The classrooms are filled with desks, some with computers, too, but day after day many of those rooms go unused. Here's where pregnant girls and teen mothers used to learn about business education and science. Now, only half of the nursery's cribs are filled with infants.
Laurence G. Paquin Middle/High School in East Baltimore has had its staff cut nearly in half in the past year because of system budget cuts. Teachers say staff cuts led to dwindling enrollment. And now that the facility on Sinclair Lane has excess space, city school officials want to give the building to another school and move Paquin to the nearby Lake Clifton High complex.
But Paquin's students, teachers and supporters say the proposal is a ploy to close the school, which for 40 years has nurtured girls who have babies. They say the move would put Paquin in cramped space in an inferior building where it would be unable to maintain its acclaimed medical clinic and preschool.
"The wolf's at the door," said Brian Hoffman, who has taught at Paquin for five years and has seen his duties grow since the budget cuts. Asked what he teaches, he replied, "You name it," and rattled off a list: world history, U.S. history, American government, business communication and technology, and social studies.
The school system plan calls for Baltimore Freedom Academy to move into Paquin's building in the next few years.
City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, long a Paquin supporter, questions whether the plan would work. She said she visited Lake Clifton and found only 13 empty classrooms, most of them in need of major renovations. On March 28, the school board is scheduled to vote on a proposal to move Paquin and Hamilton Middle School to Lake Clifton.
Phillip H. Farfel, a former city school board president who helped develop a medical clinic at Paquin, said the recommendation is "sneaky" and "shows a total lack of understanding" of the needs of the girls and babies Paquin serves.
School system officials say they can't justify keeping the Paquin program in its own large building when only about 135 girls and babies attend each day. Even after the budget cuts, they say, Paquin's small classes are the envy of nearly every other school in the city. The system is spending $1.2 million this year to operate Paquin, once the only public school in the city where a pregnant girl could get an education.
The debate over Paquin is unfolding as such schools around the country are being closed one after another.
