Answering increased demand for vocational education and the latest technology, the New Castle County Vocational Technical School District has added a fourth high school to its offerings this fall.
St. Georges Technical High School, located near Rt. 1 south of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, opened with 270 freshmen August 28.
Design, construction, sewer and water service problems pushed completion of the new 250,000 square-foot, $45 million facility behind schedule, requiring students to spend their first two months in an annex at Delcastle Technical High School, until their own classrooms and cafeteria were completed.
There is a lot of excitement among the students about being St. George’s first class, said St. Georges Principal Terri Villa despite construction delays.
However, some Wilmington-area residents have watched the planning and construction of St. Georges with conflicting emotions. These residents, tradesmen and women themselves, realize the need for vocational schools to provide the latest technology and training equipment. Yet they mourn how the progress has seemed to forget their past.
More than 50 years ago, these men and women were students at the then-proud H. Fletcher Brown Vocational High School, perched at the edge of the Brandywine River in downtown Wilmington. Brown Vocational served Greater Wilmington for 31 years, beginning in 1938 – its first students transferring from the Wilmington Trade School and other high school vocational departments. By 1969, aging technology and lack of space to meet the growing need for vocational education closed the school.
Brown alumni asked the New Castle County Vocational Technical School Board’s appointed Naming Committee that the new high school be named after Brown. The committee was impressed with the alumni’s presentation. However, it recommended the name St. Georges after its geographic location, St. Georges Hundred. The board members present at a February 2002 meeting unanimously adopted the recommendation. Board Vice President and Brown Vocational alumnus Joseph Hagee was absent, and later did not return telephone calls to discuss the alumni’s proposal.
Brown alumni said they felt the school district missed an opportunity to honor a man who gave so much to vocational education. Brown was a prominent in Wilmington in the early 20th century. His vision was to provide a beautiful building in a scenic location where high academic standards would stimulate students’ minds.
“This man was a wonderful, giving human being. He had a love that was imbedded in the plaster, brick and stone,” said 1953 Brown graduate Frank Pantano. He and other alumni said they felt naming the new school Brown would help revive that message in today’s educational system.
Vo-Tech Board of Education President John Lynch said there is no doubt Brown produced fine men and women for the workforce, but the two schools have little else in common: they are separated by 30 miles and 37 years. One was in the city, the other is in the country.
They also differ in educational focus. Brown’s students studied cosmetology, commercial art, secretarial skills, construction and auto-shop. Today, St. Georges students can enroll in one of three academies: Information Technology, Health Services and Science, as well as the traditional Construction and Mechanical department. The offerings today reflect a changing trade workforce, training young men and women for retail, web design, nursing and physical therapy support services, the restaurant industry and teaching in early childhood education centers.
“We’re living in a different age and you try to find something people relate to,” Lynch said. “The name (St. Georges) fits this school in this location at this time.”
The Brown alumni suggestion was among more than 150 that the naming committee considered, including ones that would have honored other men and women who were important to Delaware education, said County Vo-Tech District Spokeswoman and Naming Committee Chairwoman Kathy Demarest.
Each suggestion had value, said Vo-Tech District Superintendent Dr. Steven Godowsky, who was the assistant superintendent when St. Georges was approved. In the end, the committee chose a name intended to give the school its own identity and indicate its location, since the school serves the entire county and the building is located in a low-visibility area. The reasons were consistent with the committee’s selection criteria, which were: a name that would describe the school’s location, and one that had historic credibility, relevance in the future and support from the community.
Clarence Woodlyn, who attended Brown Vocational the last two years before it closed, said it does not matter to him that the board didn’t name it Brown, because doing so would not recapture what was lost.
However, older alumni continue to feel strongly about it, despite the gulf in distance, time and technology, because they felt it was the second time their tradition had been overlooked. The first time, they said, happened in 1969, when Brown was closed to make way for a new vocational school near Marshallton. It was named Delcastle, an amalgamation of Delaware and New Castle, and opened in the Fall of 1970.
“At that time, I thought it was good because it (Delcastle) was a new school and we knew the direction and teaching was going to be a bit different. I personally did not feel it was going to hurt us,” said 1952 Brown Vocational graduate Joe Stevens.
More recently, several Brown alumni, like 1950 graduate Ken Hamilton, have begun to see it differently.
“No one raised their head back in the days when it was called Delcastle,” Hamilton said. “But loss of history is loss of community.”
These alumni say they want to be a part of a school tradition again, but without their namesake attached, it is difficult to do so. With the Brown name, they would feel some relationship to the place, said alumni John DalGessso, who graduated from Brown in 1953. “Right now, I have no roots or sense of feeling for it in the least way.”
Other alumni say the name doesn’t matter. What is important is each person doing his or her part to improve education today.
“You can never bring back schools as they were, but I think we can bring back the idealism of the schools,” Woodlyn said. “We can improve them if we demand more and put more effort into it. I’m not just saying teachers. I’m not just saying principals. I’m talking about parents too.
“And some of us older folks need to step back up and do the right thing and say, ‘Hey. This is still a part of our life,’” he said.
