School System

As Dr. Cousin's duty as school superintendent comes to a close, I wanted to recognize his leadership over the past eight years. Dr. Cousin has always had a commitment to continuous improvement for central and building administration. His clear and explicit goals have increased student achievement across the county. What stands out the most to me is Dr. Cousin's belief that all students can achieve under the right conditions. His leadership has provided adequate support services to make schools an overall learning environment for both students and employees.

The Baltimore County school board Tuesday night voted to approve numerous retirements and resignations, including those of two employees who signed contracts with the former superintendent that a union official and others have questioned. But the board did not discuss in public the fact that those two employees had negotiated a settlement and will be paid more than $150,000 total. The Sun reported last month that Baltimore County school Superintendent Joe A. Hairston had given two top aides employment contracts that promised them severance of almost a half-million dollars if they were fired when the new superintendent chose his own leadership team.

As Carroll County's largest employer, Carroll County Public Schools should be considered a good investment, according to Superintendent Steve Guthriet. During a Tuesday, Feb. 5, budget hearing and forum, one of several scheduled to be held around the county, Guthrie outlined the various issues facing the school system and stressed that the system was an excellent investment. "It is valuable to Carroll County as an entity," Guthrie said to the 75 people gathered in South Carroll High School's auditorium for the evening session.

Principal Rhonda Richetta can vividly recall days when students have come to her office door at City Springs School gasping for air. The school has a large population of asthmatic elementary- and middle-school-age students who receive critical services — including daily breathing treatments — from a nurse practitioner in its health center. Richetta fears that could change next year if the school is one of six that are slated to reduce their health care services because of proposed funding cuts from the city.

Given the epic changes in Baltimore County government this year — a new county executive and five new faces on the seven-member County Council — it comes as no surprise that changes are also happening to the county's Board of Education. Last week, Gov. Martin O'Malley's office announced that two school board members, board president Earnest Hines and Meg O'Hare, would not be reappointed. The governor has the authority to appoint all of the county's school board members, but it is likely County Executive Kevin Kamenetz was consulted in the removal of Hines and O'Hare.

Four attorneys and a former staple of government agencies have been named to a newly created Baltimore city school Ethics Panel, officials announced at the most recent board meeting. The new members presented are: Letina Green, an attorney who currently works for the Social Security Administration and whose background includes labor and employee relations; Paris Lee, who has worked in several city and state government agencies, including the mayor's office and the Maryland Department of Transportation; Nicole Leonard, also an attorney who serves as deputy director of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine's Office of Research Administration; Aaron Murkey, an attorney, who serves as a clerk in the U.S. District Court who also worked for the prominent Venable law firm; and Benjamin A. Neal, an attorney and professor of legal studies at Towson University.

School system seeks public comment on five-year strategic plan The public is invited to submit online comments regarding the draft of Baltimore County Public Schools' new five-year strategic plan, dubbed by Superintendent S. Dallas Dance as "Blueprint 2.0. " The draft document, and a feedback form, are available online at http://www.bcps.org/system. With the goal of completing Blueprint 2.0 by January 2013, Dance held a series of staff and community meetings to hear comments, and appointed a staff person to oversee the plan's development and production.

Two weeks after one councilman declared Anne Arundel County "at war" with local schools over a $5 million funding dispute, the County Council unanimously voted Monday to hand over the cash. The county and schools were at odds over how to resolve the outstanding tab, which arose when state officials determined that Anne Arundel did not give the school system the minimum funding required by state law. While the amount of money was small in relation to the schools' overall budget, the bill took on outsized political significance.

Northwestern High alumni have gone to court to try to stop the Baltimore school from closing, as civil rights activists say the plan is discriminatory because shuttering the institution would disproportionately affect low-income, minority students. The alumni association filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction in Baltimore City Circuit Court last week, arguing that the Baltimore school system's 10-year facilities plan was based on inaccurate and outdated information and would adversely affect hundreds of students from Northwest Baltimore.

The Baltimore City school board is suing a local architectural company for $6.2 million, alleging that the firm intentionally kept a $98,000 overpayment and continued to try to bill the school system for tens of thousands of dollars. According to a lawsuit filed July 2 in Baltimore City Circuit Court and moved to U.S. District Court on Aug. 2, Buck Simpers Architects + Associates Inc. knowingly withheld an overpayment of more than $98,000 that the school board made in error in July 2008 to the company for renovation work at Carver Vocational-Technical High School.