School Construction

As taken from the pages of The Aegis dated Thursday, August 30, 1962: Ground was broken for the first planned industrial park in Harford County. Fifty-two acres were designated by a group of private citizens for development into an industrial park in Forest Hill. There were 11 lots, ranging in size from 2.8 acres to 5.9 acres, available for sale or on a lease-back basis with option to buy. The first tenant to sign a lease for the property was the MarBelAir Co. of Memphis, manufacturers of precast Marbell terrazzo tile for flooring, walls, concrete blocks and stair treads.

Leith Walk Elementary School kicked off the Baltimore city school system's "21st Century Buildings for Our Children" campaign, a billion-dollar borrowing plan that will require a funding commitment from the state, in order to overhaul the system's aging infrastructure--a feat determined to cost $2.4 billion. The Sun's back-to-school coverage was notably devoted to the school shooting that took place in Baltimore on Monday, shortly after the state welcomed students back to school for the 2012-2013 school year.

Baltimore's top leadership called on the school system Monday to tighten oversight of its expenditures after a Baltimore Sun investigation found central office staff spent roughly $500,000 during the past year and a half on items such as a $7,300 office retreat at a downtown hotel and a $1,000 dinner at an exclusive members-only club. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she believed the school board should review credit and procurement card expenditures incurred by administrators at city schools headquarters after a Sun review of statements and receipts found administrators charged about $300,000 on procurement cards.

The General Assembly convenes Thursday for a special session on the expnsion of gambling, and at least one legislator - Del. Glen Glass of Harford and Cecil counties - has said he won't show up. There's no telling whether his fellow Republicans will join him in his boycott. The GOP, particularly in the House of Delegates, has opposed the push for a special session, both because of the expense involved and because they contend it is unlikely to produce well-thought-out legislation. Since an absence is the same as a no vote, they may be tempted to underscore their objections by leaving empty seats in the chamber.

Lois O. Stoner, a past president of the League of Women Voters of Maryland who spent two decades as a liaison between the Montgomery County school board and the state legislature, died July 13 of complications from cancer at her home in Rockville. She was 82. As the school board's legislative aide from 1980 until her retirement in 2000, Ms. Stoner was responsible for keeping board members informed of what was happening in the legislature. She tracked legislation that would affect county schools.

Public school districts across Maryland can now apply for state funding to reduce their energy consumption as part of a new $25 million "green schools initiative," the Maryland Energy Administration announced Wednesday. The effort is meant to help "accelerate" the state's goal of reducing its overall energy consumption by 15 percent in the next three years, the administration said. The funding will come from the state's capital budget for schools planning, the administration said.

The physical needs of Baltimore City schools seem overwhelming. Leaky roofs, faulty boilers, boarded-over windows, broken or non-existent air conditioning, unusable water fountains and outmoded science labs. Baltimore has the oldest inventory of schools in the state, and thanks to years of disinvestment, mismanagement and a reluctance to reduce the system's physical capacity to meet a historic decline in enrollment, they have been allowed to deteriorate to a point where proper instruction and learning are difficult if not impossible.

The public back and forth among our elected officials regarding whether Havre de Grace High School is in line for being replaced has been focused on a number of somewhat important policy-making details, even as the big picture has been overlooked. In short, Havre de Grace is next in line for a major high school renovation project, and the details of who gets to first list it as an official budget priority, while of some interest to those involved in the politics of the matter, is largely immaterial to the community and students affected.

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.