Early College High School at Del State

Early College School at Del State is a single public high school in Dover, Delaware, serving grades 7 through 12 with 583 students, and it operates under the Early College High School at Del State district, which ranks 14th out of 34 districts in the state.

This school presents a striking contrast in academic performance. On one hand, it excels in humanities and writing: 11th graders score well above state averages on the SAT Essay (54.95% proficient vs. 43.01% statewide) and SAT ELA (51.06% vs. 44.02%), and 11th-grade Social Studies also outpaces the state (30.85% vs. 24.91%). On the other hand, math is a significant weakness at every grade level. The most concerning figure is 8th-grade math, where only 9.47% of students are proficient—a 20-point gap from the state average. Even 11th-grade SAT math proficiency (8.51%) is less than half the state rate (18.16%). This "tale of two profiles" suggests the school's instructional strengths lie in literacy and critical thinking, but math intervention is urgently needed, especially given the school's early college mission.

Despite these math challenges, the school shows remarkable momentum. Between 2024-2025 and 2025-2026, 8th-grade ELA jumped by 17.11 percentage points, 8th-grade Social Studies rose by 11.83 points, and 11th-grade Social Studies improved by 9.42 points. The school also boasts an exceptionally low chronic absenteeism rate of just 2.1%—far better than the state's 17.1%—which likely fuels these gains by maximizing instructional time. The dropout rate (1.9%) is also half the state average. With a stable 3-star rating and a slight rank improvement (from 18th to 17th out of 41 schools), this is a school that is clearly responsive to intervention, though its persistent math gap—particularly in 8th grade—remains the critical barrier to fully realizing its college-prep potential.