June 11, 2002 - Baltimore City Public Schools

Board Meeting Minutes
MR. STREUVER: I was doing my share of not having -- I was at my daughter's graduation, who is a
proud graduate of Baltimore City Public Schools.
MS. WELCH: Shall we continue along this line, or shall we move on? We do acknowledge the fact that
we have two Councilpersons present this evening. We have our own dear Councilman, Melvin Stoots,
who spends many Tuesdays with us. We're going to invite you to stand and say anything you want to
say. And then Councilwoman Lisa Stansler. We certainly acknowledge your presence, and invite you to
make comments to the Board.
MR. STOOTS: Being the gentleman that I am --
MS. WELCH: That's right. Councilwoman Standler, please join us at the table.
Page 9 of 41
MS. STANDLER: Good evening, everyone, everyone in the audience. Good evening, everyone in the
audience. Good evening to the Board, Dr. Chair, Ms. Russo, and lots of familiar faces. Good evening to
everyone. Thank you so much for allowing me to have a couple of minutes of your time. I know you
have a very long meeting, so I'm going to be -- I'll go against all my nature and my training as an
attorney and be very brief. But I did want to come by because I actually failed to do it last year, and I
don't think I ever really apologized for that. So I'll take the opportunity to do so now. But last year I took
responsibility for something that's in your realm, because I felt very strongly and very passionately
about it. And being relatively new to the Council, I don't know all of the proper procedures, and I just
went with my heart on this. And that's when I introduced the resolution to the City Council of Baltimore,
in support of about 600 parents, students, children, janitors, custodial workers, I should say better, and
just a whole lot of people that were in the Montebello School at the rally, just showing the support and
enthusiasm and excitement that they had for the progress that their kids had made in that one year. And I
had not -- I was expecting to go to a little meeting, and it was an auditorium -- actually, cafeteria, filled
room, with parents just singing the praises and telling -- giving testimonials, really, of how their children
had really progressed. Not just statistically, but in their attitudes, wanting the get up and go to school,
and really was excited about learning. And I listened to all of that. And I got emotional and passionate,
and rushed back to the City Council, without giving anyone a phone call or coming down here, like I'm
doing this evening, and telling you that this is what I want to do. Well, this year I've learned a little bit.
I'm a little older. And I'm here tonight to share with you that I am, again, impressed with all of the
parents that have come to me, all of the students that I have seen, have actually spoken with me,
especially kids, because often times we forget to listen to what they have to say. And I am impressed,
once again, with how strong and how adamant these parents and these students, as well as the
administrators of the schools, of the Edison Schools, are about keeping their kids in the high-achieving
environment that has been created for them. And so what I am planning to do, and what I am letting you
know, is that I am going to, again, introduce a resolution into the City Council of Baltimore, and
hopefully it will be passed unanimously, like it was passed last year. I've already received quite a bit of
verbal support from my colleagues. And I'm going to be asking that you and Ms. Russo and the
administrators of the schools and the parents, and all of these entities that have the common goal of
making sure that our kids continue to thrive, succeed, are able to do so as they're promoted from the 6th
grade to the 7th. The reason why -- I understand there's a need to do that, is because parents and the
students are concerned that where the environment that they were in now, that's allowing them to be
excited about learning and succeed, is not going to be the environment that they're going to be promoted
into. And that's simply based on the statistics and some other things that I have learned. But that's your
ballpark. And I want to let you handle your ballpark. So what this resolution is simple asking you to do
is sit down with all of the vested parties, and come up with a resolution that's going to allow these kids
that are in the Edison Schools -- schools that were the lowest-performing schools just two years ago, and
now statistically doing much, much better than they were before. But let's sit down and let's come up
with a resolution to make sure that we're all achieving our common goal, which is making sure that our
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9/23/2002