Baltimore Teachers Union

A Mount Washington Elementary School teacher whose fifth-graders engage in lunchtime book club discussions and embody historic figures in social studies lessons has been named Baltimore City's 2011 Teacher of the Year. Margaret May, who has taught language arts and social studies at Mount Washington Elementary for five years, was surprised with the honor Monday with a visit and a bouquet of roses from city schools CEO Andres Alonso, a chorus of ecstatic exclamations from excited students, and tears of happiness from principal Sue Torr.

On the heels of 330 teachers' accepting early retirement packages from the city school system, officials will propose a similar deal for 500 of its most experienced instructional support staff. According to an early retirement incentive plan scheduled to be presented at the city school board meeting Tuesday night, the school system will look to trim its pool of paraprofessionals who have more than 10 years' experience by offering them 50 percent of their base salary for a year and a sick-leave payout to be put into a school investment plan.

Baltimore school administrators have ratified a new contract that union officials said would make city principals among the highest paid in the state and promote leaders through a new career and compensation ladder based on performance. The Public School Administrators and Supervisors Association ratified its contract after 150 members voted Friday to approve the deal, which includes a 2 percent retroactive pay raise and $1,800 stipend. The pact eliminates annual step increases — raises based on seniority and academic degrees — and implements a new career ladder.

The Baltimore City school system is likely to move forward with a plan to offer early retirement packages to its most experienced teachers as more than 330 have accepted the deal, which seeks to save the district millions of dollars. When the school system announced the early retirement incentive plan in February, it said at least 350 teachers had to take the plan for it to be successful, and that no more than 750 could. But city school officials said Monday that the 332 teachers who signed up were enough for the plan to go through.

About 3,000 paraeducators and other professional staff represented by the Baltimore Teachers Union will receive pay raises and more vacation time under a tentative deal struck by the union and city school system. The union announced Monday that the Paraprofessionals and School Related Personnel chapter of the BTU — which includes classroom assistants, teacher's aides, accountants, secretaries and office staff — will receive raises retroactive to July 1, 2010, and more holidays off. Members who do not work in a school will also be able to take a spring break.

More resources in the classroom and less pressure on teachers were among the priorities Baltimore education leaders identified Monday as primary concerns about the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, a highly anticipated task as the federal government looks to revise national education standards. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who was recently appointed to head a critical congressional subcommittee in the reauthorization of the federal program this summer, visited Lockerman-Bundy Elementary School as part of a series of roundtable discussions with school communities across the state to find out how No Child Left Behind has affected student achievement.

A Baltimore charter school network that had threatened to shut down in June reached an agreement in principle with the Baltimore Teachers Union minutes before testimony was set to begin in Annapolis on a bill that would have given city charters more flexibility in dealing with union rules. KIPP, or the Knowledge is Power Program, will stay in Baltimore for the next decade under the agreement that gives the school the long-term stability to invest in its buildings as well as raise money for its schools.

Eight Baltimore city educators have been appointed to a committee that will hammer out critical details of part of the landmark Baltimore Teachers Union contract ratified last fall, city school officials said Thursday. The members, four representing the school system and four representing the union, will serve three-year terms on a joint governing panel, a committee established in the contract to develop criteria by which district teachers will be promoted and compensated. Appointed by the union are Kenya Campbell, LaBrina Hopkins, Yvette Turner and Tia Coutroupis, according to BTU spokeswoman Jessica Aldon.

A hearing scheduled for Wednesday on proposed legislation aimed at helping KIPP charter schools remain in Baltimore has been rescheduled for next week as the organization continues negotiations with the Baltimore Teachers Union about how to pay its teachers for extended school days. According to Jason Botel, executive director of KIPP Baltimore, the union requested the postponement for one week in hopes of reaching a long-term agreement that would allow KIPP's rigorous model — which includes mandatory 9 1/2-hour school days, Saturday school and summer school — to be implemented in the city without violating the teachers' union contract.

One of the hottest debates in education today is whether charter schools do a better job serving poor and minority children than traditional public schools. That argument may be far from over nationally, but at least in the case of Baltimore's KIPP Ujima Village Academy, the question has been settled. Test scores of the school's 370 fifth- through eighth-graders consistently rank among the highest in the state, and 85 percent of the kids eventually go on to college. That's better than many top-performing suburban schools.