Stadium School

Given Baltimore City school Superintendent Walter G. Amprey's willingness to experiment with alternatives to the tired old ways of running city schools, his opposition to the Stadium School Project is mystifying.Dr. Amprey has blessed the nine profit-making Tesseract schools and at least three other approaches to education in the city that turn some or all of the authority for operating schools over to outside agencies or organizations. Yet when parents approach him with the idea of forming a neighborhood school to be operated with public funds, he resists, insisting that only a school within an existing school, not one to be operated separately, "fits in with the overall vision of the school system."

Six Northeast Baltimore schools were on lockdown for about 30 minutes past dismissal because of police activity in the area Wednesday afternoon. The schools affected were City College; Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School; Abbottston Elementary; Waverly Elementary/Middle; Coldstream Elementary/Middle; and the Stadium School. Police officials said they notified the city school system of increased police activity around City College due to intelligence of a fight not involving school students or a school.

Less than a week after Baltimore's school board ruled out opening a new school inside Memorial Stadium, Superintendent Walter G. Amprey said last night that decision had "disappointed" him, and he pledged to work to house the Stadium School in the ballpark.But he said the decision ultimately would be left to the school board, which is appointed by the mayor, and cautioned that the cost of necessary repairs still could eliminate the possibility of putting the neighborhood school inside the stadium.

Ray Lewis met some of his smallest but biggest fans on Tuesday. The Ravens linebacker entered the Abbottston Elementary school gym to the screams of 200 students, including sixth-graders from the nearby Stadium School, to hand out free backpacks full of supplies for the new school year. Lewis was joined by his youngest daughter, 11-year-old Raven, and his mother, Sunseria Smith, to help hand out the supplies from his charity, The Ray Lewis 52 Foundation, for the school in the Northeastern Coldstream Homestead Montebello neighborhood.

By many measures, Baltimore's parent-run Stadium School is doing exactly what it set out to do: challenging students to learn by solving real-life neighborhood problems.So yesterday, alarm and anger were the reactions to an audit that prompted school board members to ask whether the groundbreaking 3-year-old school should be closed, in part because test scores are too low.Founders and parents disputed the report, saying test scores are an inadequate measure of their nontraditional programs.

Parents, pupils and staff from the Stadium School in Baltimore turned out in force at a city school board meeting last night to demand that the school's budget not be cut. "We're looking for a number of commitments from you," parent Jacquelyn Vincent told the board, speaking for more than 60 people from the school who were in the audience. Stadium is a public school in Waverly that serves grades four through eight and operates independently. Its test scores in most areas are significantly higher than citywide averages.

ClarificationA headline and article in March 28 editions of The Sun may have left the misimpression that a Baltimore City school system audit had found that the Stadium School was failing and would have to close unless test scores and instruction improved.In fact, the audit did not suggest that the school was failing and would need to close. The audit stated that when the Stadium School opened in 1994, its planners set five-year performance goals and said they would close the school if such goals were not met. The audit also pointed out that "based on current data trends, it seems highly unlikely" that the goals will be achieved on time.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES were not auspicious for the reform-driven experiment known as the Stadium School. An audit begun earlier this year by the Baltimore City public school system has found less-than-stellar test scores at the non-traditional school. This news comes just as the legislature appears poised to enact a city-state partnership that will do away with the current local school board and relieve the superintendent of his responsibilities.Is the threat to one of the more promising efforts for city kids simply a matter of holding the school to its own promises, or does this news fit more neatly into the category of revenge?

Two unremarkable and very institutional hallways on the third floor of an old Baltimore junior high school building are sheltering an elusive presence: hope.Here, amid the chalk dust and chewed-up pencils that trail schoolchildren everywhere, teachers and parents are experimenting with a new kind of school, one they run themselves even though it is part of the city school system. It's called the Stadium School.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke finds some of his best hopes for the city's distressed school system here.

Patricia Morris knows where to get the straight scoop when she goes into a school. So when she walked into Stadium School yesterday, the Baltimore school board member politely ditched the principal and headed for the children."

Baltimore City schools that offer themed curriculums were the top choices of middle school students and their parents this year, the first time they were allowed to select alternatives to their neighborhood schools. According to city school officials, Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy West attracted the most students who identified the science, technology, engineering and mathematics academy as their No. 1 choice. "It seemed that the thing that was attractive is whether or not the school offers something that captures the interests and excitement of students," said Jonathan Brice, executive director for student support services.

The Baltimore school board approved last night the creation of three more charter schools, including an elementary school to feed into the city's most successful middle school and the replication of a school with a long wait list. Two of the new charter schools, public schools that operate independently, will open in August 2009. One will open in 2010. The Knowledge is Power Program, which operates the high-achieving KIPP Ujima Village Academy in Park Heights, was given the go-ahead to open KIPP Harmony Academy.

COLLEGE PARK - After much deliberation, the University of Maryland has decided to allow beer and wine sales next season in Byrd Stadium's 64 new suites, but it still won't permit alcohol anywhere else in the stadium, The Baltimore Sun has learned. Literature being prepared for potential suite buyers promotes "in-suite beer and wine service" as well as indoor and outdoor seating and other amenities. The 64 suites are part of a $50.8 million expansion of the stadium's Tyser Tower that will also add 440 mezzanine seats.

A Baltimore principal is allowing a church his wife runs to hold services at his school for free, waiving $4,140 in annual fees for electricity and other basic costs, a Sun review has found. Ronald N. Shelley, executive director of the Stadium School, says the majority of the fees aren't applicable in his case because he's doing the janitorial work and providing security during the services himself. "Everything else is a donated fee by the city," he said in an interview. The Holy Temple Holiness Church of Deliverance Inc. - where Shelley's wife, Margaret, is the registered agent in official state documents - holds services Friday nights and Sundays, not during the school day. But several current and former school staff members expressed concerns about a potential conflict of interest, since some students attend the church and at least one parishioner has worked at the school.

Selling our forests isn't the only option In his article "National forest lands could go up for sale" (May 5), reporter Tom Pelton mentions that the forest land sale proposal is still alive because Western congressmen cannot find another funding source for rural schools. Well, some Democrats have found that funding source and it doesn't involve selling our natural heritage. Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Ron Wyden of Oregon have submitted a plan that would close a tax loophole that allows some government contractors to avoid their tax obligations.

Parents, pupils and staff from the Stadium School in Baltimore turned out in force at a city school board meeting last night to demand that the school's budget not be cut. "We're looking for a number of commitments from you," parent Jacquelyn Vincent told the board, speaking for more than 60 people from the school who were in the audience. Stadium is a public school in Waverly that serves grades four through eight and operates independently. Its test scores in most areas are significantly higher than citywide averages.

Baltimore City schools that offer themed curriculums were the top choices of middle school students and their parents this year, the first time they were allowed to select alternatives to their neighborhood schools. According to city school officials, Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy West attracted the most students who identified the science, technology, engineering and mathematics academy as their No. 1 choice. "It seemed that the thing that was attractive is whether or not the school offers something that captures the interests and excitement of students," said Jonathan Brice, executive director for student support services.

Ray Lewis met some of his smallest but biggest fans on Tuesday. The Ravens linebacker entered the Abbottston Elementary school gym to the screams of 200 students, including sixth-graders from the nearby Stadium School, to hand out free backpacks full of supplies for the new school year. Lewis was joined by his youngest daughter, 11-year-old Raven, and his mother, Sunseria Smith, to help hand out the supplies from his charity, The Ray Lewis 52 Foundation, for the school in the Northeastern Coldstream Homestead Montebello neighborhood.

One afternoon, a group of middle-schoolers at the Stadium School in Waverly huddled around plates of steaming vegetables. These were servings of North African stew with harissa sauce, not the usual preteen fare. Yet the students, eight girls and five boys, took generous portions of the mixture of chickpeas, carrots, tomatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, green peppers, onions, cinnamon, cumin and paprika. They were eating the results of their classwork. They had spent the last 40 minutes or so chopping vegetables, cooking and doing a little dancing.

Leah Cronin repeatedly hacked at a partially destroyed foyer wall with a crowbar, causing plaster and wood to crash to the floor. With a swift yank of the tool, she was able to leverage enough power to separate a wooden panel from the wall, exposing the skeletal structure of the home. Cronin and a team of 30 fellow volunteers spent yesterday ripping out fixtures, removing ceilings, exposing walls and sweeping out debris from an old three-story Waverly house they hope to transform into a youth center.