I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. TMHS has it's problems, and it's been thrown poor leader after poor leader. It probably should be closed, but it would have been nice if AAA lived up to at least 1 of his many promises to the school before closing it down.

Sara-
Is there anything that the teachers, parents and principals can do to stop the proposals?

Wow: There will be public hearings (times and dates TBA) before the school board votes on this April 28.

B....

AAA is keeping his promise to the parents... either the schools preform or they will be shut down TM has had problems since the breakup and its day has come. It should send signals to others....

I support Alonso's idea that we need to shut down failing schools, maximize the efficiency of the facilities we do have, and move towards more "successful" options, but I do have some concerns about his proposals.

1. If neighborhood students and families from the Reach Academy at the former Southeast Middle-tucked way into the far corner of the city-now have to have their kids bussed all the way to the Lake complex, are they going to continue sending their kids to a completely different part of town? Will they be concerned that the small community fostered at Southeast will be lost in such a massive entity like Lake? I know its broken up, but doors in these multiple-school city buildings are notoriously porous. What options do the parents of those Reach students have if they want to keep their kids close to home, build upon the continuity of the strong foundation set up at Reach and love the small individualized learning environment offered?

2. NAF being moved to Dunbar Middle/Hayes complex seems problematic for many of the same reasons. I know the school is expanding and Digital Harbor needs more room, but parents who sent their kids to NAF also sent them to that building that was (sometimes) close to their South Baltimore home and provided them with technological advantages not seen at other buildings. Is giving them a building on Orleans St. in East Baltimore really the best solution? Is that going to alienate and polarize more than it brings people together?

Just some questions that I think need to be addressed by Alonso. I hope many parents stand up hard and fight if they believe these changes are detrimental to their children.

Given that school building needs to have strong enrollment to get facility repairs, moving students to under-utilized facilities is a good strategy to help with the City's chronic school facility maintenance problems.

Good Luck Dr. Alonzo. If you can pull it off you will be my hero.

Thurgood has had its problems from the beginning, but it was never as bad as it is this year. I realize that AAA has sent some of his staff to the school, but he has never been there himself.

One would think that before he chose to close the school, which I completely agree with, that he would at least go there to see for himself what was happening.

If there were no plans to give Thurgood any real support that actually helped and made a difference this year, then it should have just be closed last year. After the principal was removed during the summer, the school was left in the hands of incapable Assistant Principals with a staff that was pretty much brand new. This is because after the school declined so much last year, most of us left in order to keep our sanity.

The system set Thurgood Marshall up for failure this year. The students and staff deserve better.

@Top

Maybe his promise to the city in general, but he promised the staff new strong leadership, he promised us his personal attention, hell he promised to just come down and see the school.

He didn't deliver on any of it. AAA has never visited the building during school (I believe he came once on a PD day for a few minutes). When we got rid of 1 weak principal he put another in place, when we got rid of that principal he sent us the worst one so far. Throwing administration who would rather re-invent the wheel and demean and ignore staff instead of working on existing problems wasn't ever going to work.

Again, I think TMHS has passed it's due date so to speak... but I personally feel pretty slighted when but a few months ago AAA met with the teachers of TMHS and Banks (After school at North Ave.) and promised us a new bright future where he would be involved... Lip service I suppose

All of this news makes me thing a lot about school choice. School choice is usually touted as being good for parents and students because if done effectively, it improves school quality. However, school choice also impacts teachers. Think about a hypothetical teacher who teaches at a mediocre school that has little support for faculty and an increasingly violent and negative school culture, but the school probably won’t be shut down because the student’s test scores are okay. I (Whoops, I mean, that teacher) have the choice to leave my school to go work in an expanding school that is serving its students better and has more support for faculty. The schools that are expanding need to hire more faculty, and they have proven their success. As more teachers apply for positions at these in-demand schools, those schools will be able to choose effective teachers from the larger applicant pool of teachers who have been displaced by closings. So in a way, these moves benefit teachers and schools that have proven themselves.

So who is shortchanged? As usual, failing schools, teachers who don’t have the credentials (or connections) to get placed at a successful school, and worst of all, students at failing schools. But these moves also have the potential to hurt mediocre schools. Take the example I mentioned above. If that teacher is smart, she’ll leave her school for a better one before it gets any worse, while she can still take advantage of the openings at expanding schools. If she waits too long, hoping her school will get better, she could end up like the teachers at Homeland Security. Could these moves lead to a professional brain drain at some schools? We shall see.

Sara:

I may not teach math, so maybe I am just confused about the figures that are being thrown out there! 179 jobs cut from the central office will save the school system $55 million. How?

I opened up my calculator to plug these figures in there $55,000,000 / 179 = $307,263 PER JOB???

How can that be! Who knew! I could accept if the figure was $100,000 on average, because I know that even if the average salaries of those cut is, say, $55k, then there is a component of benefits, etc. that drives this up.

Someone needs to explain these numbers...

Second: Alonso has repeatedly said that those people eliminated from North Ave would be able to seek other jobs (and I believe have their salaries protected for one year) so-- I guess some people would leave anyway, and others would choose to go out into schools. How is this a savings?

Moreover: someone needs to monitor some of the folks who are being shifted into schools. In some cases they have no real job (e.g., no role, no real tasks, no accountability, no reporting structure to the principal, etc.). I've heard of a former AP who was Peter Principaled to North Avenue, and now has a "special ed" job in one of the schools and she basically does nothing but push paper (because this school has so few IEPs). I hope that is not true.

A little perspective - here's what's going on across the country in San Diego - they are in far worse shape than Baltimore. At least Dr. A is supporting successful programs and in some cases, expanding them - with a budget gap. We should feel fortunate to have his skills working for our students.

This is from voiceofsandiego.org, an online newspaper:

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 | Classes will grow a little larger, school employees will pay more money when they visit the doctor, and fewer buses will deliver kids to magnet schools under a plan begrudgingly adopted by the San Diego Unified board to close a budget gap that had widened to nearly $147 million for next school year. The plan hinges on San Diego Unified being able to negotiate with its unions to boost class sizes, furlough employees for four days, and increase what workers pay when they go to the doctor's office. If the unions do not agree to those plans, the school district could resort to closing a dozen schools with low enrollment or eliminating high school athletics, visual and performing arts, or popular programs that take students to Old Town and Balboa Park.

I think it is odd that in our faculty meeting yesterday my principal told us that North Ave asked him NOT to send out a letter informing parents about the school closing because "the media has already voiced it." Since parent contact is so important, why aren't we telling them?

I am one of the staff that was transferred from central office to another department during the last round of cuts. I went from working with schools to being housed inhouse as a clerk. No knowledge of the new office, trained on an as-you-need-to-know basis. Many supervisors for this one office that don't communicate effectively between each other or staff, but all are in charge. The office currently is not meeting its expectations, and has not since they moved all of the downsized staff here. Each of us came from a different office, doing absolutely the opposite of what we are doing now. We did not interview for our new position, just told to report to this location. Needless to say, office morale is shot. With the new central office cuts, our jobs are once again on the chopping block. On June 30th, will we have another assignment, or will we be among the many other bcpss staff in the unemployment line? Let's throw a dart and see where it lands, because that's what it seems AAA is doing. How much of his salary is being cut to save money?

Oz:

Wouldn't where you land depend on whether or not you are qualified for a job?

If you think Alonso is throwing darts with a blindfold on, I'm pretty sure you're sadly mistaken.

I'd be checking my body for bullseyes.

"We will have another assignment." I think the passivity here is an issue. With all due respect, there are 60 jobs opening up in the networks. Instead of waiting for someone to hand over the new assignment, maybe it'd be more beneficial to set oneself up for success by priming the resume, taking extra professional classes, mastering excel and PowerPoint, etc. In no way do I mean to suggest that people are not doing this, I just think the central office has existed too long in the mindset that current workers are entitled to a job, or have a right to a job, rather than being required to earn a job everyday. I absolutely get that peoples' livelihoods are at stake, but that makes me think this would be even more of a reason to proactively establish one's professional security.

There's a lot of times when I just want to yell from the top of the building: "Look at what's presented to the Board through public presentation. Does the department's work reflect this quality? Format-wise, data-analysis-wise, critical thinking-wise? If so, golden! If not, time to think about raising the standards! As soon as possible!" I can't tell you how many times people submit work to the Board or to Dr. Alonso in a completely unfinished fashion and ask, "Well, can't some of Dr. Alonso's interns fix it." Everyone is busy, I completely understand that. There are opportunity costs to consider, sure. The big problem, though, is that this business model is not sustainable at the speed and scope of the reforms proposed for the City.

Oz, clarification, this is not directed at you personally, more just a generalized reflection stimulated by your comments. In fact, I think you may have posted previously about how frustrating the situation was, and I completely respect that.

Want to provide some "data" to support my thought that there are raised expectations under Dr. Alonso's central staff. See 2006 presentation about Facility Solutions (here). No details. The discussion is about meetings only, literally no substance, only discussion about when the next meeting will be held. Compare to this one: here or here. The required analysis and presentation are significantly more intense. If the central office is expecting to work at 2006 levels in 2009, school reform on a citywide policy-level cannot be successful. The central office must be staffed for success, just like principalships, and just like teachers. Secretary Duncan spoke today about this exact issue, fending off republican attacks about the teachers' unions.

@Bill: Since you are so keen on probing analysis, please explain to me how this makes sense: "The thriving William Pinderhughes Elementary would move out of its existing building and move into the building now occupied by struggling George Kelson Elementary/Middle. Pinderhughes would absorb Kelson’s student body, expanding from 176 students to 481."

Now I could see the logic of this if Kelson was the successful program and Pinderhughes was struggling. Then you could say, well, probably the bigger succesful program could absorb the smaller unsuccessful program and still be fine. But actually you have the smaller successful program moving and taking over the bigger unsuccessful one. Now I don't have a degree in education, but I look at this and wonder: now how are these guys so sure this is going to work? It seems to me that one very possible outcome would be that the Pinderhughes program gets dragged down to the Kelson level, and so you run the risk of wrecking one of the few successful programs we've got. Maybe you can point to where in those flashy powerpoints this possibility is discussed, or at least where any reasons are given for why we can expect this merger to be successful and not a flop?

I've got nothing. Don't know much about elementary schools reconfigurations, particularly those ones. My guess is that under the new administration there would be the development of the school culture that would enhance the larger student body. I'll see what I can find out, though.

Hamilton Parent and
Bill:

The issue is that we have been told by HR that those with more years of service get first preference when it comes to the jobs that will be available. You may not know that we now have some administrators/upper level staff members that were displaced during the last cuts assigned to offices shredding paper, answering phones, etc., when their educational talents could be much better utilized in a school working with our students. But, what principal could afford to pay them their current salary.

Yes, there are those at central office that should have retired/left long ago, but they decided to "ride it out until retirement". I am a highly educated staff person, who could do much more than clerk in an office.

Hamilton Parent: I have many years of management skills and have managed offices in the corporate arena. My passion is and always has been education. I am constantly taking classes to keep myself informed/updated on topics and different ways to encourage students/parents/communities on the valuable need of an education. Yes, I am thankful for my job, but place me somewhere that I can be more beneficial and utilize the skills/training that I have worked so hard to achieve.

To The Land of Oz, Your situation is awful. You are a real person with a difficult situation and I am sorry. But if we were talking about the rest of the work world, when a business does not need/want/can't afford an employee for whatever reason, a layoff or termination occurs.BCPS has historically claimed they reduce staff but in actuality just shift them around. Some may go, some are reassigned to other positions with good and bad results, and others are replaced with a new employee so the financial impact is the same. North Avenue thinks that the public, tax payers, and other staff does not see this shell game but we do! We see some reassigned staff doing next to nothing.We see unqualified people performing ineptly. We visit North Avenue and are treated like cattle.We do not get the support we need in the classroom from the district.HR is a giant joke. They loose our personnel files. They loose our transcripts! They loose our health insurance informantion year after year! They screw up our pay scale. Twice they have owed me thousands of dollars in miscalculated salary. You apply for another job in the system, go through weeks of "hoops" only to hear nothing and find out they decided to not fill the position, you get a new,better job only to have it eliminated a year later, you take endless college courses only to have your department cut or eliminated or rendered almost nonfunctional.I know great people work in the schools and on North Avenue. Sadly,there has been too much change over many years(I think I have had eigh superintendents in about 15 years?) with all the accompanying chaos. I do have faith in AAA but he has to speed up the process even more and clean out all the closets now! I for one, want to be able to work in a stable, supportive environment. I need the folks above me to get it together! As I see it at the moment, the most functional people in the schools are most teachers and teacher level postions, and some(mine) principals. AAA needs to clone those functioning principals.

One final thought,AAA needs to remember that he is not the only person who "cares about kids". I could have retired long ago on what I spend on my class. I was called to do what I do and I do it very well! AAA, we who care and have cared through a long line of transitions and transformations, want you to know that we do care. Appreciate us. Recognize that we are part of your call for volunteers. As a nine month paid employee, I work twelve months a year about 12 hours a day. I did this before you came and I will do it after you leave. I am successful and I am not whining!!!!

Good points, WE, very good points. My first reaction is that I'm somewhat excited to hear that you think the highest quality are in schools. In theory, that's what we need - great principals and great teachers. The policies and central work should be (certainly not there yet) geared toward ensuring that this is the case - most qualified people are leading schools.

The whole Mervo things depresses me... a lot. It's such a difficult situation, and I feel for the teachers (as worthless & cliche as that is).

There's another point that I think I'd be interested to hear others' opinions. Dr. Alonso came to Baltimore from New York solo, bringing no top-level staff with him. From what I've seen in other districts, this is extremely unusual. Drawing a comparison (very loosely), when Clinton came into office he fired all the US Attorneys and appointed new ones immediately. When Bush came in, he decided to keep some of the old and replace them gradually. However, when he later started to change staff he ran into the whole US Attorney crisis. Is Dr. Alonso facing a similar constraint? Will not having "cleaned house" at the outset put him in a position of facing political backlash should he hope to appoint new people now that he's got more Baltimorean experience? I have no idea whether this is the case, but more and more I've started to think the scenario when considering the state of employment at North Ave.

Expansion of schools is important. Digital/ NAF have two performing schools sharing space which they do not fit in. How does that happen, yet Dunbar Middle has one of the worst performance records (see MSA scores). Digital harbor will remain where it is. Contrary to comments here, the MAJORITY of NAF students do not come from South Baltimore. Many come from north and east. Why cant City Schools have more than one building that is technologically advanced. Im sure NAF isnt just going to move there kids into an old building and leave it as is!

Oz, I echo what WE said above. This is a real situation with a real consequences for people whose lives depend on their employment. No joking around when it comes to that.

Are these not viable (see below), particularly assistant principals? I think under FSF the average salary is paid, not the actual. Thus, it wouldn't affect the school's budget because the position is already covered and accounted for through the averaged salary. Seniority matters, but not with position switch. At least that's what I thought...

Principal: http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Careers/Job_Opportunities/03_11_09_PrincipalGarrettHeights.asp
Principal: http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Careers/Job_Opportunities/02_02_09_PrinicpalsElementary.asp
Principal: http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Careers/Job_Opportunities/02_04_09_PrincipalWaverly.asp
Budget Analyst:
http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Careers/Job_Opportunities/01_14_09_BudgetAnalyst.asp
An Assistant Principal:
http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Careers/Job_Opportunities/12_23_08_AssistPrincipals.asp
Ed Specialist:
http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Careers/Job_Opportunities/12_29_08_Educational_Specialist_I_Career_Cluster.asp
EEO Manager:
http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Careers/Job_Opportunities/11_18_08_ManagerEqualOpp.asp

Inside Ed folks reorganization is a code word for: Shifting central operations staff to new cost centers not the elimination or reduction enforcement of North Ave staff. Not informing the school system parents as mentioned by a TMHS staff teacher in a staff meeting held by the school administrator because first the local news media reported already the release closing of THMS.

Where is the city leadership on these situations?

Or Does Mayor Dixon and President Blake have a say?

Or does AAA have total control and say over our schools, and our children education.

Closing schools, libraries, rec centers while investing millions in free bus rides?

Funding churches by millions of dollars?

TIFFS and PILOTS for friends and campaign contributors.

Murders and shootings are up.

Low morale and insensitive city staffers....where is the City of Baltimore headed?

Increase in towning fees and other matters while the city sleeps?

Who's on first? What's on Second? When is on third and there is noone watching home base?

A sick city lead by a new breed of leaders.

54 Million missing, 40 million found, 14 million in the red.

Who will save this city?