against the move, and PPS backed off. Since then, PPS has floated and scuttled two other plans, leaving ACCESS families in limbo, and filing complaints, as the school year winds down.

The district currently rents Humboldt to Kairos PDX for $122,000 per year — barely one-quarter of the $443,000 it’s earning by renting Kenton to De La Salle North Catholic this school year.

PPS does not know what it will do with Kenton Elementary School after De La Salle North Catholic leaves in 2021.

“We don’t have a specific plan for the school at this point,” said Esteve via email. “But [we] are considering how to use it in a way that is most beneficial to our students and families.”

De La Salle leaders are less focused on pressuring PPS to allow the school to remain at Kenton, and more interested in finding a suitable site elsewhere. But board chair O’Mara said the real estate market and lack of vacant sites are combining for a tougher situation than expected, when school leaders negotiated the shorter lease in 2015.

“None of us knew, the community didn’t know, how hot Portland would be, so we find ourselves in 2018 ... we haven’t found a home,” O’Mara said. “We’re asking the community to help us. We need to find a permanent home, where we can control it.”

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story used an unsubstantiated graduation rate for De La Salle North Catholic. The story has now been changed to more accurately reflect the school's lack of a published four-year graduation rate. OPB regrets any confusion.