Calvert School

Second District City Councilman Bernard C. "Jack" Young said yesterday he will introduce legislation next week that could stop the proposed sale of a North Baltimore apartment complex with mostly elderly residents. Calvert School's pending purchase of apartments at 4300 North Charles has sparked an outcry from many of the more than 100 residents. The school plans to demolish the complex and build a middle school and playing fields for students on the site. Young announced his intention at a meeting yesterday in the office of City Council President Sheila Dixon.

The principal of a Catholic elementary and middle school in Nebraska has been appointed head of the Calvert School's new middle school, which is under construction in North Baltimore. Patrick J. Slattery, 29, principal of St. Matthew's School, a prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade coeducational school in Bellevue, a suburb of Omaha, will start his new job July 1, said Calvert School Headmaster Merrill S. Hall. "Slattery was a unanimous and enthusiastic choice," Hall said yesterday. "He has both the education and the experience, as well as the energy and enthusiasm."

John Sears Gibbs IV, a retired educator who enjoyed spending summers in Maine, died of heart failure Sunday at his Guilford home. He was 72. Mr. Gibbs was born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park. He was a 1954 graduate of Gilman School and earned a bachelor's degree from Washington & Lee University in 1958. He also held a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University. He taught second- and third-graders at the Calvert School from 1958 to 1978. In 1979, he joined the faculty of Boys' Latin School, where he taught in the middle school until retiring in 1994.

Residents of a garden apartment complex in North Baltimore were informed by letter yesterday that they would have to find new homes when their leases are up, because the private Calvert School is buying the property for use as a middle school. The 103-year-old Calvert School, one of the city's oldest private schools, has agreed to buy the apartment complex in the 4300 block of N. Charles St. and an adjacent mansion for an undisclosed sum. School officials plan to raze the 83-unit complex and use the mansion for a middle school program, which will include seventh and eighth grades.

The City Council is seriously considering amending a zoning bill that could affect the private Calvert School's plans to demolish an adjacent North Baltimore apartment complex and replace it with two large playing fields and a middle school. Sheila Dixon, council president, said yesterday that there is support for the bill as proposed, which would require a public review process when a primary or secondary school plans to raze a residential building of 50 or more units. But, Dixon said, she and others believe the bill would be strengthened by changing the language and bringing it to the floor for a vote March 19. The main change, Dixon and 1st District Councilwoman Lois Garey said, would be to focus on land disturbed rather than dwellings destroyed.

A Baltimore native who has a long association with private schools in the city as a student, teacher and administrator has been named the new headmaster at the Calvert School. Andrew D. Martire, 32, the upper school head at the Ranney School in Tinton Falls, N.J., was selected by Calvert's board of trustees to replace Merrill S. Hall III, who is retiring at the end of June after 20 years as head of the school. "I'm very excited about coming back," Martire said. "To me, being headmaster at Calvert is a wonderful opportunity."

You know you're the face of Establishment Baltimore when you're on the cover of the Calvert School alumni magazine, even when that face belongs to John Waters . The filmmaker, once regarded as terribly naughty, is featured on the fall issue of "Reflections," reminiscing about his days as a Calvert School elementary student, from 1952 to 1958. This is John Waters on his very best behavior, mind you, talking in the magazine piece about the importance of learning to write in general, and learning to write thank-you notes in particular.

Six years after Calvert School drew protests for razing a 91-unit apartment complex at 4300 N. Charles St. to expand its campus, the school has sparked a new preservation controversy involving one of its own properties. School officials disclosed this fall that they are seeking permission to tear down Castalia, a large stone residence at 200 Tuscany Road that was built by the school's first headmaster, possibly to make way for an outdoor amphitheater. The hillside dwelling, now divided into apartments and vacant, is the work of Laurence Hall Fowler, a respected architect from the early 1900s who also designed Calvert School's 1920s-era building at 105 Tuscany Road and other residences in the area.

William Waters Kirk IV, a Baltimore native and former headmaster of the Calvert School, died June 18 of Parkinson's disease. He was 91. "He took justifiable pride in the influential role he played in the development of thousands of young people," his son-in-law Jack Anderson wrote in an email. "His generation is often referred to as 'The Greatest,' and I would hold William Kirk up as an example of why it has been so recognized. " Mr. Kirk was reared by a widowed mother in the Walbrook neighborhood in West Baltimore.

Two City Council committees are set today to consider whether to endorse bills that could thwart the Calvert School's planned leveling of a neighboring North Baltimore apartment complex to make room for classrooms and playing fields. The bills - one would change zoning law and the other would affect the city's building code - have the same thrust, requiring a primary or secondary school to seek public review before razing a building with 50 or more living units. A related bill introduced in Annapolis is to be heard Thursday.