Baltimore School Board

An article in yesterday's editions incorrectly quoted Tyson Tildon, president of the Baltimore school board, on the board's plans for possible cuts in the budgets of City College and the School for the Arts.In fact, Tildon said there are no plans to cut $2.2 million from the budgets of those two schools in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 3/26/98

I was a teacher-mentor in the Baltimore City schools years ago when the city went $57 million in debt and we were all fired ("Schools audit draws concern," Oct. 9). I remember thinking at the time that the school board must have been sleeping not to have noticed the discrepancies in funding. Well, what do you know: The new school board has the same problem. Why do they accept what they are told? Isn't it their job to see through the spin to oversee what is going on in the system and make sure the job is being done?

"Is it safe to say our kids could almost stay home and do as well?"-- Baltimore school board member Patricia Morris, commenting on the overall poor showing of city elementary students on tests measuring their progress in reading and math in the last school year."The numbers show that Baltimore City [students], like [those in] other urban systems, are not doing well compared to their peers. They reflect the problems kids bring to school."--Steven Ferrara, former director of testing for the state Department of Education, explaining the same low test scores.

The Baltimore County school board voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve S. Dallas Dance, a Houston school administrator, as the next superintendent of its 105,000-student system. During a brief news conference after the vote, Dance said he had had "frank and honest" meetings Tuesday with elected leaders, including legislators in Annapolis, the County Council and the county executive. Because the school board held a closed search, Tuesday was the first time Dance was in town and available to meet the public.

The Baltimore school board voted unanimously last night to pass a waiver allowing 1,400 sophomores to move on to their junior year even though they didn't take a mandated math course. The board requires high school sophomores to take and pass geometry to be promoted to 11th grade. But the 1,400 students instead spent this year taking an Algebra 1 review course, after failing the state algebra exam that they must pass to graduate. Diplomas City gets low mark for graduation rate. pg 3B

The Baltimore school board recently named its interim chief financial officer to the post permanently, but he has not decided whether to continue in the job because of a family tragedy. John Walker had been filling in as chief financial officer since November, when Rose Piedmont left. Previously, he was an independent contractor with the schools finance office. On May 26, the same week as Walker's appointment, his 23-year-old son, Patrick John Walker, was killed in an apparent road-rage incident in Bel Air. Police say he was stabbed in the neck by another motorist who thought the younger Walker had cut him off in traffic.

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.

"We've got no contract. We get no respect. We've got lots of work, so what do we get? Santa Claus ain't coming to town!"The round man with the red suit and white beard giggled as he sang the words, to the tune of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." But his Christmas message wasn't supposed to be funny.It was a poorly sung missive from city teachers, apparently angry with the Baltimore school board and Robert E. Schiller, the interim schools chief, over stalled contract talks.The singing Santa crashed the board's Christmas party at school headquarters last night to deliver his lyrical message, much to the surprise of board members, administrators and staff members who were merrily consuming appetizers and punch (nonalcoholic, of course)

Virginia Barrett Sherwood, former president of the board of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, died Tuesday of a heart ailment at her home on Devon Hill Road. She was 81.A memorial service for Mrs. Sherwood was being held today at Grace United Methodist Church, 5407 N. Charles St.She headed the board at GBMC in the 1970s and had been a member since the hospital was established, having served on the board of a predecessor, the Hospital for the Women of Maryland.She helped establish the Greater Baltimore Medical Center Foundation, a fund-raising group, and had been a volunteer in the hospital gift shop.

Over the objections of about 100 opponents, the Baltimore school board endorsed last night the city's plan to let individual schools decide whether to offer Norplant.Reading a statement, President Phillip H. Farfel said the board supports school-based health clinics, where the contraceptive is to be offered, and the "activities and programs of these clinics." Dr. Farfell urged Norplant opponents to take questions or concerns to the Baltimore Health Department.The board's support is symbolic, since the clinics, though housed in schools, are operated by the Health Department.

Saying that money had been wasted and school system policies had not been followed in the purchases of books and writing of curriculum, Baltimore County school board members asked administrators Tuesday night for reassurances that similar mistakes would not be made in the future. The school board's questions came after reports in The Baltimore Sun this month that detailed the school system's spending of millions of dollars to rewrite language arts curriculum that has been shelved and to purchase a 27-year-old grammar textbook that sat in a warehouse for nearly a year before being distributed recently.

As reported in The Sun, the state legislature formed a summer study task force to examine the current school board selection process in Baltimore County ("Elections for school boards weighed," Aug 4). The group was formed after legislators received numerous complaints from parents and community groups regarding BCPS and their poor handling of issues such as botched school renovations, major overcrowding in schools, AIM, and banning PTA craft fairs and community groups from public schools.

The resolution passed by the Baltimore City Council this week calling on state legislators to give the council more say in choosing school board members might be justified if there were any evidence the current process isn't working. Since 1997, city school board members have been jointly appointed by the mayor and governor, and in recent years, at least, that arrangement has allowed the city's schools to make rapid progress under the leadership of schools CEO Andrés Alonso. Now is no time to introduce changes to the process that are unlikely to improve the system yet hold out the potential for gumming things up. Our feeling is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Baltimore's school board selection process is the unique result of a 1997 lawsuit brought by the ACLU that led to the state assuming a larger share of funding city schools.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has appointed two new members to the Baltimore County school board, only days after he told two current members who sought reappointment that they would be leaving the board at the end of June. Cornelia Bright Gordon, a Towson resident who is the chief attorney for the Legal Aid Bureau in Baltimore City, and Michael J. Collins, who lives in Essex and is chairman of the State Board of Contract Appeals, are taking over positions that will be vacated on July 1 by Earnest Hines, president of the board, and Meg O'Hare.

Prince George's gets go-ahead to create needle-exchange 0) planPrince George's County won permission from the General Assembly yesterday to create a program to distribute clean needles to drug addicts.The county, which has the second-highest AIDS rate among Maryland jurisdictions, has been considering following Baltimore in setting up a needle-exchange program. Baltimore's program has been credited with significantly slowing the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome by letting addicts trade dirty needles for clean ones.

The president of the Baltimore school board said yesterday a proposal to eliminate the city's seven elementary-middle schools appears to be dead.In a statement released by the school system's central office, Dr. Phillip Farfel, the board president, said that "judging by the reaction of several board members so far, it appears unlikely the proposal to split the city's seven combined elementary-middle schools . . . would be accepted by the board."On Monday, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said he was against the proposal and preferred to see more schools with the K-8 structure.