Canton questions proposal for new middle-high school

by Mary Helen Sprecher
newsroom@baltimoreguide.com

Depending on who’s talking, the idea to convert Canton Middle School to a grade 6-12 charter institution is either a brilliant example of adaptive re-use or a sneak attack on a beleaguered neighborhood.
On Tuesday morning, Baltimore Public Schools held a press conference to announce a partnership with the 10-year-old Friendship Public Charter School, an educational system headquartered in Washington, D.C. Under the auspices of the city’s Transformation Schools program, two new academies, known as “Tech Prep” schools, would open in Baltimore in the fall of 2008. The facilities, which would be for grades 6-12, would be called The Friendship Academy of Science and Technology, and The Friendship Academy of Engineering and Technology.
“Yes, there are plans to convert Canton to use as a transformation school operated by Friendship,” confirmed Vanessa Pyatt, public information officer of Baltimore City Public Schools.
Canton Middle School is located at 801 S. Highland Avenue.
“We are excited to announce the launch of two new schools in Baltimore City,” confirms an announcement on the website, www.friendshipschools.org. “These Friendship academies will serve students from sixth to twelfth grade with an accelerated Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) focus and Early College pathway that offers students college exposure and college credits even before high school graduation.”
Trouble is, says City Councilman Jim Kraft (D-1), nobody ever checked to see whether the neighborhood would be equally excited by such an announcement. Residents of the area, who have long complained about disruptive and violent behavior from the current students at Canton Middle, were under the assumption that the school would be closed at the end of the 2009 school year as part of the city’s Facility Solutions program.
Part of his irritation, says Kraft, stemmed from the fact that for all intents and purposes, the school system has tried to pull a fast one on the residents of the area.
“I got a message late Friday night regarding a meeting with parents of students who go to Canton Middle School. The call came in at 7:30 on Friday night and the meeting was supposed to be on Monday night.”
Fortunately, said Kraft, his staff was in the office — although he is suspicious that the caller was hoping that the opposite were true (“since who calls a city office on a Friday night at 7:30 anyway?”)
I told them, ‘Now wait a minute; we have a pledge here from the Board of Education that Canton is supposed to be closing.’”
Over the years, said Kraft, “many of the children who go to that school have terrorized that neighborhood.” He pointed to the necessity of an increased police presence in the area, as well as the need for school police, to help keep order. In fact, he said, residents have continued to put up with the problem because they had been promised that Canton Middle would close as soon as its current grades had been graduated.
“Everyone has been clear that as part of the Facility Solutions program, that school would close,” he noted. “We participated very strongly in the Facility Solutions program in the Southeast, and there was no real objection to closing middle schools and creating K-8 schools. We were all working on the assumption that these closures would happen.”
City school officials, he noted, have now promised that students who are presently enrolled in Canton Middle will have first preference when it comes to being admitted to the new academy.
And that, says Kraft, presents a huge problem for the neighborhood. “Those people who live down there, they can’t go out of their houses between 2 and 3:30.”
Stephany Palasik of the Canton-Highlandtown Community Association (CHICA) agrees, citing instances of fighting, littering and generally disruptive and violent behavior among the students. “Some of the neighbors just stay in,” she notes.
The fact that arrangements seem to have been made without informing the neighborhood, she added, is unforgiveable.
“It is a sneak attack. They already have problems with who can control these kids. Nobody can control them. We can’t have things just pushed on us.”
She would be willing to support a school, she added, were the students disciplined and respectful.
“If they have something that is going to work, that’s great. But if it’s not, we’ll just have the same problems.”
Friendship School’s chief academic officer, Michael Cordell, says that his organization is open to dialogue with the community regarding its concerns.
“We absolutely want to talk to them,” he noted. “We are a community school and we want to address those things.”
In a press release, Baltimore Public School system stated that the concept of transformation schools is “a direct response to unmet needs in the district’s middle and high schools.”
According to the release, six schools will open in the fall; five will be all-new schools, and one will be an existing high school that is adding middle grades. As many as 24 transformation schools could open over the next three to five years. Beginning with grades 6 and 9 and eventually serving grades 6 through 12, transformation schools will be combined middle-high schools that allow students to explore college and career options earlier in the course of their secondary education.
Friendship provides an integrated curriculum for its middle schoolers, says Cordell. It uses team teaching, with one teacher focusing on humanities and another on math and sciences. Together, the teachers work with the students on what he calls “project-based problem-solving,” such as on five-week projects dealing with solving the crisis regarding the need for affordable housing.
“Everything is driven by an essential question,” says Cordell. “It keeps the students engaged and excited.”
Under the Friendship system, teachers work with a maximum courseload of 50 students. In addition, the school works to address areas where students are lacking, such as in reading skills.
The school requires uniforms for all students. Its discipline system, Cordell added, works to address repeat problems, such as students who have been suspended multiple times.
“We educate the whole child. We are student-centered and it gets them excited.”
The Canton Community Association, says president Darryl Jurkiewicz, has adopted a ‘wait and see’ attitude about the situation.
“We’re open to all proposals,” he noted. “On one hand, there’s a good reason to close the school.”
The big question, he added, was where all the ideal students described by Friendship, and by the city school system, going to come from.
“Right now, most of those students are from the neighborhoods north of the park, which isn’t a very good environment. We welcome good schools and good students, but how do you guarantee either when there’s such a bad taste from Canton Middle School? People have been looking forward to it closing.”
In addition, say Kraft and Jurkiewicz, there are already two area schools which already are, or are converting to, preK-grade 8 facilities (Hampstead Hill Academy and Patterson Park Public Charter School), as well as one high school (Patterson). In addition, points out Palasik, Christo Rey, a career and high school academy operates in the old Our Lady of the Rosary building near Fells Point. All three individuals question the need for a new school, particularly one which would serve grades 6-12.
“Grades 6-12 sounds like a really odd age group,” said Jurkiewicz. “Of course, you have to tell people ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ If that school is closed and surplused, it might be sold to someone who will put up luxury apartments that none of us can afford, but that will bring more traffic in and out of our neighborhood.”
Kraft says that despite his reservations, and despite the fact that he feels the school board’s actions have been “surrepititious” in pushing through the new plan without alerting neighbors, he will go along with what the community wants.
“If the community wants this new school, if they say, ‘Jim, that’s fine with us,’ then I’ll support it, but if they don’t want it, I’ll do everything in my power to keep it from happening. Telling us it’s going to close and then just opening another school there with the same students? That’s too cute by half.”
And, he adds, he’s prepared to be just as sneaky as he feels the school system has been, should plans look like they’re moving forward.
“I’ll get eight of my colleagues and we’ll hold the school budget up.”