Bracing for a busy January
Happy new year, everyone. For those of you in the city, I hope you had a restful holiday, because I think we're in for an eventful January. Dr. Alonso has promised midyear budget transfers (this being midway through the academic/fiscal year), with money taken away from administration and sent directly to the schools. Then there will be more cuts on the table later in the winter, when the school board takes up the budget for 2008-2009. Officials have said they'll have to cut $50 million to offset the freeze in Thornton funding.
I'm hearing that a lot of people at North Avenue are scared for their jobs, which might explain why we've been seeing so many resignations and retirements lately. I've heard several more names of administrators who have departed in the past few weeks or will be leaving soon. I'll be adding to my ongoing list of departures as soon as I get confirmation.
I covered a protest this morning by students and parents at Maritime Industries Academy, rallying in support of their principal, Marco Clark, and assistant principal, Kevin Brooks. Clark resigned just before the holiday break and Brooks has been placed on administrative leave. The system won't say why -- it's a personnel issue -- and the parents want an explanation. Frustrated students have started a MySpace page.
We at InsideEd send our condolences to Charlene Cooper Boston, whose husband passed away over the holidays. Ellis Boston was a labor relations attorney for the Baltimore school system and for D.C. schools. Read his obituary here.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
What a shame! Simpson, thanks for post. I'm glad a a counter-message got out. I don't know much, specifically, about Dr. Clark. I have a friend who was a teacher at Maritime and was involuntarily transferred to ACCE. She then became an incredibly influential teacher and role model at the new school. Very interesting... all I had heard was that there was more to the story than met the eye. This perspective is enlightening.
Posted by: Bill | January 3, 2008 10:52 AM
Dr. Alonso spoke to the PTA at Woodhome Elementary last night and noted that there would be a story in the Sun about a departing principal. He could not, of course, give any details, so Simpson's comment is illuminating.
He also noted, in response to a question, that there were indeed big organizational changes coming ("those aren't rumors", he said) to Central Office, but he was also careful to note that people shouldn't worry about losing their jobs. This does not, however, indicate that they will remain in the same capacity. It sounded to me as though he plans to move a lot of Central Office people back into schools. And he did cite the budget problems as being a major reason for all this.
Posted by: Claude | January 3, 2008 11:22 AM
Sara:
I am not sure if you go back to old posts but one thing I was thinking about was that now that the new year is here and we are entering the 2nd week of school for 2008 I wondered when we might see the results of the 2006 - 2007 science MSA that our students in the city and across the state took. I wonder if you had heard anything else about it.
Posted by: Doug | January 6, 2008 8:24 PM
Doug, I posed your question to Bill Reinhard, spokesman for MSDE. He said that, later this month, the state board will be voting on the standards for the science test -- meaning they'll be deciding what scores constitute basic, proficient and advanced. The results will be released soon thereafter.
Posted by: Sara Neufeld | January 7, 2008 3:04 PM