The Push to Close Langston Hughes Elementary School in Park Heights Baltimore Leaves Community Skeptical of the Motives
“Freddie Gray was about education.”
“We teach our kids how to add, but they need to learn social skills…and life skills”
“They want to close our school down and send our kids into a drug infested neighorhood…why?”
“So here we go”
These statements were spoken at a school-closing meeting about Langston Hughes Elementary School. The school is slated for closure by 2015. The community is fighting back to keep their public school. Langston Hughes Action Committee, a neighborhood group, has appealed the school board’s decision.
So let’s back track to see how we got were.
The School:
Langston Hughes Elementary is the best performing school in Park Heights (a Baltimore City neighborhood). It has the highest academic achievement rating of all the neighboring schools. The community loves this school. They see it as a corner stone of their neighborhood. It has a sound and well maintained infrastructure including a full size cafeteria and a playground. Generations of community members have attended this school. For the last ten years Langston Hughes has been home to approximately 220 students grades k-5.
What Will Happen to the Children if They Close the School?
The school they want to send them to is a lower performing one in neighboring Pimlico Elementary Middle School which was built in 1910 and has problems with overcrowded classrooms, lead paint and asbestos. Pimlico is scheduled for the first round of renovations under the 21st Century Schools Plan. This move means that even more neighborhood students would endure several years of lead and asbestos abatement and renovations.
Children as young as six or seven would have to walk about one mile to Pimlico through a high crime, high drug, and high traffic area to get to school every day. Then once they’re at school, they’ll spend every day exposed to toxic chemicals that will create permanent developmental and health problems.
Pimlico has lost over 100 students in the last few years—Langston Hughes is in better condition than Pimlico and has a better reputation.
How is this Possible?
When the school commissioners accepted a challenge to visit the school, many didn’t even know where the school was. The school board members do not reflect the demographic of the community. They were surprised at how well kept it was. They declined to take the walk from Langston Hughes to Pimlico. Despite a positive impression, they voted for closure anyway. School system representatives have also stated they have no need to talk to parents. They have any right to close any school they want without talking to anyone.
There is a $1.1 billion school construction budget for Baltimore city schools. Part of this budget includes mandated closure of 26 schools. As a result, communities are pitted against each other to save their schools. The Langston Hughes building is the only school in the major redevelopment area. It’s pretty clear to members of the Park Heights neighborhood that the plan for this community is gentrification—it starts with school closings. The school is clearly on a list of schools that charters are allowed to move into, which seems to be contrary to what Dr. Thornton told Helen Atkinson of theTeachers Democracy Project at a board meeting. Leaders of the Park Heights community have been informed verbally and by email that a charter school would like to use the building.
There are 8 COMAR regulations regarding closing schools—they are using 1 to justify this closure—low school The Push to Close Langston Hughes Elementary School in Park Heights Baltimore Leaves Community Skeptical of the Motives | educationalchemy:
