I know that schools are closed and, for the most part, I think that facilities does a good job with the money and manpower that they have. Unfortunately, BCPSS is blessed/cursed with historic buildings and neither the money nor the political will to replace them. I have worked in other systems that had newer buildings and they have problems also--just different ones. For a large number of our schools, it would be much cheaper to tear them down and start from scratch than to completely repair what needs to be taken care of. Sadly, that will not happen as people are tied to the historic in Baltimore. Can you imagine tearing down City or Douglass or Booker T? I don't think so; people would scream. So we are stuck with aging buildings and their attendant problems.

After 7 school days of a freezing room, shuttling my classes around the building trying to find warm teaching space (with or without a chalkboard, materials, an appropriate place for students to write, etc.), I'm beginning to feel more like a middle school babysitter than a teacher. And a cold one, at that.

Frankly, I don't care what kinds of funding problems they're having. Is North Ave. managing to stay warm?

Hah! I'd say North Avenue has been plenty warm over the past year as Dr. Alonso has lit many fires.

Every time I drive by the old Eastern High School Building on 33rd Street, I wonder why the same could not be done at City, Douglas, Poly/Western, Booker T and so many smaller neighborhood elementary schools.

it all comes down the the usage requirement that Liz spoke of.

To qualify for Captial renovation dollars schools need to be at a minimum 60% capacity.

This is very difficult for many urban districts that are competing with a greater number of parochial, charter and private schools than say in the counties.

These buildings are very old and in some cases should be torn down, but then comes the question of where to build another one? In the counties there is more open space to build anew on, the more dense the population the harder it is to find adequate space.

Moreover, do you build a smaller school or do you plan for population increases?

These are hard questions for all urban districts to answer.

Just to clarify...

just because only 34 schools closed, doesn't mean that only 34 schools SHOULD have closed. My school had no heat on multiple occasions, smoking heaters and burst pipes on other occasions, and only closed once. It seems that only the high profile schools (or else once where the admin/parents are willing to really speak up) get closed.

I've been told that "we're waiting to hear from north avenue" every time our school should have closed, only to find out that no one was giving us a real answer, meaning the infamous "we'll see", that our parents used to give - aka, no way.

I hope that Dr. Alonso finds out about this. So many people (myself included) are tired of being ignored that we've stopped speaking up altogether.

I'm curious to see how many schools have the opposite problem.
My school is easily 90 degrees in some classrooms and averages around 85 for the whole building. Our windows are welded shut, so there's no relief. Some of us have bought fans for our classrooms, but it's hard to teach over the whir of 3-5 fans.

I know this isn't catch-pneumonia-and-die worthy, but man is everybody crabby.

I recall a school system that worked with incentives from the local energy company and from state and local government to retro fit/update the schools in the system.Heating systems,lighting, and window replacement was involved.The school system was assured that their investment would recouped in three years in energy bills savings. The investment was actually recouped after two years of energy bills. In addition to all the problems that have been discussed regarding the heat, I can only imagine the BG&E bills to the schools. While some schools may have taken individual steps to conserve energy, as a system I see no initiatives to be environmentally responsible while at the same time providing healthy air in the schools.I also worked in a Baltimore school with an average indoor winter temp of 86 degrees as measured by many indoor thermometers. It was truly miserable,expensive, and irresponsible.

Many years ago I volunteered for BUILD and I walked away from that experience with a lot in my head, but one fact rang true. The thing Baltimore has more of than any other city is land. We have blocks, upon blocks, upon blocks of unused buildings (some residential, some not). On top of that unused land potential, didn't the city itself *sell* several school buildings? Those would have been some choice places to build new schools. I suppose zoning laws could poke holes in my theory, but come on... not enough room? With the amount of urban sprawl & urban blight in B'more... there's more than enough room.

For those who may not know, Scroggins is one of those people who under basically impossible conditions is holding this system together with bandaids and duct tape. It would be no great loss if AAA disappeared tomorrow, but we'd be a much worse shape without Scroggins.