School Shuffle Gets Ok

City Board Votes To Close Seven Schools In Extensive Reorganization

NAF students and parents expressed concern about moving out of a state-of-the-art building to an older building in a different part of town. NAF has entrance requirements, while Dunbar is a zoned neighborhood school. The co-chairs of NAF's advisory board said they are eager to serve more students in the new location, but they're asking for $5.6 million in building upgrades.

Advocates rallied in recent days to save Tubman, home of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's OrchKids program, and Lemmel, where a student was fatally stabbed outside in November. Karen Kotchka, an instructional support teacher at Lemmel, wrote in a letter to the school board that students "are being asked to give up their community school where, in most cases, they have been successful and feel safe, and transfer to another low-performing school outside of their neighborhood." Lemmel students will have the option of attending other schools including a charter school in the same building.

The vote to close Tubman was 5-4.

Homeland Security was largely emptied in January, when Alonso gave all underclassmen the option of transferring elsewhere and most of them did. With its closure and the relocation of neighboring Institute of Business and Entrepreneurship to the Lemmel building, the Walbrook high school complex will close next year for renovations. It is scheduled to reopen in 2010, housing a new all-boys school and a new all-girls school.

Staff at the closing schools will have the option of transferring elsewhere in the system.

The school board also approved a plan Tuesday night to restructure Moravia Park Elementary/Middle, requiring all employees - including the principal - to reapply for their jobs. Those not accepted back into their positions will be offered jobs at other schools. Moravia Park must restructure under the federal No Child Left Behind Act as it failed to meet test benchmarks for several years.