As parents and educators react to Andres Alonso's plans to close failing schools and expand successful ones, the Baltimore schools chief is proposing a central office reorganization to help principals execute increased responsibilities.
The $1.27 billion budget proposal unveiled this week would cut the central office by 15 percent, or 179 positions. Employees will have the option of applying for other jobs within the system, including more than 50 new positions to assist principals with troubleshooting as they head into a second year of decentralized management.
Alonso says the role of the central office should be to support and evaluate schools, as the people closest to the children are making decisions. Each school would be assigned to a network of four administrators: two specializing in instruction, one in special education, and one in budget and operations. The administrators would be evaluated by principals - not the other way around - based on the quality of help they provide.
Alonso's budget proposal Tuesday came on the same night as he released a major school reorganization plan, which would close, merge, expand or move about three dozen schools. He said the closures would make good on his pledge to hold schools accountable for results.
A new accountability office would be in charge of developing a data-driven method to better evaluate schools. The moves would eliminate what Alonso perceives as a conflict of interest inherent in most districts, where the same people who are supposed to help schools are also reviewing them.
The central office reorganization is prompting concerns from the city's administrators union because the new network administration positions would not be affiliated with a union. Jimmy Gittings, president of the union, has plans to meet with Alonso tomorrow. "I will take actions if we cannot resolve the situation," Gittings said.
He said he is also concerned about the school reorganization plan. "You don't close schools that are not achieving," the union leader said. "You provide additional resources to those schools."
The day after Alonso released his proposals, parents, students and educators struggled to understand the implications.
"I at least wanted to finish my eighth-grade year here," said Tichenna Taylor, 13, a seventh-grader at William H. Lemmel Middle. She is one of two girls who opposed the plan to close Lemmel this summer. The news follows the fatal stabbing of a Lemmel student outside the school in November. While in the past, closing city schools have phased out over time, Alonso wants to make all the moves this summer.
