Andres Alonso

Baltimore city schools CEO Andres Alonso tapped his favorite coming-of-age book by Leo Tolstoy to impart some lasting wisdom, and extend a final farewell, to city students as he closes out his last school year. In a letter addressed to city students Friday afternoon , Alonso said, "as I prepare to leave Baltimore City Public Schools after six years as CEO, I think mainly of you. " Alonso explained the love of books and reading he developed as a child, recalling how his father gave him four books as gifts on his first day of school.

Baltimore school union leaders questioned the need for an outside firm to conduct a national search for the next permanent superintendent Thursday as the school board began the process of hiring a consultant. Neil Duke, chair of the city school board, said the district issued a request for proposals for an executive search firm Thursday, and it plans to select a company by July. Once the firm is selected, Duke said, the district will solidify a timeline for a national search. In the e-mail, Duke said that "the stakes are high" in looking for the next permanent superintendent given the progress under city schools CEO Andres Alonso, who will step down June 30. "We know we need a leader who appreciates Baltimore's opportunities and challenges," Duke said.

Baltimore : Federal court Man gets 11 1/2 years on gun conviction A 35-year-old Baltimore man labeled an "armed career criminal" has received a 11 1/2 -year prison sentence in federal court for being a felon in possession of a gun. U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles sentenced Antonio Johnson on Friday to prison, followed by five years of supervised release. According to Johnson's guilty plea, a Baltimore police officer saw him in the 500 block of W. Preston St., an area known as an open-air drug market, prosecutors said.

Seventy-one percent of the underclassmen at Homeland Security Academy left for new high schools after Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso gave them the chance to transfer at midyear, according to figures released yesterday. Officials said 278 students have left the failing west-side school and 228 remain: 117 seniors who did not have the option to leave and 111 underclassmen, mostly freshmen. Only 12 juniors are still there. Late last month, Alonso announced the unusual step of the midyear transfers from Homeland Security, part of the Walbrook complex that was created under the breakup of Walbrook High.

city system this week Baltimore's school board officially appointed Andres Alonso the new chief executive officer of the city schools last night, but they declined to provide any specifics of his contract, including his salary. The school system spokeswoman said a copy of Alonso's contract will be available after it is signed by both parties, likely by the end of this week. Alonso, the deputy chancellor of New York City schools, will return to Baltimore to sign the contract in a few days, the spokeswoman said.

A gift: The Enoch Pratt Free Library announced last week that it is giving every Baltimore public school teacher, about 6,000 educators, a copy of the children's book The Three Questions. This beloved tale is one of the favorite books of Andres Alonso, new chief executive officer of Baltimore City public schools. "We would like to welcome Dr. Alonso to Baltimore by presenting this gift to our dedicated educators across the city," said Carla D. Hayden, executive director of the library. New on the shelf "A Slave No More" by David W. Blight -- Harcourt Slave narratives, some of the most powerful records of our past, are extremely rare, with only 55 post-Civil War narratives surviving.

Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso joined more than 400 parents, students and teachers last night as they asked city and state leaders to spare education from expected budget cuts. The rally at Dr. Bernard Harris Sr. Elementary School was organized by the Baltimore Child First Authority, a division of the advocacy group Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development. Child First has been hurt by city cuts this year. It lost $500,000 for its after-school programs, prompting the discontinuation of programs at Arundel Elementary/Middle and Gwynns Falls Elementary.

The Sun's Feb. 26 article "Mediocre charter schools in cross hairs" brings to mind the response computer programmers sometimes give to complaints about unconventional, unexpected outcomes in their software: "It's a feature, not a bug." In the spirit of the techno geeks who have brought us one-click shopping, online drivers license renewal, Internet dating and endless other marvels of the digital age, it can be said that closing a charter school based on inadequate performance is a feature, not a bug. On the one hand, given the experience and expertise of the charter school operator at Rayner Browne Academy, it is surprising that the school system recommended termination (and we hope that the superintendent, the charter operator and the school board will work out their disagreements about the evaluative process)

The Baltimore Teachers Union announced Friday that it has reached a tentative 2010-2011 contract with city school officials that is expected to be ratified and approved in the coming weeks. Negotiations have been ongoing for months, and last year's contract had to be extended while officials reached an agreement. The statement included few details about the new contract, but the union called it "landmark" and BTU President Marietta English she was "excited" about the agreement.

Baltimore school principals and other administrators will receive a 7 percent raise over the next two years, school system officials announced yesterday. The city school board approved a new memorandum of understanding with the Public School Administrators and Supervisors Association on June 26, and the union membership ratified it June 28. Though documents are supposed to be made public immediately after school board approval, officials would not release any details about the contract until yesterday.