The Baltimore City School Board voted 6-4 on Wednesday to close Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys, an all-boys public charter school, at the end of the current school year.
The school district recommended in November that the board not give Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys a contract renewal largely due to concerns over its financials and academic achievement. The school’s community and City Council representative Odette Ramos spoke at a public hearing last week to advocate for the school to remain open.
Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises, who supported shutting down the school, warned ahead of Wednesday’s vote that renewing the charter would set a precedent for keeping open schools that are not meeting district standards.
“I want to mark historically this board will for the first time in City Schools vote to keep open a school that is failing, not effective in student achievement and is failing in two categories,” Santelises said.
Board Chair Robert Salley added that district data showed the school had not made sufficient academic progress and continued to raise concerns around finance and governance.
“What I see in data does not demonstrate that Collegiate has made the necessary progress to continue to move along academically,” Salley said. He added that questions about financial oversight and leadership had persisted from previous reviews.
Supporters argued the school serves a critical need for students the district has struggled to reach. Board member Mujahid Muhammad said Baltimore Collegiate exists because of “gaps with too many young men” in the school system.
“This is something that our district needs,” Muhammad said. “We are responsible for a city that has young men that need a level of guidance that often our traditional schools are not able to provide because we are focused solely on academics. And that’s why we lean on charters, to be able to fill those gaps that we cannot fill.”
CEO Edwin Avent said he was “disappointed” with the results of the board’s vote late Wednesday night.
“We did everything that we could to try to convince them that, you know, we play an important role in Baltimore,” Avent said. “I just don’t think they really understand the impact that we have on these boys’ lives, and it’s not always going to show up in test scores.”
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