School Board meetings are broadcast on Comcast channel 77. See for yourself

"Casted"?

@ Over The Top-- I don't have Comcast so that won't work. And I'm actually trying to find out exactly what was going through the head of each person during the exchange. I know what was said, I just want more clarity. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way...

The City Schools board members are actually in away victims of school operations officers and staff fabrication tactics. The board is not capable of pealing back to expose below the polished clean influence and dark layers of central office school staff one year head start on the public citizens and the schools students parents to plan it’s disingenuous tactics used during this Expanding Great Options (EGO) school closing recommendation process.

City Schools operations staff do not following the COMAR school closing process procedures. Displaying City Schools operations bogus information presentations in using unchallenged uncertified academic assessment data, performance measurement statistics, which by way is design over whelm the our local council, senate, delegates persons including the 9 volunteer school board members. The City Schools operations hired staff will win every time. The deck is always stacked against the Baltimore citizens in this type of situation with no allowed reasonable time frames and wherewithal to push back against with ideas and established plan development amid being given less than 90 days to take on the City Schools closure recommendation process.

@ John-John - that's easy... nothing, most were sleep or checking email until the blow up between VanHook and the CEO. They completely missed (or ignored) the presentation put on by the Chinquapin group.

From what I hear, Commissioner VanHook called closing the school as something amounting to "neo-slavery" to which Dr. A responded that keeping it open was actually tantamount to neo-slavery.

What gets me is that these schools, some of which have been failing for years, have doomed many students to failure simply because of the zip code they were born in. I asked this years ago on this blog site, where is the outrage? I started teaching at one of the schools mentioned in the blog post above more than a few years ago and while there was an arts program there, the teacher turnover was at 50% per year or more, the number of suspensions and office referrals was off the charts and kids were lucky if they had any real learning experiences. Luck is not a plan and should not be allowed to be the plan at schools. No school is perfect, but how that school is still open today, 17 years later, is a mystery. There were, in my time there, a few high quality teachers who cared deeply about the kids, but they were unable to do anything beyond close their doors and try and have, as I believe Commissioner VanHook once said referring to charter schools, an island of excellence.

I know that closing a school is painful, but have year after year of failure is far more painful. It simply doesn't have to be that way. I am glad to see that there is a charter school that was held to a standard and was closed. I wish all school had to have that much at risk.

@IO - I don't think that the charter school was closed. I think the charter operator lost its contract, so the school will still be there but just not as a charter.

Now that the charter has been revoked at Dr. Raynor Browne Academy, will the school close or revert back to BCPSS ? If the school closes many of the students will most likely attend Collington Square which is also run by the Baltimore Curriculum Project. The board showed little confidence by approving a charter renewal of only two years for that BCP school. The curriculum at all BCP schools is essentially the same and the teachers are provided the same professional development opportunities . In view of that, how will the educational experience of former DRB students be significantly improved from what they have had in the past?

@ IO - What VH was talking about was that the community wants improvement but did not support the only option that given them. It was "forced" upon them. The school is being taken over, not closed and many of the current students would be displaced to other schools.

And his prior comment was that he did not want charter schools to become islands of excellence....

Alonso and all of the board (except for the grandstanding Van Hook) had the wisdom to close the failing Chinquapin program, in a mostly empty school, and put in a new IT program that reflects President Obama's wishes for more science and technology education - a common sense move that will hopefully provide better opportunities for the future of these students

@ Chinquapin Posted by Anonymous|March 13, 2010 12:51 PM In response.

Above regarding Chinquapin. As stated above prior the EGO public forums process is theater and deception carried out to mislead by our chief executive officer A.A.Alonso and central office executive chief of staff Ms. T. Edwards and the EGO committee staff members include secondary school director Mr. R. Shaw.
Pointed out “The City Schools operations hired staff will win every time. The deck is always stacked against the Baltimore citizens in this type of situation with no allowed reasonable time frames and wherewithal to push back against with ideas and established plan development amid being given less than 90 days to take on the City Schools closure recommendation process."

Chinquapin is the failure of the same seated schools board of commissioners that allowed its school improvement plan failure to continue. "Hope is not a plan."