Money For Schools

IN THE LONG-STANDING effort to secure more state funding for Baltimore schools, the recent ruling from Maryland's Court of Appeals is hardly a milestone, and declarations of victory by the state or by city schools' advocates are premature. Although the court did not agree to stretch out elimination of the school system's deficit, it kept other legal questions, including the state's financial obligation to city schools, very much alive. Circuit Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan has been monitoring city schools since 1996, after finding that the system was not receiving enough funds to provide an adequate education as required by the state constitution.

County Executive Kevin Kamenetz on Tuesday reiterated a familiar theme in stating that his top priority for the 2013 General Assembly session, which opens tomorrow in Annapolis, will be funding for education. But Kamenetz also named legislation related to guns and ammunition among his priorities as well, saying such measures are directly connected to school safety concerns. In a statement on his legislative priorities, the executive noted his recent letter to state and federal legislators urging measures that would halt exceptions to national background checks and stop the sale of assault weapons and “high capacity” ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds.

At Roye-Williams Elementary, it's sometimes 65 degrees in one classroom and 90 degrees in the next because of an antiquated heating system. At Hillsdale Elementary, students make do with outdated library books, and tape holds tattered carpeting together. At Bakerfield Elementary, four of the 13 televisions are beyond repair. They're 24 years old.County and school officials got an earful of such complaints last week as residents pleaded for a share of increasingly scarce county money."We are not asking for frills," said Patrick McGrath, parent of a student at Roye-Williams Elementary in Aberdeen.

The Board of County Commissioners last week voted for supplemental funding for the county Board of Education to accelerate installation of school access security measures. In the wake of the recent elementary school shooting in Connecticut, the school board asked the commissioners for funding to add controlled entry points to county schools as part of a comprehensive security plan. At the commissioners' Dec. 20 meeting, school board representative Jonathan O'Neal requested $300,000 to complete projects in the schools deemed to have the highest need for access security, and said the system would need a total of $650,000 to complete access security in each of the 43 county schools.

In a rare appearance before the Anne Arundel County Council last night, County Executive John G. Gary introduced emergency legislation, asking the council to give the school board nearly $6.2 million in additional funding.Gary then asked the council to reject $5.8 million of that amount if the board doesn't fully explain why it needs the money.Gary's request, though grudging, effectively pre-empted legislation introduced by Councilwoman Diane R. Evans, urging Gary to seek the release of the money.

At quiet time last week, in the middle of reading Goblins Don't Play Video Games, third-grader Demetria Pinnick had to stop to pull on her pink Barbie jacket. "It's coooold," the 9-year-old whined softly, her tiny voice barely audible above the whoosh of frigid air blasting from the ceiling vent above her desk. Even while Demetria and her William Paca Elementary School classmates had to don sweaters or pull their arms penguinlike through their uniform shirts to get warm, their teacher, Whitney Madura - eight months pregnant and counting - was thrilled.

THEY WON'T agree, but members of the Howard County Council let politics get in the way of some difficult budget decisions. In a year when the coffers are so full that an income tax cut has been proposed, the council balked at finding an additional $9.2 million that the school system said it needs.The council did agree Tuesday to raise the schools' budget by another $3.46 million. But figuring out how to pay for the compromise proved every bit as difficult.It was surprising that each of the five council members offered a different proposal to increase school funding beyond the $195.

Avoiding a showdown with local and state education officials, Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker plans to give Howard schools all the money they requested for the next fiscal year, under the proposed 1997 operating budget released yesterday.The $336.5 million spending plan -- which does not include a proposed $125 per household trash fee -- also would provide more money for garbage collection and debt payments, while making cuts to parks, social services, court systems and most county departments.

AS ENTICING as the offer was from parents who wanted to pay to expand their children's elementary school to include middle-school grades, the Baltimore County Board of Education correctly declined the well-intentioned gift.While it is common practice for parents to raise money for schools, residents in northwestern Baltimore County's Woodbridge desired an addition much greater than playground swings, books or new computers. They wanted to pay to convert their elementary into a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school.

THE DIFFERENCE between school and the real world is that in school, extraordinary achievements are rewarded by grades and gold stars. In the real world, you get money.So what happens when the real world meets academia? The achievements of teachers result in money for schools. Hammond High School is doing well in this department.Jennifer Petering, teacher extraordinaire of environmental science and biology and an avid recycler, has received a grant from Chesapeake Bay Trust to buy science equipment.

When I came up in the 1970s and '80s in Baltimore, there were many depressed areas that instinct told you to avoid, but the real face of danger was the projects. In those high-rise developments, like some kind of matchbox conglomeration reaching to the sky — or their cookie-cutter, low-rise counterparts intended to approximate town homes — there seemed to be no room to stretch out and think, no space in which to breathe. I saw "Boyz N the Hood" in 1991 and wondered what in the world was making those guys out in sunny L.A. so angry.

They come to the Knights of Columbus Hall on Homeland Avenue, open the gray, steel doors and troop down the stairs into a long, narrow and relatively drab room. Overhead, pipes are exposed along the ceiling. The walls are pale yellow concrete blocks. The floor is plywood, smooth as fine leather from all the stocking- and tennis shoe-clad feet that have slid over its surface during years of fencing practices. Though people still call Chesapeake Fencing Club coach Ray Gordon asking for fencing for their yards and not fencing lessons, and though Baltimore-area schools do not offer fencing as a sport, somehow interest blossoms and people come — girls and boys, parents with elementary school kids in tow, junior high and high school students who have developed a fascination with the sport, college competitors and adults — all come to this club, where Gordon shares his passion and teaches the proper way to parry an opponent's thrust.

Class sizes would increase. Students wouldn't get new textbooks. And several planned school construction projects would come to a halt. Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell and some school board members made those predictions last week after County Executive John R. Leopold presented his budget proposal, increasing funding to the school system by $8.3 million over the last fiscal year — the minimum required by law. "More crowded classrooms, no...

William N. Parrott Jr., a retired Baltimore County educator who earlier had been a city public school teacher and administrator, died Saturday of cancer at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. He was 81. William Nathaniel Parrott Jr., the son of a city elementary school principal and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Ashburton. He was a 1946 graduate of Douglass High School and had served at 7th Army headquarters in Germany. Mr. Parrott earned a bachelor's degree in 1952 from what was then Coppin State Teachers College.

William N. Parrott Jr., a retired Baltimore County educator who earlier had been a city public school teacher and administrator, died Saturday of cancer at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. He was 81. William Nathaniel Parrott Jr., the son of a city elementary school principal and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Ashburton. He was a 1946 graduate of Douglass High School and had served at 7th Army headquarters in Germany. Mr. Parrott earned a bachelor's degree in 1952 from what was then Coppin State Teachers College.

Speaking at a candidates forum in Northeast Baltimore yesterday, Mayor Sheila Dixon said her administration is prepared to unveil a plan that would significantly increase money available for school construction. Though short on details, Dixon said she will announce next week that the city intends to use tax increment financing -- a process typically reserved for large-scale developments -- to drum up money for school construction and renovation. "The city is getting ready to step up and not only help with new construction of the schools -- because the state has not picked up their responsibility -- but also in helping with capital improvements on our charter schools," Dixon said at the forum, organized by the HARBEL Community Organization.

School board candidates want the next superintendent to be aggressive, energetic and a year-round lobbyist for money for schools.Several candidates want a board that will pay more attention to public comments and boost community involvement in policy decisions, points that drew some criticism of the existing board at a Wednesday night forum.The forum was sponsored by the Citizens Advisory Committee to theBoard of Education and held at the Howard County School of Technology .The two candidates who win six-year board terms in this year'selection are almost sure to be involved in selecting a new superintendent.

Money for schools, a new judgeship and the Maritime Museum in Havre de Grace will be high on the shopping list of Harford County in this year's General Assembly session, the last one before the fall elections.Because of those elections for all state and legislative offices, the assembly will be wary of voting new funds that would raise taxes or imbalance the weighty state budget. Voters will likely be more aware of the budget impact than the legislation passed. "I think it's going to be a caretaker session," Del. David R. Craig predicts.

Using one of Baltimore's most successful charter schools as a backdrop, state schools Superintendent Nancy S, Grasmick announced yesterday that Maryland will receive an $18.2 million federal grant and much of it will be used to start charter schools. "We asked for $18.2 million and got every penny of it," Grasmick told an enthusiastic audience that included students and teachers at the Crossroads School, which is in Fells Point and run by Living Classrooms, a nonprofit group. Maryland is one of 10 states chosen to tap some of the $284 million in federal money set aside to nurture charter schools, which are public schools that operate independently under contracts with local school boards.

After meeting in executive session, the Baltimore school board issued a vaguely worded statement Tuesday night saying it remains a strong supporter of charter schools but believes a recent court ruling requiring additional funding for charters would hurt regular schools. A ruling Friday by the Court of Special Appeals requires school systems to spend as much money per pupil on charter schools as they spend on regular public schools. The city school board's statement leaves open the possibility that it will appeal the decision by the state's second-highest court, saying it "feels obligated to fully consider its legal options."