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Educationby Fern Shen1:20 pmJul 9, 20140

Five year-olds with weapons and other hot topics for new city schools CEO

Sitting at his first school board meeting as Baltimore public schools chief, Gregory Thornton confronts thorny issues, tough critics

Above: City Schools CEO Gregory Thornton with Dawn Kirstaetter, the mayor’s new deputy for Health, Human Services, Education and Youth.

The meeting had moved past the Pledge of Allegiance and the welcome remarks to Gregory Thornton – sitting at his first school board meeting as the new CEO of Baltimore city schools – when some uncomfortable data was put up on the screen.

It showed pre-K suspensions rising from 21 to 33 between school years 2007-08 and 2012-13. In those same years, the number of kindergarteners suspended went up 83% – from 117 to 214.

The rise in suspensions of very young students made headlines in Baltimore last year. The presentation was noting a policy change – that administrators are now to check in with the central office before taking such a measure.

Still, the image of children only a couple of years out of diapers being put out of school in increasing numbers sent a noticeable ripple of anxiety through the commissioners, who sat last night before a standing-room-only audience.

They pressed the presenters for examples of specific “legitimate reasons to suspend a pre-K student” and were getting jargon back.

“There was one case where a youngster suffered with lead,” Everett Garnett, director of suspension services, finally offered. This elicited something close to a “boo” from the people awaiting the next presentation, the Special Education Update.

Thornton Steps Up

Clearly someone needed to steer the discussion out of choppy waters. Thornton stepped up to do the job.

He told the board that “there’s been an uptick not just here but around the country” in such suspensions. They ought to be prevented in the first place – “we need to do a better job,” he said – but concluded that they are sometimes necessary when a child becomes unsafe.

“I’ve suspended elementary children for weapons. It’s few and far between, it does not happen every day. . . but I watched a little five-year-old turn a classroom out – he needed to go home!” Thornton added to applause. “I didn’t believe it until I saw it.”

Kindergarten/Pre-K suspensions data. (Baltimore City Public Schools)

Kindergarten/Pre-K suspension data. (Baltimore City Public Schools)

The exchange was one of the first glimpses the general public has of Thornton, a smooth career educator and administrator who last headed the Milwaukee public school system and begins this month to lead Baltimore’s under a $290,000 a year contract.

In his introductory remarks, Thornton said he was “humbled” by the task ahead of him, that “we have a lot of hard work to do” and that he was “worried,” particularly about the young male students like the ones in the audience.

“Hopefully we’re going to work hard and not let them down,” he said.

Introducing, the Watchdogs

As he takes over at North Avenue, Thornton’s challenges are legion and well known. Among them are budget shortfalls, disputes with charter schools, a controversial system of evaluating teachers, the $1 billion school construction program and implementation of Common Core standards.

If Thornton needed a taste of the hot issues ahead of him, he got it last night from the parade of members of the public who came up to take their customary three minutes at the beginning of school board meetings.

Members of the Dunbar High School football team and their advocates pleaded on behalf of their coach, suspended for an alleged hazing incident. (Photo by Fern Shen)

Members of the Dunbar High School football team and their advocates pleaded on behalf of their coach, suspended for an alleged hazing incident. (Photo by Fern Shen)

He heard from former school commissioner Kalman R. “Buzzy” Hettleman, who chairs the Baltimore CityWide Special Education Advocacy Coalition.

“Good intentions have not been returned with any significant improvement on services available,” Hettleman chided, noting that, in the most recent report, of the special education students on the diploma track, “40% made no progress or regressed.”

The controversy over the one-year suspension of the Dunbar football coach over an alleged locker room hazing incident also came up. “Everyone seems to look at the wrong and not at the positive part of it,” said Dynisha Woods, whose son was a freshman on last year’s team and who said the coach has had a positive influence on players’ lives.

Thornton also got to see some of the school system’s sharpest  critics, who read agenda’s and budget documents closely and don’t mince their words.

Rhonda Wimbish accused the schools of being “dishonest” by pushing students to be classified as in need of special education largely because of the funding each brings to the system. Wimbish said  the students who leave the system  city’s after receiving special education services should be tracked but aren’t “because the results will be devastating.”

Kim Trueheart chastised school officials for not fully funding the “Read to Succeed” summer school program for city children . “That breaks my heart . . . you’ve got a little slush fund – what better thing to use it for?” Trueheart said, addressing Thornton directly. “Do not let that child fall behind. Isn’t that what you said?

Thornton nodded and replied in a low voice, “Yes.”

A Promise of Change

Amid the parade of people who came to the meeting to get public face-time with Thornton for themselves and their issues, the new CEO seized several opportunities to offer more than pleasantries.

Representative of the Parent and Community Advisory Board (PCAB) introduced themselves but noted that the group had not been consulted about the new Student Code of Conduct until it was pretty much completed: “We were not even made aware of it. We are not here to rubber stamp!”

Commissioner David Stone concurred, saying he was surprised that groups like PCAB and DBFA (Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance) were  not part of the original committee working on the document.

Thornton said they will be invited to participate in the future “so we at least have a full team,” directed them to a staffer and promised more inclusion under his leadership: “We will re-engineer our relationship.”

Thornton also listened as Stone and other  commissioners expressed skepticism about the effects of policies they said seemed aimed more at punishing miscreants and lowering suspension numbers than assuring a peaceful classroom environment conducive to learning.

Parents complain “all the time” about disruptive students who take teachers’ attention away from academic tasks, preventing classrooms from being the “sacred space” where learning happens, Stone said. “A lot of the time, the response is to pull the kids out of the schools.”

“How do you measure success? Reduction in the suspension rate is only one piece of it,” said Commissioner Tina Hike-Hubbard, taking up the same theme.

After listening to them, Thornton gave the presenters a crisp request for information they need to bring when they come back before the board:

“Create another data point that would speak to the [classroom] climate.”

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