In the past, the central office has determined how many special education teachers to assign to a given school. Now, it would distribute money for teachers based on the number of hours of services that students with disabilities require, and principals would decide how to spend it. There would be incentives for serving students with disabilities in classes alongside nondisabled peers, rather than in segregated settings.
The city's special education program is the subject of a 25-year-old federal class-action lawsuit. Last week, a court-appointed special master recommended a loosening of judicial oversight in most of Baltimore's elementary schools.
Alonso's budget proposal would take a step toward his goal of offering universal, full-day pre-kindergarten in the city, adding 25 new pre-kindergarten classes to serve an additional 500 children next academic year. The state requires districts to offer half-day pre-kindergarten to low-income children. The city has full-day programs in response to parental demand but has fallen short of offering enough seats for all. Alonso would like to offer pre-kindergarten to middle-class children to draw their families to public schools.
FOR THE RECORD - An article yesterday about city schools chief Andres Alonso's proposed budget erroneously stated that custodians will no longer report to principals. The system's "education building supervisors," who support and evaluate custodians and provide technical expertise about facilities, are the employees who will report to the central office rather than to principals.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
The CEO is recommending that the school board end its contract with for-profit Edison Schools to run low-performing Gilmor and Furman L. Templeton elementaries when it expires this summer. He wants Edison to keep running Montebello Elementary/Middle but proposes to pay the company the same rate as the system pays charter schools. Edison currently gets paid more. Dozens of parents and students from the three schools appeared at last night's board meeting to support keeping the contract with the company.
The school board will hold a public forum on the budget proposal from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. tomorrow and is scheduled to adopt the budget at its March 24 meeting. At that point, principals will be responsible for using their discretionary money to craft budgets for their individual schools, with mandatory family and community input.
The board is scheduled to vote on the school closure recommendations April 28, with legally mandated public hearings to be held before then.
