School Board Members

In its last meeting before the September primary election, the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on state legislators to give the council input in the selection of school board members. Councilman Bill Henry, the resolution's lead sponsor, said Monday that the council has a say in executive appointments to most city commissions and boards, and it should be involved in the selection of school board members. City school board members are appointed jointly by the governor and mayor of Baltimore.

The Baltimore school board approved Tuesday a $1.3 billion budget for next year that gives principals less discretion over spending and allows city schools CEO Andrés Alonso to implement a central office reorganization. The fiscal year 2012 budget will increase by $82 million, most of which is designated for specific uses, school officials said. Expenses, notably salaries and fringe benefits, would rise. While the amount of money being allocated to schools will increase by $11 million, the amount of "flexible funds" — money allocated to principals to staff their schools and provide resources for their students — will decrease by 4 percent.

Baltimore County school board President Earnest A. Hines said Tuesday that he is contesting a decision by Gov. Martin O'Malley to remove him from the board June 30, a year before he believes his term is ending. O'Malley's staff informed two Baltimore County school board members, including Hines, that they will not be reappointed to the board in July. "That was what I was informed of [Monday]. It was the first I heard of it," Hines said. Hines had believed, however, that even if he wasn't given another five-year term that he would remain on the board for the next year, a crucial time because school Superintendent Joe A. Hairston's contract expires in a year.

Howard County lawmakers say they are concerned about the cost of the legal complaints brought against the Board of Education by member Allen Dyer, who according to the school system's legal office has filed more than a dozen lawsuits in two years. County Council members raised the issue at a Thursday meeting, as the school system outlined its operating and capital budget for next school year. The council offered a few questions about budget details — including the status of the proposed site for an elementary school in Elkridge set to be built by 2013.

The Howard County Board of Education has called for a second ethics investigation of member Allen Dyer, in the wake of accusations that he improperly attempted to persuade the student representative on the board to vote for him as chairman. While those accusations are being vetted by the school board's ethics panel, the board decided Thursday to request a further inquiry into whether he wrongly leaked information about those allegations. In December, former board members Patricia Gordon and Larry Cohen filed complaints with the school ethics committee against Dyer, on behalf of student board member Alexis Adams.

One can hardly blame Baltimore County lawmakers for believing the county's school system is unresponsive to public concerns. The superintendent's recent handling of the conflict-of-interest dispute involving AIM (Articulated Instruction Module, a grading system) and his refusal to even discuss the matter with them or the state attorney general's office can't be ignored. Nor was it the first time that Superintendent Joseph A. Hairston and his often-supportive board of education have crossed swords with the general public and the county's elected leaders.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has appointed Robert Frisch and Rick Grambo to the Harford County Board of Education. The appointees were two of the three candidates elected to the board last month and would have otherwise begun their four-year terms July 1. But with the recent resignations of two longtime members, the governor opted to move up their installation. "We have a lot of key issues to work on, including elementary school redistricting," said Teresa D. Kranefeld, schools spokeswoman.

Howard County Board of Education member Allen Dyer filed a lawsuit last week against the board attempting to prevent it and its employees from deleting electronic messages and other documents, but his request for a temporary restraining order was denied. Dyer requested a restraining order Tuesday as well as a temporary and/or permanent injunction in Howard County Circuit Court, insisting that the board cease destroying documents — particularly any e-mail from board members and employees — until it has a written policy outlining how such documents should be handled.

In June of 1963, after a tumultuous spring of demonstrations in Birmingham, Ala., John F. Kennedy said an odd thing. In a meeting at the White House, the president told civil rights leaders they ought not be too hard on Bull Connor. Connor, he said with a grin, "Has done as much for civil rights as Abraham Lincoln. " Theophilus Eugene Connor, of course, was commissioner of public safety in Birmingham. When you see archival footage of children being menaced by police dogs or bowled over by water from fire hoses, you are seeing his handiwork.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Thursday that current Baltimore City school board president Neil Duke will serve a second term and will be joined by two new appointees who have experience in the Baltimore City school system. Duke has served as president on the Board of School Commissioners since February 2007. He is an attorney with the law firm of Ober Kaler P.C. of Baltimore and an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Shanaysha Furlow Sauls, co-founder of the Patterson Park Public Charter School in Baltimore, who also has seven years of teaching experience, will serve as a parent representative.