School Buildings

Your recent article "Billions needed to fix schools" (June 27) called to mind a recent editorial about the commitment businessmen Kevin Plank and Steve Bisciotti have made to improving facilities and enriching recreational and athletic opportunities for Baltimore City schoolchildren ("Protecting Baltimore's house," June 11). This is a perfect example of local businesses "giving back" to the community that supports them. Wouldn't it be wonderful if local developers, some of whom have made enormous fortunes in Baltimore City, followed the example of Mr. Plank and Mr. Bisciotti in their commitment to help repair and renovate city school buildings?

Fifty Baltimore schools are so dilapidated or underused that they should be closed or rebuilt, according to a new report that also identified $2.45 billion in school infrastructure needs across the city. The findings, released Tuesday, were used by school officials to launch a 10-year campaign to bring the system's buildings up to 21st-century standards. The exhaustive, yearlong assessment of the system's 182 campuses rated the system's overall infrastructure — as well as 69 percent of the schools — as "very poor.

Letter writer Vikki Volk comments that "three extra cents per soda hardly seems like a lot to pay" for better school buildings ("Bottle tax is a small price to pay for better schools," June 20). All I can say to Ms. Volk is what about the state lottery, the millionaire's tax, the increase in the state sales tax, the higher sales tax on alcoholic beverages, and the boost in the income tax rates or the talk of a higher gas tax, all by state and local government in recent years with similar justification?

The Baltimore City Council and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake have enacted a zoning ordinance that will allow a former Catholic school in Southwest Baltimore to be converted into a convalescent home for homeless people. Project PLASE (People Lacking Ample Shelter and Employment), a 30-year-old nonprofit based in Charles North, has offered more than $1 million for the former St. Joseph's Monastery school buildings in the 3500 block of Old Frederick Road. The school was closed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 2010.

The preliminary approval of an extension and increase in Baltimore's bottle tax is a welcome sign that the city is committed to addressing one of the most significant long-term drains on its vitality: a system of decrepit school buildings desperately in need of renovation, modernization and replacement. But as important a step as the City Council is taking, it must not be the last one for the city. The bottle tax by itself is expected to raise about $10 million a year - a pittance compared to the system's estimated $2.8 billion in needs.

An increase to Baltimore's bottle tax - the linchpin of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's plan to raise funds to renovate the city's decrepit school buildings - received preliminary approval from the City Council Monday, likely assuring the measure will become law. The legislation would raise the tax on bottled beverages from 2 cents to 5 cents in July 2013. Supporters hailed the tax increase as a key step toward the biggest overhaul of city schools in decades. "We'll never catch up with generations of neglect of our schools buildings until we jump-start with a plan like the one before us today," said Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke as she cast her vote for the measure.

One only hopes that the Baltimore City School Board president is clearer with other facts than those involving the city school headquarters building, which he imagines is 184 years old ("As schools crumble, suites get renovated," April 27). In fact, the east and west wings of the headquarters opened in 1913. They were of modern construction and had huge, open cement floors which were then partitioned off for classrooms, shops labs, offices, etc. This is exactly the style used today.

Outraged education, community and political leaders have called for increased oversight of spending in the Baltimore City school system, amid revelations that about $500,000 was spent to upgrade offices at the district headquarters while city and state leaders fought for funding to fix dilapidated school buildings. Since January 2011, the school system has undertaken 11 renovation projects in eight departments, The Baltimore Sun reported this week. Half of the money went to renovation of a single department: The information technology office, which has spent $250,000 largely to transform an executive suite with new amenities such as interactive white boards.

New furniture, a flat-screen television, decorative light fixtures, interactive white boards - these are among amenities the city school system bought during $500,000 in renovations to the central office, even as administrators decried the state of crumbling school buildings and sought funding to fix them. The biggest project was a $250,000 face lift of an executive suite for the district's chief of information technology, who said the remodeling work was done in part to impress job candidates and repair unsafe conditions.

Talk about rebuilding or replacing Havre de Grace High School got me to thinking. Talk about rebuilding or replacing Havre de Grace High School got me thinking. For more than a year, some noticeable changes have been taking place at the school. It started with the removal of what for generations had been the school's tennis courts tucked behind the gym at the corner of Adams and Bourbon streets. It's been a long time since they've been used for tennis. In recent years as they fell further and further into disrepair, they had been used primarily for baseball, lacrosse and softball teams seeking a dry spot during the cold, wet months of spring.