City Schools

M onday's announcement that federal oversight of Baltimore City's special education programs will be ending within two years was rightly hailed by civic and educational leaders as a major milestone. It is a testament to how far the city school system has come recently and a reminder of how dysfunctional it was for most of the 26 years the lawsuit has been in effect. But as good news as the announcement was, one has to ask: Why did it take the city schools so long to persuade the plaintiffs in this case that it was finally prepared to do the things that it should have been doing all along?

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Tuesday that legislative leaders are working to overhaul Baltimore's proposal for a $2.4 billion plan to rebuild  its crumbling school facilities in way that he's “fairly confident” will win General Assembly approval. Miller, a Calvert County Democrat, had been one of the chief skeptics about the original plan propounded by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city schools  chief executive Andres Alonso. That proposal, involving a block grant of at  least $32 million to the city school system each year for 30 years, has been embraced by House Speaker Michael E. Busch, an Anne Arundel County Democrat.

The Baltimore City school administrators who never raised a cent on their own and could never claim "I built that" even if it came to a teachers' lounge, recently wasted over $500,000 in public funds (that's taxpayer money) on expensive local hotel suites, lavish dinners and even wings at Hooters for students "because that was what they wanted," and The Sun was so outraged by their indefensible waste of taxpayer money that it was called a "distraction" in an editorial. Of course, that was more than Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Gov. Martin O'Malley and the school board leaders called it. If one sifted through the lame excuses offered by CEO Andrés Alonso and his merry men for their partying on the taxpayers' dime, they came down to a combination of "it was business as usual" or that "some" of the wasteful spending was "justified" and/or we are sorry we got caught.

The Baltimore school system will launch its first districtwide Saturday School initiative in December, a program promised by city schools CEO Andrés Alonso to help remedy declining scores on state tests. The $3 million Saturday School program will run for 10 weeks, primarily targeting students who scored basic in math on the 2011 Maryland School Assessments. Students in grades four through eight are eligible for the program, which will offer between 20 and 30 hours of additional math instruction for up to 7,000 students before the 2012 assessments in March.

In a long-sought victory for Baltimore, the Maryland Senate approved a $1 billion financing plan Friday for an unprecedented systemwide drive to rebuild and renovate the city's crumbling school buildings. The measure passed easily on a bipartisan vote of 40-7. It now goes back to the House of Delegates for approval of a minor amendment and then will move to Gov. Martin O'Malley's desk. Takirra Winfield, a spokeswoman for O'Malley, said the governor will sign the bill. "He's always been a supporter of Baltimore City and Baltimore City public schools, and he is very pleased that a deal has been reached," she said.

In the next 10 years, Baltimore's school system will have a leaner, modernized look under a proposed $2.4 billion facilities plan that calls for closing 26 school buildings and upgrading 136 others in a large-scale face-lift of Maryland's oldest school infrastructure. The plan, announced by CEO Andrés Alonso on Tuesday, would orchestrate the relocation of some schools to different buildings; others would cease to exist. The first schools affected are four recommended to close at the end of the current school year: Baltimore Rising Star Academy, Garrison Middle, Patapsco Elementary/Middle, and William C. March Middle.

Saul Genendlis, an advocate for special education and a retired Baltimore City schools principal and administrator, died of heart disease Sept. 25 at his Hampstead home. He was 84. Known by his students as Mr. G., he was once the city's acting superintendent for special education and a past principal of the William S. Baer and McMechen schools. In 1976, he told a Baltimore Sun reporter that his schools had "no rejects" and that none of his students could be considered too much of a problem.

The Baltimore city school recently elected David Stone, who once headed up the city's charter school office and is serving his second term as a commissioner, second-in-command of the district last week. He takes over for longtime board member, Jerrelle Francois, as vice chair of the board. “As a city resident, a former employee and, most of all, as a parent of three Baltimore City Schools' students, my commitment to the system is strong," Stone said of his appointment. "This is a time of great importance for our schools, and I believe that my experience will be of value as we continue to reform City Schools.

City school officials have stepped up education efforts and are stressing proper reporting methods after a third-grader who was a victim of chronic bullying at a West Baltimore elementary school said she wanted to kill herself. The city teachers union is also pledging to work with the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to hold a bullying-prevention program at Gilmor Elementary School, the site of the incidents. The actions come after complaints of severe bullying at the school, which included a third-grader who has cerebral palsy saying that she suffered repeated verbal and physical abuse.