Everard Grant knows his 16-year-old stepson made a huge mistake when he lit a poster on fire at his Baltimore high school. But he doesn't think he deserves to be shut out of the city's public schools forever.
The boy, Tyrone Jamison, is one of 34 students who have been permanently expelled from Baltimore schools this academic year. That number has increased drastically over previous years because of a decision by schools chief Andr?s Alonso to impose the most severe punishment for those caught committing arson or detonating explosives. Students may appeal to the city school board and after that the state board of education, but if the expulsions are upheld, they are never to return to a Baltimore public school.
The school system will cut off home tutoring and alternative school placements for those students in June, and then parents' options will be limited to home-schooling their children or sending them to private schools, as neighboring public school districts typically honor each others' expulsion decisions.
As the end of the school year approaches, parents such as Grant are frantic. Two mothers whose children were permanently expelled from middle schools have secured legal representation with the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. Parents are legally responsible for enrolling their children in school between the ages of 5 and 16.
"I can't sit home with him. I have to work," said Grant, whose stepson was expelled from the Academy for College and Career Exploration in December, when he was 15. "I can't afford private school."
School system officials say the decision to permanently expel students is a difficult one, but the regulation is working: The number of arsons in city schools has dropped sharply, from 80 last academic year to 47 so far in the school year about to end. Overall, suspensions are down from 13,289 incidents to 9,722. Since taking his job two years ago, Alonso has urged principals not to suspend students for nonviolent offenses but to have no tolerance for violence.
After the explosions of two chemical-filled bottles at Patterson High in October, Alonso wrote an open letter announcing the regulation on permanent expulsions. "This is a painful decision, because there is nothing that I care about as much as having every single child in Baltimore City at home, learning in one of our schools," Alonso wrote. "But it's a necessary decision given the potential harm to life of such irresponsible and criminal action."
