The current national and local dialogue surrounding education is a dire one, a story of teacher shortages, underperforming students, and children who are disproportionately being left behind along lines of race and class, particularly by the widening digital divide. While the headwinds we are facing as a city and country are strong, Teach For America (TFA) Baltimore maintains a vision of critical hope. We understand the complex, structural challenges facing Baltimore City Schools and the broader educational ecosystem, and meet those challenges head-on with innovative solutions designed to make a positive impact in the classroom and beyond.

“As a former City Schools teacher, the success and wellbeing of our young people and educators is paramount. I fully acknowledge that we are at an inflection point in education,” says NORMANDI AMPREY (BALTIMORE ’09), TFA Baltimore’s executive director and a TFA alumna.

“This work is challenging, but it is urgent and necessary to provide young people the opportunities they deserve. We must first believe it is achievable, and it is if we all rally together behind it.” —Normandi Amprey

“Our corps members and alumni, like so many educators in this moment, are hand-raisers. They are uncompromised in their belief that educational equity matters, so they are stepping up to support young people, not backing away or stepping down. They love children, maintain rigorous academic expectations, and innovate to find solutions during this difficult time,” she continues.

With more than 1,300 participants in the Baltimore region, the TFA network is ubiquitous throughout the education and civic landscape in the city and the state. Given their breadth and scope, TFA is well-positioned to work with key partners to address several of the issues affecting Baltimore’s schools and the surrounding systems. Today, there are over 500 program alumni working in schools and they reach approximately 30,000 Baltimore City students annually. Nearly 10 percent of Baltimore City Schools principals are program alumni, and many others are working through education nonprofits, in the growing EdTech space, and in public policy to bring innovative solutions to the most pressing education problems.

Specifically, TFA is focusing its efforts on critical need areas: teacher recruitment and retention, early childhood education, and college and career readiness. As the city’s most diverse source of new teachers, TFA strives to bring well-prepared, anti-racist, equity-driven teachers to the classroom. By giving those teachers the supports they need, 40 percent of TFA teachers continue to teach for five or more years.

Within this section, TFA highlights the hope and promise offered by its educators as well as the power of their classroom commitment to bring about systemic change.

“TFA nationally has put a stake in the ground behind a 10-year goal focused on increasing student outcomes in every community where we work. In Baltimore, we are working with partners to double the number of students who are hitting key metrics that predict economic mobility by 2030,” says Amprey. “This work is challenging, but it is urgent and necessary to provide young people the opportunities they deserve. We must first believe it is achievable, and it is if we all rally together behind it.”

⊳ GERI McCARTER (BALTIMORE ‘18) was working at a Nordstrom when she happened to wait on a TFA corps member. She’d always been interested in teaching and realized the TFA model would allow her a pathway to classroom teaching even though her background was not in education. Nor was she a fresh-faced recent college graduate, like most of the TFA recruits. McCarter was 30 years old, married, and pregnant when she entered the corps.

“Some of what TFA is doing to recruit and retain teachers is offering rigorous professional development, keeping teachers engaged, partnering them with mentors, putting them in schools where others who have gone through TFA are still there, and making sure that teachers have the supports they need,” she says.

New teachers nationally are a precious resource, so TFA works hard to ensure its corps members are given the best training possible. “We had long days of training,” says McCarter, who is a middle school social studies teacher at Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School, whose executive director is also a TFA alumna, Meghan Rennard (Baltimore ’05). Outside school, McCarter runs the nonprofit Coach G. Academy, Inc., which uses step dance to teach life skills. Her work with youth and dance earned her a prominent role in the documentary Step.

“Being from Baltimore, [teaching is] very personal. I feel that I’m contributing something positive. I feel like it’s my rent to the city, my way to make measurable change I can see.” —Geri McCarter

TFA’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was very important to McCarter. “We learned to understand the true meaning of equity and how to be truly equitable in the classroom.”

TFA’s DEI commitment was important to ELIJAH MUHAMMAD (BALTIMORE ‘17), too. He came to TFA with a collegiate background in sociology and African American studies, which informed his understanding of structural inequities. A Baltimore native, TFA allowed him to stay in his hometown and pursue teaching in special education, where he saw students—especially students of color—were often marginalized. His first placement was as a special education middle school teacher at Holabird 229.

“They’re more focused on recruiting people from the city and local colleges, people who already care about Baltimore because they live here…they’re really thinking through ‘how are we in Baltimore and of Baltimore.” —Elijah Muhammad

“My principal at Holabird recognized that DEI was my interest and she afforded me the opportunity to push those tough conversations amongst the staff,” he recalls. Today, Muhammad has brought together all his passions as the DEI coordinator at The Odyssey School, which supports students with dyslexia and language learning differences. In his current position, he’s worked with TFA to sponsor TFA teacher trainings in Phono-Graphix, a methodology for addressing reading challenges.

As part of its ten-year pledge to double the number of students who are hitting key metrics that predict economic mobility by 2030, TFA is expanding its local recruitment efforts. “TFA Baltimore’s process is more nuanced and aligns people with where they want to be,” says Muhammad. “They’re more focused on recruiting people from the city and local colleges, people who already care about Baltimore because they live here…they’re really thinking through ‘how are we in Baltimore and of Baltimore.’”

The local connection is important to McCarter, too, who attended Baltimore City Schools and graduated from Coppin State University. “Being from Baltimore, [teaching is] very personal,” says McCarter. “I feel that I’m contributing something positive. I feel like it’s my rent to the city, my way to make measurable change I can see.”

⊳ When ASHLEY PATRICK (BALTIMORE ‘13) initially joined TFA Baltimore, she had plans for a future career in public policy. But once she entered the classroom, she never looked back. She began her two-year stint as a corps member at John Ruhrah Elementary/Middle School, teaching pre-kindergarten. Now, ten years later, she’s still in the same school and subject area.

“I think there are folks like me who join TFA thinking they’ll get their feet wet in the classroom and then go do something else,” says Patrick, “but your reach is so much stronger in the classroom than it is going off to law school or pursuing public policy.”

“If you are someone who looks at inequity in the education system and that bothers you, teaching is the most impactful way to close those gaps,” she continues.

Part of what has kept Patrick engaged at school is its unique demographics; John Ruhrah has the largest concentration of English language learners in the city. Many of Patrick’s students are “newcomers,” meaning the English they hear in her classroom may be the first English they’ve heard in their lives. Rather than be intimidated by that prospect, it’s enabled Patrick to double-down on playbased, intentional learning.

“If you are someone who looks at inequity in the education system and that bothers you, teaching is the most impactful way to close those gaps.”

—Ashley Patrick

“Good early childhood teaching is good English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teaching,” she explains. While not an ESOL teacher, Patrick works closely with the ESOL teacher at her school who is also a TFA alumna. And she’s shared her experience working with English language learners as a corps member advisor at the TFA Summer Institute.

Teaching is one of the most challenging jobs there is in the modern world. It is physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding, and every year, with varying external contexts, each group of students is different with a unique set of needs. And yet, the TFA community of 500-plus alumni is an important part of why its teachers exceed the district retention average, with 40 percent of TFA teachers staying in the classroom for more than five years.

“When I think about who is still here teaching, it very much has to do with feeling connected and having a community,” says ALYSSA DISPOTO-GUMABON (BALTIMORE ’13), an early childhood education and ESOL teacher at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School who has entered her tenth year of teaching. Having a powerful network like TFA doesn’t just help the corps member, it multiplies the benefits to others. This is evidenced by Dispoto-Gumabon’s own experience. When some teachers voiced a desire for improved and ongoing ESOL education, Dispoto-Gumabon reached out to a TFA corps member and principal in Boston who was doing innovative work in that area.

“When I think about who is still here teaching, it very much has to do with feeling connected and having a community.”
—Alyssa Dispoto-Gumabon

“Teach For America helped with the funding and coordination to make a site visit happen,” she says. “We took Teach For America teachers from several schools to Boston where we created connections and were able to bring new strategies back to Baltimore with us.”

A TFA early childhood book club inspired Alyssa to raise funds for an age-appropriate playground. The grants came from Under Armour and South Baltimore Gateway Partnership. Both Dispoto-Gumabon and Patrick have been able to mentor new teachers and see their experience expand beyond their own classroom. But nothing is more rewarding than watching their students flourish.

“People think we’re just teaching kids to read,” says Patrick, “but you are also serving as an important adult in your students’ lives. And if you stick around you get to watch them grow and you can continue supporting your students.”

Prior to the covid-19 pandemic, education for the U.S.’s littlest learners was trending up. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the years 2005 to 2019 showed an overall net gain in the percentage of children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in preschool. It’s no wonder why: children in early education programs are proven to be better prepared for school and the workforce.

Despite a pandemic downturn in enrollment and the impact of teacher shortages, TFA corps members and graduates continue to push for improved curriculum and access to early education. No one is more outspoken on this topic than ⊳ BEROL DEWDNEY (BALTIMORE ’13), a pre-kindergarten teacher at Commodore John Rodgers, and the 2022 teacher of the year in both Baltimore City and the State of Maryland.

“I believe that in order to effectively grow brains we have to understand how they work; we must focus not just on what kids learn, but how they learn,” says Dewdney, who advocates for play-based and healing-centered early childhood education grounded in the neuroscience of brain development.

“Executive functions are the most powerful prosocial indicator of life outcomes and are best developed in the early childhood years when the brain is most neuroplastic,” she continues. “As fighters for educational equity and justice, if we know the highest point of impact is priming brains for learning by developing executive function, and that we can most effectively build it in early childhood, then we have no choice but to double down.”

“As fighters for educational equity and justice, if we know the highest point of impact is priming brains for learning by developing executive function, and that we can most effectively build it in early childhood, then we have no choice but to double down.”

—Berol Dewdney

As an intern in Washington, D.C., between her first and second corps years, Dewdney was introduced to Tools of the Mind, a pedagogy anchored in the research of psychologist Lev Vygotsky that says children must learn more than just facts, they must master mental tools. It is a means to use intentional, play-based learning to develop executive functioning. Dewdney was so impressed by the curriculum her only question was, ‘Why isn’t this in Baltimore at this scale?’

Dewdney credits her TFA network, particularly her current principal, Marc Martin (Baltimore ‘98), with helping her to initiate Tools of the Mind at her school and expand it elsewhere. Martin, also a TFA alumnus, is founder and director of The 100% Project, a small network of City Schools committed to improvement. “TFA Baltimore is very rooted in relationships,” she explains. “I can’t imagine doing this work without TFA Baltimore.”

With the national dialogue—and funding—focused on the importance of early education, Dewdney says we’re at a critical juncture when we need to implement curriculum effectively. Through the 100% Network, Dewdney now has a cohort of 25 classrooms she serves that reaches about 500 students annually. Through those classrooms, she’s building a body of research to not only support the need to develop executive functioning skills in early education, but also the importance of implementing it at a district level.

MEET THE INAUGURAL WINNERS OF COURTNEY CASS CATALYST FUND GRANTS

This spring, Teach For America (TFA) Baltimore launched the Courtney Cass Catalyst Fund (CCCF) with a simple goal: Catalyze TFA alumni to further their impact for students and communities in Baltimore. The fund is named in honor of Courtney Cass, former executive director of TFA Baltimore for more than a decade. Courtney worked tirelessly to grow TFA’s impact on Baltimore, inspiring new teachers and TFA alumni alike to reach higher. Winners receive a grant up to $10,000 to help put their ideas in motion. A committee of teachers, students, TFA Baltimore staff, and community members selected six award winners from 18 impressive submissions. Here are their stories:

JAMIE NEIL (BALTIMORE ‘09)
Assistant Principal
Academy for College and Career Exploration (ACCE)
Dual Enrollment Revisited: Creating living wage career pathways
Students want and deserve an opportunity to work towards skilled careers prior to graduation, and Jamie Neil saw a gap in opportunities to explore trades. The CCCF award will afford students the opportunity to begin a trade pathway for free. ACCE is creating career pathways and investing in young people’s futures by paying tuition and books for students starting trade programs through dual enrollment with CCBC.

KIM COLEMAN (BALTIMORE ’05)
President
Bmore Global: Growing Global Citizens
Providing opportunities for Baltimore City youth to see the world
Bmore Global is transforming lives and growing global citizens. Bmore Global provides Baltimore’s students access to a culturally rich program culminating in a fully-subsidized study abroad experience to spark a lifetime of interest in cultures and a commitment to become agents of change in this world. With the CCCF award, Bmore Global is providing scholarships for students, subsidizing student travel, and measuring the program’s effectiveness to ensure long-term sustainability.

KATHRYN BREISCH (BALTIMORE ‘12)
Founder & CEO
GoPursue Career Awareness & Networking
Empowering students to choose and pursue their ideal careers through mentoring
Kathryn Breisch and her team at GoPursue are bridging the gap between high school students and the workforce by granting students career mentors in any industry. Baltimore City is full of amazing talent and GoPursue is helping students figure out the careers they want to pursue and connecting them with professionals in the industry to ask questions, get advice, and find lifelong mentors. The CCCF award will allow GoPursue to grow their training program and expand background checks to ensure the highest safety protocols for young people in Baltimore.

LAINEY HELLMAN (BALTIMORE ‘17)
Special Education Teacher and Delegate to Special Olympics Programming
William Paca Elementary School
Compete Possible: New Gear for Special Olympians
After Lainey Hellman launched a Special Olympics Delegation at her school, she wanted every team member to show up to compete in appropriate gear, regardless of whether they have those items on hand at home. With the CCCF award, Hellman is making sure that no students will be prevented from accessing Special Olympics programming due to lack of athletic wear. The new uniforms and gear give students a sense of belonging, encourage team unity, and create a sense of team identity.

JOSEPH FRANCELLA (BALTIMORE ‘11)
Teacher
Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle School (FSK)
Piloting CAMP FSX – Bridging the Gap to Middle School
After schools reopened last year, Joseph Francella witnessed a challenging culture growing among students. He felt the best way to cultivate a more positive climate could be through FSK’s sixth-grade orientation—before the school year starts. With the CCCF award, Francella launched Camp FSK, a summer community program bridging the gap to middle school. Over half of the incoming sixth-grade class attended, and between family picnics and excursions with Outdoor Classrooms, students were able to build community with one another and FSK staff, all before the school year starts.

KIMBERLYN PEAL (BALTIMORE ‘09)
Co-Founder
JAPERA PARKER (BALTIMORE ‘09)
Co-Founder
KENDRA GRAY (BALTIMORE ‘09)
Co-Founder
Brown Stone Living
Making Baltimore feel like home for young professionals of color
The co-founders of Brown Stone Living are three professional women who began their careers as educators together in Baltimore City. Like many new teachers, they struggled to find housing, communities, and relationships that catered to who they were as people. Brown Stone Living aims to change that. Understanding how a lack of community can prevent teachers from making Baltimore home, Brown Stone Living is using the CCCF award to subsidize first month’s rent for teachers and host community events to promote retention in Baltimore.

To learn more about the Courtney Cass Catalyst Fund or how you can support any of these initiatives, visit us at bit.ly/tfa_cccf.

he phrase “the new normal” has been thrown around since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and as America struggles to define—and design—what that is exactly, colleges are paving the way for what it might look like.

After the chaos and uncertainty of 2020, colleges and universities throughout the Baltimore region began to find their groove as they moved into the 2021-2022 school year. Coronavirus safety committees had been erected, new mandates put in place, safety protocols implemented—everything from vaccine requirements to temperature checks to quarantine procedures and wastewater testing that can pinpoint a COVID infection before anyone is symptomatic.

By some counts, colleges may very well be the safest places to live and work.

“Just following simple rules of wearing face masks and social distancing, using wastewater management and testing when we need to, we have, in many ways, been able to return to normal life,” says Goucher College President Kent Devereaux. “Full athletics, student clubs, dining in the dining hall, use of the library—everything that you’d normally have, we’ve been able to return to.”

Despite the challenges and anxieties faced by students, staff, and faculty alike, some unexpected silver linings have emerged.

“It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

The widespread adoption of technology across college campuses has proven to provide more flexibility, efficiency, and innovation—and even accessibility, in some cases. Counseling sessions, for example, began to be conducted remotely during the pandemic and many students found that they preferred it to in-person sessions. Students who cannot, for whatever reason, make it to an in-person class can now study from anywhere.

Challenging times, combined with advances in technology and the general acceptance of it, have also brought more cooperation and collaboration among schools. It’s becoming more common, for example, for schools that offer complementary programs to partner with one another to offer students an educational pathway to continue studies in their chosen areas. That may mean a discounted tuition rate, a transfer of class credits, or an internship through a partner school.

Maybe most importantly though, schools, at their best, foster an environment where students are supported, expand who they are, and connect with like-minded people. At a time when gathering together is not always safe, being in a community has become even more precious, and students have found new ways to connect.

OCA Mocha, a coffeehouse in Arbutus founded by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) students, is one example of how effective a gathering place can be at a time when people are craving human connection. What started as a class assignment—to design a community center of some sort—has become a gathering place not just for UMBC students and alumni, but the Arbutus community at large.

“We’ve heard a lot of stories from people who are extremely grateful to have this space,” says Michael Berardi, UMBC class of 2019 and co-founder and general manager of OCA Mocha, which stands for Opportunities for Community Alliances. The coffee shop includes a stage, a community room, and an art gallery, employs UMBC students and alumni, and provides internship opportunities for current UMBC students.

“We have local groups and organizations that meet regularly in our community space and are grateful to not have to meet in someone’s living room or church basement,” says Berardi. “We see a lot of connections being made. It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

We checked in with colleges and universities throughout the region to find out what’s new and what campus life and classes look like, two years into the pandemic.

COPPIN STATE UNIVERSITY
A historically Black institution founded in 1900, Coppin State University is situated in the heart of Baltimore City in the Mondawmin neighborhood. Part of the University System of Maryland in Baltimore, the school offers 32 undergraduate and 11 graduate degrees, along with nine certificate programs and one doctorate degree. It’s been rated No. 4 Best HBCU in the Nation (College Consensus), the Top 5 Best Value Online Program (Online School Center), and No. 17 Best Value in the Nation (College Consensus).

In the summer of 2021, CSU announced its Student Debt Relief Initiative, which clears roughly $1 million in student balances and provided a $1,200 credit to every student enrolled in the fall 2021 semester. CSU also created the Freddie Gray Student Success Scholarship, which is available to graduates of Carver Vocational-Technical High School, where Gray was a student.

Coppin also takes esports (competitive video gaming) seriously. In the fall of 2021, Coppin became the first HBCU to open a building on campus exclusively devoted to esports. The Premier Esports Lab opened in September with a guest appearance from Grammy-nominated artist Cordae.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,383 undergraduates, 341 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $6,809 in-state, $13,334 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 40%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Business, Biology, Education, and Criminal Justice, Rehabilitation Counseling

DICKINSON COLLEGE
Founded in 1783, Dickinson College is a liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with a suburban campus that spans 144 acres. The school offers 41 undergraduate degrees within 17 fields of study.

It’s been rated as one of the best schools in the country for its sustainability efforts, which include an 80-acre, USDA-certified organic farm. Princeton Review rated it No. 2 in the Top 50 Green Colleges, and it was rated No. 2 in Overall Top Performers among baccalaureate institutions in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s “Sustainable Campus Index” in 2019 and 2020.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,345
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $58,708
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 52%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: International Business, Economics, Political Science & Government, International Relations & National Security, General Psychology

GETTYSBURG COLLEGE
Gettysburg College, a private, liberal arts school, sits on 225 acres adjacent to the historical Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Many of the buildings on campus are historically significant, so it’s no wonder that it draws students interested in studying history.

The school offers 65 academic programs, more than 120 campus clubs and organizations, and 800 events on campus each year, plus more than 100 study-abroad opportunities open to students.

Its Majestic Theater serves as a venue for the greater Gettysburg community, hosting national acts as well as performances by the school’s Sunderman Conservatory of Music students.

It’s ranked No. 12 for “students who study the most” by the Princeton Review, which also ranked Gettysburg College’s dining hall No. 9 in the country for best campus food.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,600
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 10:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $59,960
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 56%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Political Science, Economics, Health Sciences, Organization and Management Studies, History, Psychology

GOUCHER COLLEGE
A private, liberal arts college in Towson, Goucher College prides itself on its close-knit community.

Goucher was extremely proactive when it came to COVID-19 precautions, being the first in the state to implement wastewater testing, which is able to isolate COVID infections by dorm.

Also of note: The college recently opened two new residence halls as part of the school’s First-Year Village. One hundred percent of Goucher students study abroad, and the school is committed to sustainability.

Most recently, Goucher has begun exciting partnerships with other schools, such as Johns Hopkins University, Loyola University, and more to come, to provide a pathway for students to continue their education beyond Goucher. For instance, their 4+1 MBA Program allows students to earn an advanced business degree through Loyola via a “Fast Track” admission process, and at a 15% discount on tuition.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,100
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $48,000
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 79%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Psychology, International Relations, Economics, Political Science, Business Administration

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) offers nine academic divisions and hundreds of courses of study, with campuses spread throughout Baltimore, including the Peabody Institute, a music and dance conservatory in Mount Vernon. Its main Homewood campus is located on North Charles Street.

The prestigious, world-renowned university has a strong reputation for its public health and medical studies and has been compared to Ivy League schools.

One of its points of pride is its financial aid program, which covers 100% of calculated need for every admitted student, without loans. This means JHU works with families to calculate what they can afford to contribute toward the total cost of attendance—including meals, books, travel, and other expenses—and JHU covers the rest with grants that don’t need to be repaid.

This school year, JHU added two new minors: Latin American Studies and Writing Seminars.

It also announced new efforts this year to move toward a broader, more flexible undergraduate educational experience that will include a required first-year seminar and the streamlining of major requirements to allow for greater intellectual exploration.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,333 undergraduates, 22,559 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 6:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $56,313 for Peabody Institute, $58,720 for the School of Engineering and the School of Arts and Sciences
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 9%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer Science, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, Economics, Public Health Studies, International Studies

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
This private, Jesuit institution offers undergraduate and graduate programs on a beautiful urban campus in northern Baltimore City. Education at Loyola is based in the Jesuit tradition of scholarship cura personalis, or care for the whole person. Loyola is known for its academic rigor while helping students lead purposeful lives. Seventy percent of students study abroad. It currently ranks fourth in best universities in the North region according to U.S. News & World Report.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 3,787 undergraduates, 1,353 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 12:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $53,430
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 80%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business, Management, Marketing, Journalism, Social Sciences, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Psychology, English Language and Literature, Engineering and Education.

McDANIEL COLLEGE
McDaniel College sits in a bucolic setting near Westminster in Carroll County. The private, four-year liberal arts college offers more than 70 undergraduate programs of study and more than 20 graduate programs. McDaniel’s most recent addition to its curriculum is a National Security Fellows Program that provides students with knowledge, skills, and experience in national security as well as the ability to specialize in an area of interest, such as interstate conflict, intrastate political violence, cybersecurity, ethics, and human rights.

Also new this year, McDaniel appointed an inaugural associate provost for equity and belonging who provides vision and leadership to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and works in collaboration with the provost to co-lead the college’s diversity, equity, and inclusion administrative committee, and guides the Bias Education Response Support Team.

The school also launched a new STEM Center to serve as a physical hub to support students studying the sciences. It hosts workshops and other events while also supplying online and hybrid support.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,757 undergraduates, 1,324 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $46,336
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Kinesiology, Business Administration, Psychology, Biology, Political Science, International Studies

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
The largest of Maryland’s HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), Morgan is a public institution founded in 1867. It is situated in northeast Baltimore. As a Carnegie-classified high research (R2) institution, Morgan provides instruction to a multiethnic, multiracial, multinational student body and offers more than 140 academic programs at undergraduate and graduate levels. As Maryland’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University, Morgan fulfills its mission to address the needs and challenges of the modern urban environment through intense community level study and pioneering solutions.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,270 undergraduates, 1,364 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 15:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $8,008 for in-state and $18,480 for out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 73%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Civil Engineering, Communications Engineering, Business Administration and Management, Social Work, Biology/Biological Sciences, Architecture, Finance, Psychology, Sociology

NOTRE DAME OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY
A private, Catholic liberal arts university in northern Baltimore, Notre Dame of Maryland University offers programs from undergraduate through PhD, as well as Maryland’s only women’s college. It recently launched the first master’s of art degree in Art Therapy program in the state.
The beautiful, wooded campus is just steps from the bustling downtown Baltimore culture. With values rooted in Catholicism, the school focuses on service to others and social responsibility.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 783
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 7:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $39,675
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 88%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Education, Biology, Art Therapy, Pharmacy

TOWSON UNIVERSITY
One of the largest public universities in the state, Towson University offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and continues to draw students from other states, though it remains part of the University System of Maryland.

Its campus continues to expand, with a huge new dining hall, a 23,000-foot recreation and fitness facility with an indoor swimming pool, and its 5,200-seat arena for sporting events and concerts. In 2021, it opened its new Science Complex, the largest academic building on campus at 320,000 square feet.

In September, Towson opened its StarTUp at the Armory, a space for startups and new businesses to engage with the broader community and larger businesses. It serves as a home to Towson’s entrepreneurship programs, as well as student competitions and events.

While Towson remains the largest supplier of medical professionals and educators in the state, the university has also built a strong reputation for its College of Fine Arts and Communication, as well as its Asian Arts & Culture Center, both of which bring students into the wider community and the Baltimore community to Towson for enriching performing arts, music, and visual art programs.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 17,907 undergraduates, 2,949 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 16:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $7,100 in-state, $22,152 out-of-state
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business Administration, Education, Nursing, Exercise Science, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Biology, Computer Science, Information Technology

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE
University of Maryland, Baltimore is Maryland’s only public health, law, and human services university. Located in downtown Baltimore, it offers 86 degree and certificate programs through its six nationally ranked professional schools—dentistry, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work—and an interdisciplinary graduate school.

The school’s 14-acre BioPark is Baltimore’s biggest biotechnology cluster, employing 1,000 people, and remains on the cutting edge of new drugs, treatments, and medical devices.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 7,244
• ANNUAL TUITION: Varies by school
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Medicine, Law, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Social Work

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY
University of Maryland, Baltimore County educates a campus of more than 10,000 students in programs spanning the arts, engineering, information technology, humanities, sciences, preprofessional studies, and social sciences. Located on the edge of Baltimore County, it allows easy access into the city and all the conveniences of suburban life and housing. It also offers plenty of opportunities for study abroad.

In the fall of 2021, UMBC opened the Center for Well-Being, a new two-story complex that houses Retriever Integrated Health, Student Conduct and Community Standards, and i3b’s Gathering Space for Spiritual Well-Being. UMBC’s already significant NASA partnerships have continued to grow. In October, NASA announced a major award of $72 million over three years for the new Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research II center. UMBC is leading the national consortium and will receive over $38 million. The GESTAR II consortium will support over 120 researchers, creating extensive opportunities for breakthroughs in Earth and atmospheric science research, and providing major opportunities for students to conduct research and be mentored by NASA scientists and engineers.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 13,638
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 17:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $12,280 in-state, $28,470 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Social Sciences, Psychology, Visual and Performing Arts

 

Cited tuition costs exclude room and board and books.

For almost 40 years, National Alliance on Mental Illness Metropolitan Baltimore (NAMI Metro) has been dedicated to advocacy, education, support and eradicating stigma so that all individuals and families affected by mental illness can build better lives.

Never before has our work been more relevant. The coronavirus pandemic wrought unemployment, isolation and disruption. It increased conditions such as anxiety and depression. The need for effective resources for those living with these conditions has never been greater and with that need comes an incredible opportunity.

Until recently, those living with mental health conditions often struggled in private. Today we have a greater awareness that our mental health is nothing to hide. Now is the time to make the most of this groundswell of compassionate understanding. Let’s break down stigma. Let’s talk about our mental health. We have the tools to provide those in need with the resources required to live fulfilled, productive lives.

A hallmark of NAMI Metro is our peer-led support network. Our volunteers bravely share their stories to help others. As the area leader for mental health awareness and education we’ve provided 9,000 touch points of service to people in the Baltimore Metropolitan area in the last year alone. While we work with individuals and their families, our mission includes outreach and training with some of the most influential people in businesses, colleges and universities, and emergency services.

Whether our work brings us to a classroom or a corporate boardroom, NAMI Metro and our many community partners are committed to removing the stigma of mental illness. We are proud to share in these pages just a few stories of how our work is building healthy lives for those living with a mental health condition and our community as a whole.

Let’s raise our voices,

Kerry Graves
Executive Director, NAMI Metropolitan Baltimore

I WILL LISTEN

David K. Wilson

PRESIDENT OF MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

➜ College is a time of critical development for young adults. It’s a time of important milestones that can also be deeply stressful. Studies show anxiety and depression are on the rise among college students and suicide remains the leading cause of death on campuses. Seventy-five percent of mental health conditions develop by age 24.

Understanding the importance of student mental health, Morgan State University allied with NAMI Metro four years ago to create campus-wide programs to destigmatize mental illness and promote wellness. As part of that commitment, Morgan participates in NAMI Metro’s “I Will Listen” program, a weeklong campaign to engage college students in conversation about mental health.The 2021 initiative included a chapel service, an open mic night, and a final “day without headphones” where everyone on campus was encouraged to wear “I Will Listen” t-shirts.

“We’re making a statement to our students that we’re here to listen and share your concerns,” says Danny Molock, PhD, interim coordinator for student life and development.

The pandemic makes this work more relevant than ever, explains David K. Wilson, president of Morgan State University.

“Covid has exacerbated the normal mental and psychological challenges that we see on our campus, as it has on college campuses across the nation,” he says. “But it is further exacerbated here at Morgan because so many of our students come from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by Covid.”

Wilson created a mental health task force to engage every aspect of the university in support of mental health. The university is proactive in its programs, bringing therapeutic pets to campus at exam time, sponsoring outdoor “Yoga on the Yard,” to promote relaxation, physical wellness and a sense of community, and offering depression screening.

Importantly, Wilson led by example, asking the counseling center to give a presentation on self-care and stress management to the university’s leadership team during the worst of the pandemic shutdown.

“It’s important for us in leadership to model this and we realize that we, too, need self-care,” says Wilson.

Morgan’s “I Will Listen” week attracted record attendance in 2021. Molock says they’re expanding into more collaborations with NAMI Metro, including a walk for mental health in the spring.

“This generation of students is more willing to share and more willing to listen,” he continues. “They want to be advocates in support of one another.”

Michael Harrison | Derek Loeffler | Joann Wallace

BALTIMORE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

➜ Officers of the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) interact with people experiencing mental health crises every day. From those who experience homelessness and substance use disorders to typical 911 calls, an officer may never know when a situation might be exacerbated by mental illness.

Through training organized by Behavioral Health System Baltimore and community partners, the BPD is training cadets and seasoned officers on how to better identify individuals in crisis so interactions can end in compassion, not handcuffs.

“Crisis intervention trains officers to deal with a person in crisis in a very different way that now uses de-escalation techniques, time, spatial distance and the tools available to them other than force to get people the care they need, rather than taking them into physical custody and making arrests,” said Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison.

NAMI Metro facilitates multiple training sessions as part of the mandatory three-day behavioral health training given to all cadets and helped create new curriculum and experiential learning for the specialized Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) provided to officers on a voluntary basis. NAMI Metro expanded its training to 911 operators in 2021 and has trained nearly 2,000 emergency service personnel since 2016. The program includes partnerships between police officers, social workers and community services.

“An officer might be driving down the street and witness someone in crisis, or they may get a call to a home where there’s a potential family disturbance where the family is having trouble with a loved one,” explains Major Derek Loeffler. “The more training we can give [officers] to understand and respond to those situations, the better equipped they are to serve the residents of Baltimore.”

Not only does CIT provide vital information and tools to officers, Captain Joann Wallace explains that officers enjoy the coursework, especially the role-play that concludes the 40-hour training. Officers like Wallace act out scenarios so trainees can test their skills in a controlled environment before taking it to the street. “It’s a lot of fun and interesting and we’re able to give real-time feedback and the officers can ask questions so that when they take this training out on the street it’s become real for them,” she states.

Much of the training gets to the heart of strong community policing, where communication and relationships play an important role in public safety.

“Understanding crisis and responding to it appropriately without force reduces injury to both community and officers,” says Commissioner Harrison. “It also reduces emotional harm and litigation, which in turn builds trust.”

The greatest take away for officers is that regardless of the situation, don’t rush to a judgement or action.

BREAKING the silence

Patrick Sutton

INTERIOR DESIGNER

➜ It’s impossible to miss the artistry of interior designer Patrick Sutton, whose work graces public spaces, restaurants and private homes in Baltimore and around the globe. He recently released his first book, Storied Interiors, about the stories our spaces tell about our lives and our dreams.

Sutton has his own story to tell, one that influenced the person and designer he is now. In her early 20s, Sutton’s mother began acting erratically. This was the early 1970s, a time when mental illness was simply not discussed. His mother was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and her condition became a family secret.

“As a little boy, you don’t know what’s going on you just know something is wrong. It was awful for a child such as myself because there was no support network,” says Sutton. “My mom’s illness was swept under the rug when what she needed was care. It was like living with a ticking time bomb.”

It wasn’t until later in life that Sutton understood the family secret was nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it defined him as an individual. Lacking an adult role model for “normal” life given his mother’s condition and his father’s absence due to his career as a travel journalist, Sutton grew up being a student of other people, an observer. That skill, and his desire to create beautiful healing environments, informs his work today as a preeminent designer.

“Since I couldn’t heal my mother I’m constantly trying to create environments where I can heal others through design,” says Sutton.

When Sutton took his story public he shared his experience in a speech at a Design Leadership Network conference, an international gathering of designers. At that event he offered a candid view of how his mother’s illness shaped his life and design. “Over the next two days people came up to me individually —not just one or two people, but like 25—and shared their stories from their lives,” he recalls. “Sharing what happened to me gave them license to share what happened to them. That’s what awareness does. It gives people the freedom to know they are not alone.”

When Sutton shared his story publicly, an alliance with NAMI Metro came naturally. He explains that NAMI Metro’s mission to remove the stigma from mental illness is dear to him. His hope is that through his outreach others will learn that not only is mental illness nothing to be ashamed of, sharing one’s experience candidly can be empowering.

“It’s okay to seek help, it’s okay to seek therapy, which is a powerful tool,” Sutton concludes. “What NAMI is doing is shining a light on this, making people realize this isn’t something to be hidden, it is a part of life.”

TOGETHER we support each other

Tchernavia Rocker

Chief People and Administrative Officer Under Armour

➜ As Chief People and Administrative Officer at Under Armour (UA), Tchernavia Rocker ensures that everyone from retail salespeople to executive leaders have a healthy, positive work life. To support that, UA has all the programmatic pieces in place—an employee assistance program, global mindfulness sessions, and No Meeting Friday afternoons in corporate offices, for example. While tools and programs are necessary, Rocker says creating an environment where conversations about mental health are supported has been an important shift.

“We’re creating an environment where it’s okay to engage and we talk openly about taking away stigma,” she says.

UA’s commitment to mental health is closely tied to its Teammate Resource Groups, small groups created within UA’s larger Diversity Equity and Inclusion strategy. These include Black and Latina employees and parents. UA partnered with NAMI Metro in 2019 to learn how to better support employees. Rocker can still recall the first listening session.

“It was the first safe space conversation we had,” she recalls. “We brought teammates together who, maybe for the first time, were talking about mental health. It was one of the most impactful moments of my professional career because I understood, deeply, what it meant for teammates to have a space where they didn’t need to hide anymore about the challenges they might be having…NAMI helped us facilitate those conversations, creating the runway for us to talk about how we can support psychological safety in the workplace.”

Rocker explains that storytelling and the willingness of leadership to guide from a place of their own vulnerability is critical. Rocker experienced this intimately when her husband died unexpectedly in 2021, understandably sending her life into a tailspin. When she told her boss, rather than just ask what she needed, he reached out to UA’s mental health providers to educate himself on how he could best support her.

“A month later when I returned to work he and I told that story to the workforce, of how I could go to my boss and tell him I was struggling,” she recalls. “By telling our story collectively, it opened up the door for other leaders to tell their stories and it was like freedom just ran through the door after that. It just takes one moment of vulnerability by leaders to create a safe space.”

UA advocates storytelling across its entire brand, supporting not only its employees but also its athletes, from the professional to those in youth sports, to be open about their experiences. The partnership with NAMI Metro helps the organization bring evidence-based expertise to help UA navigate this landscape in a meaningful way.

“Mental health is a broad spectrum including acute traumas and diagnoses that require a level of care,” says Rocker. “It comes down to storytelling and making sure that when people tell their story they feel supported and have the resources available to move forward. The focus has to be on creating the space and place to have these conversations.”

If I’m being honest, I have a certain level of anxiety in writing this essay. Putting to paper all of my shortcomings when it comes to combating systemic racism opens me up to criticism. Admitting my outrage without action is just hot air. Just believing Black Lives Matter as some abstract thought isn’t enough. I keep seeing the same message: If you’ve ever wondered what you’d do during slavery, the Holocaust, or the civil-rights movement, you’re doing it now. In my mind, I’m getting arrested at a “sit-in.” In reality, I’m at home with my four children doing my best to home-school and get through a pandemic. Am I not as brave and progressive as I thought?

My kids—Milo, 13, Willa, 11, and Zeke and Gideon, 9—spent their first years of life in Baltimore City. They attended a public charter school that pulled students from every zip code, and our classrooms were filled with students of many different races and economic backgrounds. A few years ago, when we moved just over the line into the county, our kids enrolled at a school that we love, but where we, as Jews, represent one of the few examples of diversity.

We—my husband, Ron, and I—try to teach our kids daily about what’s right and wrong. We talk about the news, never hiding the hard stories. We vote—in person when we can and always dragging our kids along, so they grow up knowing that this is what we do in a democracy. We repeat, over and over, that everyone is loved and welcome and equal in our eyes.

We march, as we did in that first big Women’s March in Washington, D.C., after the last election (and the subsequent smaller ones in Baltimore). We’ve also marched against gun violence and for abortion rights and now we stand in the streets for Black lives. I go for many reasons, but mostly to breathe in—if only metaphorically now through my mask—the air of like-minded people. And make sure that my own voice is heard.

But are we just surface activists? After the BLM march in Roland Park, I posted a picture of my daughter holding her “RACISM IS A PANDEMIC” sign on social media and wrote: “I worry about posting the wrong thing and offending someone. To post #blackouttuesday or not. To attend a mostly white protest in support of racial justice or not. But then I thought, if I do nothing else but show my daughter that we don’t sit idly by when we see our fellow humankind hurting, that’s enough.”

But let’s be honest. That’s not enough.

It’s time for the tough conversations and self-reflection.

It’s time for the tough conversations and self-reflection. My kids are my opportunity to do better.

I think about reaching out to my friend, Tanika White Davis, a Black mom who has twin boys a year older than mine and an 8-year old daughter, but then I see she has posted her newest Sun parenting column, “No Sage Words for This Moment in History.”

“It is all just too much,” she writes. “And I am exhausted from feeling all of it, all at once.” How do I put my burden on her after reading this? “I know I should have more to say,” her column continues. “But I am no sage. I am just a mother of three Black children, trying to protect them. You’ll forgive me then if I spend what’s left of my energy doing just that.”

I want to say to her: “Help me help you.” But that just feels like extra work for her. (Though she later scolds me: “You know you can always reach out to me.”)

Instead, I reach out to Traci Wright, dean of students at The Park School of Baltimore in Brooklandville. We talk about race and privilege and kids. Wright leads the school’s formative Civil Rights trip, now in its 16th year, that takes students and faculty from Park, Baltimore City College High School, and City Neighbors High School on a tour of the South. From Atlanta to Birmingham to Montgomery to Little Rock to Selma, they visit sites and meet people who were instrumental during the 1960s movement for racial equality.

“They learn the importance of speaking up and being involved,” says Wright. One of the local stops is the Hampton National Historic Site in Towson, a vast 18th-century estate that still has its original stone slave quarters, which she suggests I visit with my kids for a guided tour. “They do a phenomenal job of helping kids understand the system of slavery,” says Wright. “No one is born a slave.”

Wright is full of wisdom and suggestions and kindness toward my jumble of questions. She forwards me a piece on NPR’s the Hidden Brain about how it’s more important to change the way that a community thinks about race and racial bias than it is to focus on one individual person. She tells me to read “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice” on Medium and says she even learned things from that article that she, as a Black woman, should be doing.

I tell her about the “inclusive parents versus anti-racist parents” post from Curious Parenting, a caregiver online community, that I keep seeing shared by friends. In one example, an inclusive parent makes sure their child’s library is racially diverse. An anti-racist parent intentionally includes books that go beyond slavery and the civil rights movement to include reads on ballerina Misty Copeland or NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson or poet Maya Angelou. I realize that I fall into the former category.

Wright emphasizes that it’s important for students—hers at Park and mine at their Baltimore County public schools—to feel empowered. “It’s up to the adults to create a culturally relevant curriculum,” she says. And what is culturally relevant? Well, if you live in Baltimore, says Wright, “just open your eyes” and look around. That includes teaching about both current events and history in a real and truthful way.

In addition to Wright, I speak with Mark Riding, a high-school English teacher at the all-girls Maryvale Preparatory School in Lutherville, where he is the only Black faculty member.

“I’m not an expert, but I am a passionate educator,” he tells me. There have been only a handful of Black teachers in the school’s 70-year history. “The students are overwhelmingly white,” says Riding, the father of two teenagers. “I’ve done a lot of thinking, even more since the upheaval happened: How can I bring a fresh perspective to a community that is sorely lacking that [Black] perspective?” Despite some pushback over the years, Riding has always made it a priority to amplify the histories and lessons of the marginalized, from feminism to the Black voice.

This spring, he saved for last the Harlem Renaissance—the artistic explosion of Black culture in New York in the 1920s—and ended up having to teach it virtually. But he and his students still got in deep about why there needed to be a renaissance in the first place. And they also talked about the intersection of race and gender. “No matter what racial or ethnic background, you are marginalized for being a woman,” Riding told them.

Where do I go from here? I don’t write this to feel better about myself.

The final assignment was to write a poem exploring their own differences. Riding was surprised and impressed to see topics ranging from religion to sexuality to racial disparities. “Everyone has knots in their ropes,” he says. But recognizing that helps you “understand other people’s knots.” That’s a difficult concept even for adults, he says.

Riding told me, “I wanted to expose these girls to the dark, scary, disgusting history” of the Black struggle. But also, what came out of the struggle: music, poetry, stories, and the civil rights movement.

Wright says she’s been energized to see “the far corners of the state” reacting to this moment, as well. There are BLM marches in Harford County and on the Eastern Shore.

“People are seeing these issues as their own,” she says. “They’re becoming everyone’s issues. When people are marginalized, we are all marginalized.” Kids see that—sometimes more than parents—and are responding.

I tell Wright I have great expectations for my kids, as Jews, a group that has faced its own marginalization and decimation. Our house is filled with books about the Holocaust, we’ve visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., we’ve listened to survivor stories, and we feel it deeply and personally when a synagogue is under attack or a group of white supremacists are called “very fine people.”

Wright understands the connection I’m trying to make. “You have experienced other-ing and genocide,” she says. “The Holocaust happened not even on our soil.” But there is an outrage surrounding violence against Jews that isn’t always extended to Blacks, she notes. Wright recommends finding books on coalitions between Blacks and Jews to make this even more relatable to my children. “What is the history here in terms of people coming together?” she poses. “Baltimore is a segregated city. We live in our own pockets. We don’t really socialize. How can we bring people together?”

I’ve been thinking about that a lot. It came up in a conversation on Father’s Day. We (me, my husband, my own mom and dad) were sitting around the table discussing the BLM movement. My mother is 71 years old and, still, this movement has awakened her in new ways. As a first step of what she hopes will be many more steps, she just became a member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “Wouldn’t you want every person to walk through Jewish museums to better understand our plight and resilience and culture?” I say to my mom. “I would guess the same is true for that museum.” We’ll go together as soon as we can, I tell her.

Prior to this moment, and this movement, I’m not sure we would have had this conversation. And that’s what I have witnessed more and more—the conversations. “Can this happen in schools?” I ask Wright. “Public schools are more racially and socio-economically diverse,” she says. (And while that might not be true for our elementary school, it certainly is at Dumbarton Middle School, which my oldest attends.) “Public school is real life,” she says.

It’s the place where you are together with people who look different from you. It should be the best place for listening and sharing and growing.

Wright acknowledges that the conversations about institutional racism are not easy for anyone to begin. But it’s our jobs as parents to foster relationships, she says, whether it’s making sure we are on sports teams that are diverse or forming a book or movie club with families that create a safe space for honest questions and discussions.

“Initially, it will likely feel forced,” says Wright. “But we have to work harder to combat the systems of oppression. It’s okay if it makes you feel nervous or uncomfortable because the more we talk about it, the more it becomes second nature. It’s retraining our brains to see what we’ve been missing all along.”

In the days that follow, I spend a long time scrolling through posts on the Anti-Racist/Social Justice Parenting Discussion Group on Facebook that I joined during the heat of the protests. There are virtual events (the Reginald F. Lewis Museum’s African American Children’s Book Fair), town halls (“How to Raise and Teach Anti-Racist Kids,” hosted by author Kwame Alexander), and fundraising ideas. I can’t do it all, but I can start somewhere. I sign up for Zoom calls about raising socially conscious children, and I order Jason Reynolds’s and Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped: Racism, Antiracisim and You and Veronica Chambers’s Resist: 35 Profiles of Ordinary People Who Rose Up Against Tyranny and Injustice.

Where do I go from here? I do not write this to feel better about myself, or to say that Googling or reading or even protesting makes me a social-justice warrior mom. But I do understand that there is a time to talk and a time to listen. A time to teach and a time to be taught. My kids are watching me and all my actions. We, as a family, need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We need to hold ourselves accountable.

I promise that we will.

For many of us, our computers have been a lifeline throughout the coronavirus pandemic—a way to telecommute to work or school, to stay in touch with friends and family, to gain crucial information about the virus, and to even play games and watch TV.

But for 24.6 percent of families in Baltimore, that lifeline is not there—they either have no computer or no access to internet, or both. That so-called “digital divide,” already at crisis levels in Baltimore City, was only exacerbated by COVID-19, says Andrew Coy, executive director of the Digital Harbor Foundation, a nonprofit that engages youth in technology.

“There are real disparities and they have real consequences,” he says.

That’s where the guys from DigiBmore come in. Born out of the pandemic, it’s a loose coalition of members of three nonprofits—Coy’s Digital Harbor, the Baltimore Robotics Center, and Rowdy Orbit, a nonprofit which focuses on expanding access to broadband—dedicated to getting laptops into the hands of families, and hooking them up with the software, training, and connectivity they need.

By late April, DigiBmore received more than 700 requests for laptops and worked at breakneck speed to send them out. Ed Mullin of the Baltimore Robotics Center, an organization that fields competitive robotics teams across the city (“the one sport where everybody can go pro,” he quips), has helped collect as many used laptops as possible, from both corporations and citizens.

“I know in my neighborhood, people will have laptops sitting around their house that they’re not using anymore that they haven’t gotten around to taking to the recycle center,” Mullin says. “Usually we wipe [their data], put in a new operating system, and send them down the road.”

Jonathan Moore of Rowdy Orbit is helping Mullin with that mission and also helping DigiBmore connect with nonprofits that support underserved communities. Meanwhile, Digital Harbor, which already had a digital lending library thanks to a grant from the France-Merrick Foundation, is also acquiring laptops, distributing those laptops to families and nonprofits, and even providing some IT support.

Coy is painfully aware that COVID-19 is a crisis of incalculable measure. But if nothing else, he feels the light it shined on the digital divide is a silver lining.

“We’re addressing a known, decades- long issue,” he says. “I do hope we can come through on the other side stronger for it.”

Matt Hornbeck, the principal of Hampstead Hill Academy, a pre-K to 8th grade public school next to Patterson Park, found out Maryland schools were closing at the same time everyone else did—after Gov. Larry Hogan’s afternoon press conference on Thursday, March 12. It meant he and his staff had less than 24 hours to prepare 859 students for a transition to online “school,” which would last for the remainder of the academic year due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Hornbeck’s staff got as many learning packets to the kids as they could. They spent the next few weeks safely distributing Chromebooks. Teachers began posting assignments, reading books to students online, and creating homemade instructional videos. They provided sample schedules to parents and organized “coach” classes—where kids could log-on in a live setting and ask their teacher questions.

Given the city’s gaping digital divide, hoping that a class of 25 city school children would start showing up in daily 8 a.m. Google classrooms was never an option. Many Baltimore kids simply don’t have WiFi at home. Others don’t have a parent in the house during the school day to help navigate the process. Even at Hampstead Hill, the highest performing school in the city, the staff still hadn’t heard from 55 students—and that was after six weeks of diligently whittling down their “hardest to reach” list.

Schools, like Hampstead Hill, are more than sources of neighborhood pride. They are hubs providing breakfasts, lunches, after-school activities, and childcare. It’s where kids make friends and connect, and parents do, too.

“It doesn’t look anything like school used to look,” Hornbeck says. “It’s hard to even call it school.”

It’s a statement that applies to almost everything at the moment.

Restaurants, barbershops, bars, churches, libraries, gyms, movie theaters, museums, festivals, music venues, sporting events, and the state legislature shuttered all at once in mid-March. As did all “non-essential” workplaces. The entire economic fabric of the state, not to mention the natural, vibrant social life of Baltimore, was quickly torn asunder by the stay-at-home orders that were issued.

It wasn’t just in Maryland, of course. By the end of May, nearly 41 million people—one in four workers nationally—were filing for unemployment each week. One Federal Reserve model projected a gross domestic product drop of more than 50 percent in the second quarter—both figures representing the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression. That Maryland, with its large number of federal workers, has fared better than most states hardly serves as consolation. Unemployment in the state, which tripled in a matter of weeks and remains at levels unseen since the 1930s, overwhelmed the system to the point where out-of-work Marylanders failed to get checks for weeks. Meanwhile, hospital intensive care units attempted to keep pace with coronavirus patients and food banks struggled to meet the demand from suddenly unemployed families.

One can only hope that lessons will be learned about preparing for future pandemics, including the need to manufacture and stockpile personal protective gear and testing equipment. But how do you measure and address the full impact of the COVID-19 virus in Maryland or a city like Baltimore? Is it a simple calculation of deaths and illnesses, plus job and tax revenue losses? What about addressing the hugely disproportionate impact on low-income and Black and Latino communities? Other questions arise, too, about building more resilience into our healthcare and economic systems. How long, for example, will U.S. citizens, the tens of millions of whom lost their livelihoods and insurance benefits in the middle of the pandemic, accept a system that ties their family’s healthcare to their job? Will the coronavirus crisis, in combination with the massive protests following the police killing of an unarmed George Floyd, spark any kind of reckoning of our ever-widening racial, health, and economic inequality?

It’s too early to know the answers to any of these questions. As we keep our fingers crossed for a vaccine, and social and economic life return to some kind of new normal, everything remains up in the air. It’s not even clear yet if Maryland schools will fully reopen on August 31, officially the first day of 2020-2021 school year.

The global spread of the novel coronavirus, while a first in our lifetimes, isn’t unprecedented. Our great-grandparents experienced a similarly terrifying pandemic. From 1918 to early 1920, the so-called “Spanish flu” ravaged the globe. The new influenza killed at least 50 million people worldwide, an estimated 675,000 in the U.S. alone, over three waves. At its height, schools were closed in Baltimore then, too. Theater and baseball games were canceled. Retail, pub, and restaurant hours were restricted. Many stayed home from work out of fear. People were encouraged to wear masks—and many did. At the outset, the World War I defense effort helped stave off a disastrous economic impact. Once the war ended, however, a crippling recession set in. Ultimately, massive technological breakthroughs, including the electrification of the country and mass production innovations—think conveyer belts and Henry Ford’s assembly line—jumpstarted the Roaring ’20s.

So far, the 2020s have been far less promising. Most economists were optimistically predicting a “V”-shaped economic recovery—with a dramatic dip and equally steep rise. But the shutdowns here and elsewhere proved much broader and lengthier than first imagined and that prediction has shifted dramatically.

“Most economists aren’t anticipating a V-shaped recovery anymore, but something like a Nike ‘swoosh’—a significantly longer, more gradual recovery,” says Daraius Irani, vice president of strategic partnerships and applied research at Towson University. “What we are seeing is a slow throttling of the economy as the reopening is phased in over time—and rightly so with the COVID-19 virus still all around us.”

“If people don’t feel safe taking buses and the light rail, they’re not going to work.”

The lynchpin to an economic rebound is the state’s public schools, says Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO of Sage, an economic and policy consulting firm, and a former Baltimore school member. Maryland public schools don’t just teach more than 900,000 students, but in essence also provide free childcare for their working parents. In an interview with Baltimore, Gov. Larry Hogan asserted that schools will reopen this fall and that State Superintendent of Maryland Schools Karen B. Salmon “is working on a childcare plan.”

What that looks like, however, isn’t known. It’s likely to look different depending on the school district. St. Mary’s County, largely unaffected by the COVID-19 virus, may fully reopen, while schools in the Baltimore-Washington corridor might open at a half-day or every-other-day schedule, keeping parents in limbo. It’s a particularly complicated challenge for working women, still the primary caregivers in most households. Growth in the service professions has allowed women to overtake men as a proportion of the U.S. labor force. But it has also made them more vulnerable to job losses in this crisis because sectors with more women, such as education, leisure, and hospitality, have been hardest hit by the social distancing measures.

“An aggressive recovery isn’t possible without schools fully opening,” says Basu. “Unless that happens, you’re just fiddling around the edges. Mass transit is also an overlooked factor. Especially in Baltimore. If people don’t feel safe taking buses, the light rail, the subway, they’re not going to work.”

Local colleges are making tentative plans to accept students this fall as the state braces for flu season and a second COVID-19 wave, which if history is a guide, could be severe. With lower enrollments, fewer students in dorms, more online classes, and clubs and varsity sports cut to the bone—will university life resemble anything like it has in the past?

The other primary concern of economists and politicians: How do local governments manage their budget shortfalls? State revenues are projected to fall 30 percent this fiscal year, which begins July 1. How many teacher, civil servant, firefighter, police officer, and sanitation worker furloughs does that translate into? At best, according to Basu and Irani, we’re looking at a five-year economic recovery from the massive stay-at-home orders, which no doubt saved tens of thousands of lives, but also eliminated the gains made during the entire economic recovery since the 2008-2009 recession. Baltimore City Council president Brandon Scott says the city budget “can’t be balanced on the backs of those who’ve borne the brunt” of the economic crisis this time around.

“We can’t do what we did in the 2008-2009 recession and close rec centers,” Scott says. “The federal government has to help.”

Gov. Hogan, not generally a political ally of the City Council president, has repeatedly made the case for greater federal assistance as well. “I’ve spent my entire political career fighting for less government spending,” Hogan wrote in a June op-ed for The New York Times, pleading for more federal help. “But we’re not in a normal time, and the conventional political arguments just don’t fit this moment.”

Hornbeck, who has been principal at Hampstead Hill for 17 years, is from Baltimore and he’s not just concerned about his students, but their parents, some of whom have lost jobs. He worries about the impact on his students’ family life and stability. At best, Hornbeck thinks it could be the 2021-2022 academic year until everything at his school is back in full swing, even if students return to the building in some form in the fall.

“[Then] we can begin to understand what we’ve all been through,” he says. “There is trauma on so many levels, for staff and students, and families. You go back and forth thinking that things are normal—the weekends can feel slightly normal, but they’re just not. Nothing is normal right now. It’s a weight that adults feel, it’s a weight then that kids feel.”

Just as vital to reestablishing a sense of normalcy—and restoring Maryland’s economy—is the fate of Baltimore’s vital and diverse culinary scene, from the red sauce dining rooms of Little Italy to the gyro joints of Greektown to the scores of neighborhood pubs, trendy hotspots, classic crabhouses, and burgeoning Asian, Latin, and soul food restaurants.

Many restaurants with outdoor capacity began reopening at the start of June with the Governor’s formal “Phase I” easements. Other “non-essential businesses”—retail stores, manufacturers, offices, banks, and auto showrooms—were allowed to reopen later in the month. Fitness centers, malls, and indoor movie theaters remain closed. Churches may only hold services at 50-percent capacity, with face mask and social distancing requirements.

Eating indoors at restaurants remains prohibited and most remain a shell of their former operations. The restaurant business has suffered the most significant sales and job losses of any industry during the COVID-19 outbreak. Sadly, popular establishments, including City Café in Mount Vernon and Ryleigh’s Oyster in Federal Hill, have closed permanently.

In Baltimore, the verdict is still out on who will reopen, who will remain forever closed, and who will continue to find success with the myriad new business models—from high-end restaurants turned ad-hoc grocery stores providing prepared foods and pantry items (La Cuchara, Woodberry Kitchen) to places like Le Comptoir du Vin, which has been functioning as an online bottle shop, to temples of fine-dining such as Charleston in Harbor East and Linwoods in Owings Mills, which have been providing curbside carryout and recently added patio dining to their repertoire.

Even with new business models, not all restaurants will survive. Still, some see it as an opportunity for reinvention.

“People have to go out and socialize. Restaurants provide that space.”

“Out of the Great Depression came The New Deal and a lot of innovation, this is something that my wife, Amy, has brought up,” says Ben Lefenfeld, owner-chef of La Cuchara in Hampden-Woodberry. “I think that out of the coronavirus you’re going to see a little bit of a renaissance. You’re going to see people thinking about different ways to approach the business of owning a restaurant and it’s going to change the overall landscape for the better.”

Despite the difficult days ahead, Le Comptoir du Vin’s owner-chef Will Mester remains bullish on restaurants. “There’s going to be a lot of restaurants that close [including] a lot of restaurants that we love . . . and that’s really sad,” Mester says. “But restaurants are too old, they are too important, they will survive, and things will get back.”

Mester notes that a lot of people are trying to figure out what’s going to happen to restaurants—a kind of canary in the coal mine of city social life and economic activity. “[Restauranteur and author] David Chang thinks that food is going to revert back to the ’80s or ’90s when there weren’t as many options and big chains [ran] things, but I can’t imagine that people in Paris are wondering about the fate of their restaurant culture,” Mester says. “It’s so tied into everyday life. It’s the fabric of those cities and they are just as important here. People have to go out, they have to socialize. Restaurants provide that space. This is what cities are all about.”

Despite the devastation, Sergio Vitale, of Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano, echoes Lefenfeld and Mester’s optimism.

“As rents reset, there will be another opportunity for a [dining] renaissance that we’ve seen in Baltimore recently,” Vitale says. “People will start to see opportunity for small, 500-square-foot, or 1,000-square-foot models, maybe delivery and curbside oriented.”

The economists, Basu and Irani, agree that out of every crisis comes new opportunities. Remote working is likely to continue, which could lead to new innovations in technology—expanded broadband, for example. While its tourism industry is taking a huge hit, Baltimore is well positioned for a bio-medical boom with University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins research campuses in the city.

Hornbeck, the longtime Hampstead Hill principal, certainly expects online education to improve. It may never be a gamechanger for pre-K though grade 8 education, but it will likely continue to develop and assist higher education and professional training curriculums.

Both note that some older businesses, local grocery stores and bicycle shops to name two, have already witnessed huge, unexpected revenue gains. The few drive-in movie theaters left, like Bengies in Middle River, expect a resurgence. Old-school canning and jarred good companies are making a comeback with more people cooking at home. Another encouraging sign: Commercial real estate rents are already falling and interest rates on loans remain low.

“Who will be the person most likely to open a new restaurant?” Irani asks rhetorically. “Someone who has opened a restaurant in the past. Entrepreneurs are dreamers. It may take time, but they find a way. They find a niche that isn’t being served.”

Vitale notes that fine dining is a particularly challenging arena, both because of concerns about the spread of COVID-19 indoors and because the whole model has been under assault for years with razor-thin margins. The current crisis only exacerbates the underlying problems.

But he believes things will percolate up.

“After the initial shock, how the restaurant business will re-engage is small, less expensive and open [air and floor] models,” Vitale continues. “Why do you go to a city except to dine well and to have an opportunity to see some culture in the company of like-minded people? Isn’t it an ancient Greek who said all good things of this earth flow into the city?”

What’s the ultimate cure for this recent heaviness? Puppies, of course.

In the past few weeks, families have been using the forced time at home to finally say yes to the question they’ve been asked for months/years: “Can we get a puppy . . . Pleeeaaassseeee???”

“For years, my kids have asked—daily—for a dog,” says Jessica Klaitman. Slowly, she and her husband’s firm “no” had started to soften. “Not that we ever told the kids that,” jokes Klaitman, who lives in Towson. Then quarantine hit.

As she walked her kids home from school on March 13th, the last day that schools were open, a dog was the last thing on her mind.

“A week later though, as the reality of our collective situation started to sink in, and the tears and frustration started showing,” Klaitman says, “we realized that we needed an infusion of happiness—right now.” Her kids were so surprised when they brought Pepper home, that her daughter asked, “Is that a real dog?”

The Klaitmans’ new dog, Pepper. -Jessica Klaitman

Josie Moon joined the Siegal-Andorsky family on March 23rd, the day Governor Larry Hogan‘s executive order that only essential services remain open in the state went into effect.

The family had been considering getting a dog for about a year, but was hesitant to do so with their busy lifestyle. Their middle child was the one who had been consistently and persistently asking for a dog. She pointed out that this—meaning the pandemic—was the best opportunity to be home with a puppy. “I’ve literally been waiting 10 years for this day to come,” says 10-year old, Nava.

Since the children’s school—Krieger Schechter Day School—had moved to an online learning environment, mom Rachel Siegal had been exploring the pet possibility with renewed vigor.

“When I heard the essential-services-only executive order was coming into effect at 5 p.m., I told myself it was now or never,” Siegal says. “I went and met the puppy by myself at 1:30, leaving the kids at home with my husband, Sam.” (She had learned her lesson from a previous puppy encounter earlier in the week, when they all went and the kids left brokenhearted when she decided that particular dog wasn’t right for them.)

“When I met this puppy I had a sense that she was the one,” says Siegal. After meeting the entire family later that afternoon, the new pup was settled in her new home before the executive order went into effect that night.

“We borrowed some puppy supplies from neighbors, did a curbside pick up order from Petco, found Joy Freedman, a trainer who was willing to do online virtual trainings with us as a family, and we were off and running,” she says.

The Siegal-Andorsky family with their new pup, Josie Moon. -Rachel Siegal

The Sandhu Potter family had been talking about a puppy for a while, given that their last rescue, Freddie, is 17. “We thought we’d do it after she passes,” says Kiran Sandhu. “But since she’s still going pretty strong and we are all home now, we decided to take advantage of the time.”

Hodja, a “probably” collie/corgi mix, is named after Nasreddin Hodja, a Turkish satirist from the 13th century. “We used to read his stories to the kids when they were little,” says Sandhu.

Another big motivating factor for the family was giving the kids something to focus on that isn’t a screen.

“It’s been great having the time to dedicate to a puppy,” says Sandhu, an ESOL educational associate with Baltimore City Public Schools. “I’m not sure how we could have done it with our normal schedules.”

Klaitman agrees it’s a wonderful distraction and way to fill time. “Pepper has been such a wonderful diversion for us,” she says. “And yes, she has succeeded in increasing our happiness exponentially.”

The Sandhu Potter family poses with Hodja.

-Kiran Sandhu

The same is true in the Siegal-Andorsky household. The first day, they filled up a wall in their hallway with Post-It notes covered in possible names for their puppy. Over the course of the second day, they eliminated some names as her personality started to emerge.

Their 13-year old son, Yoni, wanted a nature-based name, like Storm or Ash, reflective of Josie’s merle coat. “We didn’t want to do a name that was anything reminiscent of coronavirus or of this terrible time for our world,” says Siegal.

After day two it became clear that Josie Moon was the name that best suited her chill personality.

“I like to think of her as an old hippie come to our family to help chill us all out,” jokes Siegal. “It’s also been great to have her around for those 15 minutes here and there when the kids have breaks between their Zoom classes. Rather than watch one more YouTube video, they’re coming downstairs to the kitchen to play with the puppy,” she says, mentioning, “That’s not to say they’re not watching hours and hours of YouTube and Netflix—which they are—while Sam and I try to continue to work.”

Says Klaitman, “The kids call her their ‘emotional support dog.’ To be honest, so do the adults. We love our ‘pandemic puppy’ and know that she will help imprint some delightful memories from a difficult time.”

For Maryland school teachers, simulating an environment comparable to a normal classroom in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic has presented a need for ingenuity. Virtual learning instruction and curriculum packets are being administered, food distribution stations for students who rely on school lunches have been established, and instructors have begun teaching remotely via video software.

“Virtual learning can never take the place of in-person learning in education,” says Cheryl Bost, a Baltimore County teacher currently on leave to serve as the president of the Maryland State Education Association. “Teachers by trade like to [think] ahead and figure out what we can accomplish. With the issues coronavirus presents, they feel like they’re keeping the kids learning, but they’re not going to be able to go too far ahead.”

The pandemic has been a disruptor in all walks of life, from the business and economic sectors to the food industry and in healthcare systems. But the problems it presents for the education system are comprehensive.

“We want to make sure our students are not impacted in their learning,” says Katie Poist, a eighth grade math teacher at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School in southwest Baltimore. “We take into account what they have available to them at home as far as technology, Internet access, and parental support.”

But what might be an easily addressable conflict for one school district could be a widespread problem in another. These equity issues—already present before coronavirus—have become even more prevalent throughout the last month.

“Our kids didn’t need access to technology outside of school [before coronavirus],” Poist says. “We didn’t use a ton of tech at school, so kids were able to be successful and we could help them learn. Now, it’s a huge shift.”

Coincidentally, major education reform aiming to address these inequalities and bridge gaps in education from one region to another passed in the General Assembly last month. The issues coronavirus has wrought are what advocates for the bill dubbed the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future —which currently sits on Governor Larry Hogan’s desk awaiting signing—have been stressing. The first three years of funding for the bill took effect last year, but proponents are hoping for a long term agreement.

“There are access issues in poor urban districts compared to public districts with much greater resources,” says Kristen McQuillan, a former Baltimore City School System employee and current academic director at The New Teacher Project (TNTP), where she advises school superintendents and academic offices. “This has put that issue into the forefront and the spotlight in a way that people can’t ignore.”

McQuillan says that being able to observe where these access problems are most prevalent helps explain why it costs more to educate children in certain districts compared to others. It’s why many advocates, including Poist, feel that the Blueprint’s objectives—such as increasing teachers’ salaries and providing access to Pre-K for all 3 and 4-year olds in low-income families—are vital.

“Schools are more than just education for children—they are social development,” Poist says. “The big inhibitor being a Baltimore City teacher is striving to be equitable.”

During the pandemic, Poist has helped her students access videos that Lakeland’s school district has provided. She also pre-records 15-minute video instruction to capture the day’s big picture. In the midst of this, there is also synchronous learning, where Poist is able to check in with individual students and assist them with any questions they may have.

“It’s really constant communication,” she says. “As a school, we have to figure out how to function as a team while meeting all of our kids’ needs at home.”

Over at Pine Grove Middle School in Loch Raven, Vernon Fains is adapting to teaching art remotely, as the usual materials his students would have in the classroom aren’t at their disposal. Since art is such a visual medium, Fains says that being disconnected from his students and their usual environment has its challenges.

“It’s a little tougher for the arts, because we can’t use certain materials and we can’t get our hands dirty like we normally would,” Fains says. “I think of the arts as a way for students to come in and express themselves in ways they can’t in other content areas. I miss that interaction.”

Fains says that these limitations have forced him to reevaluate how he teaches. He had his first virtual class meeting earlier this week, where he encouraged students to go out in nature and think viscerally about what they were seeing.

Both Fains and Poist have also made a point to check in on their classes’ well being. They’ve noticed their students’ moods perk up at the opportunity to see familiar faces that remind them of their routine at school.

“I think they’re excited to see and hear from us, and we’re excited to see and hear from them,” Fains says. “That moment of talking with us and getting a little bit sense of normalcy has been missing.”

As it stands, it’s unclear as to when, or if, Maryland schools will reopen this school year. Closures are in place until at least April 24, and while this isn’t ideal, it does give educators and students the opportunity to further adapt to their surroundings as they wait for the time when it will once again be safe for everyone to be together and learn.

“We miss being in the classroom,” Fains says. “We miss our students. We just want them to know that we want them to stay well and we are here for them.”

When it came time for Tessa Evarts to think about high school, she had something different in mind than the Lancaster County, PA, public school that her three older siblings attended: Tessa wanted to go to private school—in fact, she wanted a private boarding school.

Every year, for each of the kids, we have always offered alternative options for education, whether that’s home school, boarding school, or a private day school,” says Tessa’s mother, Julie Evarts. “Tessa, being the youngest, is probably our most vocal. She came to us in eighth grade and said, ‘I don’t want to go to public high school next year. I want to go to boarding school and these are the boarding schools that I want to look at.’”

For Evarts and her husband, Rob, distance was one of the most important factors used to narrow down their daughter’s list. New England schools were crossed off since the parents obviously wanted to visit their daughter regularly. They decided to look into several options in Baltimore, about an hour and a half drive from their home, and settled on Garrison Forest School, an all-girls college-preparatory day and boarding school in Owings Mills.

“In the 2014-2015 school year, 9,033 students attended 16 independent schools in the greater Baltimore region,” says Myra McGovern, vice president of media at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). More broadly, the Association of Independent Maryland & D.C. Schools (AIMS) represents about 120 schools in Maryland and D.C., 10 of which offer boarding. And not all private schools are members of these organizations.

With so many institutions to consider, the options can be daunting. But with that quantity of schools comes diversity; and open-house season, typically held by most campuses in the fall, provides an opportunity for parents and children to get to know potential schools from the inside.

Think about what your child needs in a school—like a close-knit community, special activities, or a structured learning environment, suggests McGovern. “Next, take a look at different school websites and make a list of the ones that seem to meet your needs,” McGovern says. “Find out when those schools have open houses or tours and take a look.”

Although open houses are a quick and convenient way to get a first impression, it’s important to return to the school for a second look before making a final decision. “Each time you go, you glean more information,” says Evarts. “The school, good or bad, is trying to earn your money, your student. You need to go more than once to get the feel.” Shadow days, in particular—when potential students are matched up with current students for a full or partial day—allow an inside perspective on what life would be like at a given school.

Philosophy and school culture are some of the first things parents should consider when narrowing down potential schools. The environments of a single-sex boarding school like Garrison Forest and a progressive Montessori institution are vastly different.

When making their final decision, the Evarts family viewed potential schools as partners in the job of raising their daughter. “We’re asking another group of people to help us parent our child, says Evarts. “So we want to team with a group of individuals that we feel most strongly hold our same values and will support the way we choose to parent Tessa.”

One benefit of independent schooling is the opportunity for parent involvement. Thus the role of parents, which is essential to independent schools, is worth considering in the school choice.

“Working together, parents and school professionals exert a strong influence on children to become better educated; they also help them to mature by modeling adult, working relationships based upon civility, honesty, and respect,” says AIMS in its publication Parents and Independent Schools.

As an example, parents are an active part of the community at The New Century School (TNCS), a Montessori-inspired multilingual school in Fells Point offering pre-school to fifth grade. “Each family volunteers for at least eight hours per year,” says Alicia Cooper Danyali, TNCS head of school. “But many parents give much more of their time.” The diverse parent skill sets, from musical performance to computer science, help craft a unique community and culture at TNCS.

Alicia Rojas, school volunteer chair and mother to 5-year-old student Sofia, says that, by volunteering, parents can see their children in the classroom setting and contribute their personal passions. “I could not imagine just dropping my child off at school and relying on the occasional parent-teacher meetings to get a sense of her schooling,” says Rojas.

In addition to culture, many independent schools in the Baltimore area offer specialized learning, extracurricular activities, or good sports teams that attract students. Which is why parents should consider their child’s passions and strengths when picking a school. If he or she is a gifted athlete looking for a sports scholarship, consider schools in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association, which is widely regarded as one of the best lacrosse leagues in the nation and has sent players on to professional teams. If the child is interested in technology, look at schools with dedicated STEM programs, like the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which announced this past spring that it will place a 3D printer in each of its schools as part of increased emphasis on science and math.

Alison Greer, Garrison Forest director of admissions and financial aid, says many boarders come to the school for its equestrian program—it’s one of only two girls’ secondary schools in the nation offering a polo team—and WISE, a Women in Science and Engineering program that places high school students in labs at The Johns Hopkins University. At TNCS, parents are attracted to the Spanish and Mandarin-language immersion programs that begin at age 2.

While parents with younger children are left to make the school decision themselves, older students can provide useful insight in the decision-making process.

Crystal Collins worked with her son’s organizational coach and middle-school counselor to create a list of potential schools that met their main requirements: language and writing support, and a strong soccer team. From there, Collins presented the top two or three choices to her son, Tyler. “At that point, he went on shadow visits to the schools and he picked the school where he felt most comfortable,” says Collins. “The idea was that once I knew both schools met my most important factors, the choice of schools was his.” Tyler is now in his sophomore year at Mount Saint Joseph High School, a Catholic college-preparatory school for young men in Irvington.

When a school is the right match, it often doesn’t take long for parents to see growth in their child. Boarding allowed Tessa to become more independent, and after her freshman year, Rob and Julie saw a change in their daughter.

“She found her own voice,” says Julie Evarts. “She found a voice that wasn’t her sisters’ or her brother’s or even ours. She was in a place that didn’t know her but allowed and encouraged her to develop her own opinion.”

Archbishop Spalding High School

8080 New Cut Rd., Severn. 410-969-9105. Grades: 9-12, Coed. Enrollment: 1,100. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 10/25, 12-2 p.m.

Baltimore Lab School

2220 St. Paul St. 410-261-5500. baltimorelabschool.org. Grades: 1-12, coed. Enrollment: 150. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 12/17, 9-11 a.m.

Beth El at Federal Hill

1530 Battery Ave. 410-602-2245. bethelbalto.com. Grades: 2-4 years of age, coed. Enrollment: n/a (new school). Affiliation: Jewish. 11/10, 3-6 p.m.

Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School

3300 Old Court Rd., Pikesville. 410-413-2323. bethtfiloh.com. Grades: pre-K-12, Coed. Enrollment: 950. Affiliation: Jewish. 11/22, 10 a.m., high school; 10/29, 9 a.m.; 12/2, 9 a.m.; 11/17, 7 p.m., lower school

The Boys’ Latin School of Maryland

822 W. Lake Ave. 410-377-5192. Grades: K-12, All-male. Enrollment: 600. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/18, 11 a.m.

The Bryn Mawr School

109 W. Melrose Ave. 410-323-8800. Grades: K-12, All-female except coed Little School. Enrollment: 680. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/7, 9:30 a.m. (K-5); 10/15, 8:30-10 a.m., upper school; 11/19, 9-10:30 a.m., middle school; 11/5, 9-10:30 a.m., K-5th grade; 11/18, 8:30-10 a.m., upper school; 12/8, 8:30-10 a.m., middle and upper school

Calvert Hall College High School

8102 La Salle Rd., Towson. 410-825-4266. calverthall.com. Grades: 9-12, All-male. Enrollment: 1,200. Affiliation: Roman Catholic and Lasallian. 11/8, 12-4 p.m.

Calvert School

105 Tuscany Rd. 410-243-6054. calvertschoolmd.org. Grades: Pre-K-8, coed. Enrollment: 591. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/14, 10/27, 11/12, 9-11 a.m.

Cambridge School

110 Sudbrook Ln., Pikesville. 410-486-3686. Grades: K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 110. Affiliation: Christian. 10/20, 6:30-8 p.m., kindergarten; 10/21, 9-11 a.m., open house; 11/4, 9-11 a.m.; 11/18, 9-11 a.m.

The Catholic High School of Baltimore

2800 Edison Hwy. 410-732-6200. Grades: 9-12, all-female. Enrollment: 300. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 10/24, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Columbia Academy

10350 Old Columbia Rd., Columbia. 410-312-7413. Grades: Junior K-8, coed. Enrollment: 200. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/24 10 a.m.-12 p.m.

Concordia Preparatory School

1145 Concordia Dr., Towson. 410-825-2323. Grades: 6-12, Coed. Enrollment: 285. Affiliation: Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. 10/24, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Friends School of Baltimore

5114 N. Charles St. 410-649-3200. friendsbalt.org. Grades: pre-K-12, Coed. Enrollment: 812. Affiliation: Quaker. “Lunch and Learn” programs 10/13, 9-11 a.m.; 12/3 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; 11/10, 9-11 a.m.

Garrison Forest School

300 Garrison Forest Rd., Owings Mills. 410-363-1500, gfs.org. Grades: pre-K-12, all-female except coed pre-K. Enrollment: 629. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. Lower school parent visit days 10/13, 8:10-10:30 a.m.; middle school 10/23, 7:45-10 a.m.; upper school 10/20, 9-10:30 a.m.

Gerstell Academy

2500 Old Westminster Pike., Finksburg. 410-861-3000. Grades: pre-K-12, Coed. Enrollment: 355. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/14, 11 a.m.; 10/25, 2 p.m.; 11/8, 2 p.m.; 11/19, 4 p.m.; 3/6, 2 p.m.; 4/19, 11 a.m.; 5/15 11 a.m.

Gilman School

5407 Roland Ave. 410-323-3800. Grades: K-12, All-male. Enrollment: 1,020. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. Upper/middle open house, 10/4, 12-2 p.m. Upper/middle visiting days: 10/14, 10/20, 8:15-10:15 a.m., 11/10, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Lower visiting days, 10/22, 10/28, 11/4, 12/1, 8:40-11 a.m. Grades 2-5, 11/11, 8:30-11 a.m. Grades K-5, 12/8, 8:40-11 a.m.

Glenelg Country School

12793 Folly Quarter Rd., Ellicott City. 410-531-8600. Grades: pre-K-3-12, coed. Enrollment: 750. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/16, 9 a.m., lower school. 11/3, 9 a.m., lower school. 11/19, 9 a.m., upper school. 12/9, 9 a.m. lower school.

Greenspring Montessori School

10807 Tony Dr., Lutherville-Timonium. 410-321-8555. Grades: 18 months-8, Coed. Enrollment: 255. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 1/23, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.

Harford Day School

715 Moores Mill Rd., Bel Air. Harfordday.org. Grades: pre-K (age 3)-8th grade, coed. Enrollment: 300. Affiliation: Nonsectarian. 10/15, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.; 10/25, 1-3 p.m.

The Highlands School

2409 Creswell Rd., Bel Air. 410-836-1415. highlandsschool.net. Grades: K-10, coed. Enrollment: up to 80/rolling admissions. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. Call to schedule tour.

Immaculate Conception School

112 Ware Ave., Towson. 410-427-4801. theimmaculate.org. Grades: Pre-K(age 3)-8, coed. Enrollment: 592. Affiliation: Catholic. Middle School Open House 10/7, 6:30-8:30 p.m. General Fall Open House 11/5, 9:30-11:30 a.m.

Institute of Notre Dame

901 Aisquith St. 410-522-7800. Grades 9-12, All-female. Enrollment: 354. Affilation: Roman Catholic. 11/7, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Jemicy School

11202 Garrison Forest Rd., Owings Mills (upper school). 11 Celadon Rd., Owings Mills (lower and middle schools). 410-653-2700. Grades: 1-12, Coed. Enrollment: 300. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. Call to schedule tour.

John Paul Regional Catholic School

6946 Dogwood Rd., Windsor Mill. 410-944-0367. Grades: Pre-school-8, Coed. Enrollment: 150-200. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 1/31, 12-2 p.m.

Krieger Schechter Day School

8100 Stevenson Rd., Pikesville. 410-486-8640. Grades: K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 275. Affiliation: Jewish. 10/13, 9 a.m., 12/15, 7 p.m.

Loyola Blakefield

500 Chestnut Ave., Towson. 410-823-0601. Grades: 6-12, All-male. Enrollment: 970. Affiliation: Jesuit Catholic. 10/18, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Maryvale Preparatory School

11300 Falls Rd., Lutherville. 410-252-3366. Grades: 6-12, All-female. Enrollment: 380. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.10/25, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

McDonogh School

8600 McDonogh Rd., Owings Mills. 410-363-0600. Grades: K-12, coed. Enrollment: 1,298. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/8, 10/21, 11/10, 9 a.m. (lower); 10/18, 12:30-2:30 p.m. (middle); 10/18, 3-5 p.m. (upper)

Mercy High School

1300 E. Northern Pkwy. 410-433-8880. Grades: 9-12, All-female. Enrollment: 300. Affiliation: Catholic. 10/31, 10-1 p.m.

Mother Seton Academy

2215 Greenmount Ave. 410-563-2833. Grades: 6-8. Enrollment: 75. Affiliation: Catholic. 1/24, 12 p.m.

Mount de Sales Academy

700 Academy Rd., Catonsville. 410-744-8498. Grades: 9-12, All-female. Enrollment: 475. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 11/1, 12-3 p.m.

Mount Saint Joseph High School

4403 Frederick Ave. 410-644-3300. Grades: 9-12, All-male. Enrollment: 950. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 11/8, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Notre Dame Preparatory School

815 Hampton Ln., Towson. 410-825-6202. Grades: 6-12, All-female. Enrollment: 760. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 10/17, 8:30 a.m.-12 p.m.

The Odyssey School

3257 Bridle Ridge Ln., Stevenson. 410-580-5551. Grades: K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 152. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 1/20, 7-9 p.m.

Oldfields School

1500 Glencoe Rd., Sparks-Glencoe. 410-472-4800. Grades: 8-12, All-female. Enrollment: 180. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/25, 1-3 p.m.

Our Lady of Grace School

18310 Middletown Rd., Parkton. 410-329-6956. Grades: preschool-8, Coed. Enrollment: 169. Affiliation: Catholic. Call for times.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

1704 Old Eastern Ave. 410-686-4972. Grades: Preschool-12, Coed. Enrollment: 550. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 10/22, 6-9 p.m., grades 9-12; 11/19, 6:30-9:30 p.m., pre-k-8

Our Lady of Victory School

4416 Wilkens Ave. 410-242-3688. Grades: Pre-K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 298. Affiliation: Catholic. 11/11, 9-11:30 a.m., 1/29, 8:45-10:30 a.m.; 12/13, 11:30 a.m. open house

The Park School of Baltimore

2425 Old Court Rd., Brooklandville. 410-339-7070. Grades: Pre-K-12, Coed. Enrollment: 780. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/17, 1-3 p.m. (lower school), 11/8, 1-3 p.m. (middle & upper schools). Call for times of tours with principals

Redeemer Classical Christian School

6415 Mt. Vista Rd., Kingsville. 410-592-9625. Grades: Pre-K-12, Coed. Enrollment: 240. Affiliation: Christian. 11/12, 6:30 p.m.

Roland Park Country School

5204 Roland Ave. 410-323-5500. Grades: Pre-school-12, All-female except coed preschool. Enrollment: 667. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/18, 1:30-4 p.m.

St. James Academy

3100 Monkton Rd., Monkton. 410-771-4816. Grades: K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 300. Affiliation: Episcopalian. Call for times.

Saint James School

17641 College Rd., Hagerstown. 301-733-9330. Grades: 8-12, Coed. Enrollment: 225. Affiliation: Episcopalian. Call for times.

Sandy Spring Friends School

16923 Norwood Rd., Sandy Spring. 301-774-7455. Grades: Preschool-12, Coed. Enrollment: 570. Affiliation: Quaker. 10/18, 1-4 p.m.

School of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen

111 Amberly Way. 410-464-4100. Grades K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 420. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 11/3, 8:30-11:30 a.m.

St. Paul’s School

11152 Falls Rd., Brooklandville. 410-825-4400. Grades: K-4, lower school is coed. Grades: 5-12, middle/upper school is all-male. Enrollment: 766. Affiliation: Episcopalian. 10/16, 9-11 a.m. (lower), call for other dates. Several dates Oct. through Jan. for middle and upper schools. Call for times.

St. Paul’s School for Girls

11232 Falls Rd., Brooklandville. 410-823-6323. Grades: 5-12, All-female. Enrollment: 405. Affiliation: Episcopalian. Call for times.

St. Mark School

26 Melvin Ave., Catonsville. 410-744-6560. Grades: Pre-K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 373. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 11/12, 2/4, 9-11 a.m.

St. Timothy’s School

8400 Greenspring Ave., Stevenson. 410-486-7400, stt.org. Boarding and day, grades 9-12, All-female. Enrollment: 165. Affiliation: Episcopalian. 10/3, 11/14, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

St. Ursula School

8900 Harford Rd. 410-665-3533. Grades: pre-K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 640. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 11/11, 8:30-11 a.m., 1/26, 12:30-2:30 p.m.

St. Pius X School

6432 York Rd. 410-427-7400. Grades: Pre-K-8, Coed. Enrollment: 215. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 10/11, 11 a.m.-12 p.m.; 11/18, 8:30-11:30 a.m.

The Seton Keough High School

1201 Caton Ave. 410-646-4444. setonkeough.com. Grades: 9-12, All-female. Enrollment: 240. Affiliation: Roman Catholic. 10/24, 1-3 p.m.

Severn School (now merged with Chesapeake Academy)

201 Water St., Severna Park (middle and upper); 1185 Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd., Arnold (lower school). 410-647-7700. Grades: pre-K-12, coed Enrollment: 810. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 11/5, 7-9 p.m. (upper); 10/21, 7 p.m. (middle); 10/23, 9-11 a.m. (lower school)

Shady Side Academy Senior School

423 Fox Chapel Rd., Pittsburgh PA. 412-968-3180. shadysideacademy.org. Grades 9-12, coed, day & boarding. Enrollment: 500. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/31, 11 a.m.

The Waldorf School of Baltimore

4801 Tamarind Rd. 410-367-6808. Grades: nursery-8, Coed. Enrollment: 133. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. 10/25, 2-4 p.m., pre-k-8.

West Nottingham Academy

1079 Firetower Rd., Colora. 410-658-5556. Boarding/day, 9-12, Coed. Enrollment: 130. Affiliation: Non-sectarian. Call for tours.

Carol Adams-Knight and her husband, Sydney Knight, took an approach to planning their children’s educational future that could only be described as methodical. And it paid off.

As her middle school-aged daughters neared the end of their educations at Trinity School in Ellicott City, which culminates at eighth grade, she and her husband began the process of choosing an independent secondary school nearly two years before their eldest, Sereena, graduated.

“We did start the process a little bit earlier than maybe most people—I’ve heard from other parents that I started too early,” says Adams-Knight. “But I wouldn’t change anything.”

“After all, this is one of the most important decisions you’re going to make as parents,” she says. “It’s going to affect your children for the rest of their lives.”

First, the couple created a matrix of criteria (single-sex versus coed, distance from home or work, class size, budget, etc.) and came up with a preliminary list of potential schools to see how they stacked up. “We also looked at the college matriculations, what types of clubs they had, and the travel-abroad programs,” adds Adams-Knight.

Starting early allowed them to narrow the list to a handful of the most serious prospects. “The earlier you start the process, the earlier you’re able to eliminate,” she explains. “So, by the second serious year, you’re focusing on three or four choices, not six or seven.” Ultimately, the family applied to five schools and enrolled Sereena and Caroline in The Bryn Mawr School, a nonsectarian school for K-12 girls in Baltimore, for the 2016-2017 school year.

While the family considered schools based on many criteria, one stood out from the rest.

“Fundamentally, we really wanted to see that the academic curriculum was challenging for the girls,” she says. “That was a very important criteria, and we knew that Bryn Mawr had a great reputation in terms of the challenging curriculum.”

The Power of Independence

A personalized experience—for both children and their parents—is a hallmark of independent-school education. But what makes a school independent? According to the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), it’s the school’s philosophy (each is driven by a unique mission), as well as the way it is managed and financed (each is governed by an independent board of trustees rather than a public school board and supported by tuition and charitable contributions).

This independence allows schools to respond uniquely to each child’s needs. Other benefits include mission-driven education, high academic standards, small class sizes, excellent teachers, and diverse communities that value inclusiveness.

With dozens of these schools in the region—the Association of Independent Maryland and D.C. schools (AIMS) claims 123 member institutions, including a great many faith-based schools—there’s a perfect match for every child. But with so many options, finding the right fit for your family takes time.

To start, NAIS recommends creating a “wish list” to help guide your search. For instance, would your child thrive in a small or large community? Are you looking for day school or boarding school? Do you prefer a coeducational or single-sex environment? Would your child excel in any special programs, such as an emphasis in the arts or technology?

Mount Washington parents Angela Lima and Sergio Lima Arroyo, for example, knew their active children would benefit from play-based learning, so, at each prospective school, they asked about how much time students typically spend being active or outdoors.

During the selection process, Angela Lima reflected on her own educational experience. “To me, elementary school was reciting poetry and doing plays,” recalls the mother of three. “We were looking for a school where every student gets art education integrated into every program.”

After looking into several options, including local public schools, Lima was won over by The Waldorf School of Baltimore (WSB), a coed independent day school enrolling students from nursery school through eighth grade in Baltimore’s Cold Spring-Newton neighborhood.

“We know adults in every walk of life who have gone through Waldorf schools that are productive and good human beings,” says Lima, three of whose four children, Giorgio, 8, Vincent, 6, and Lucia, 3, all attend WSB. Developed by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1919, the Waldorf educational method emphasizes holistic learning with a foundation in imagination and curiosity.

Lima found the active curriculum, which emphasizes introducing the right material at the right time for each child, to be a good fit for her “ants-in-their-pants” sons. “We love that kids can be kids—that they’re nurtured and honored and that instructors get to know each child through hands-on discovery,” says Lima. “They aren’t chided for not sitting still.”

But it was more than the school’s unique educational philosophy that made it a good fit. The Limas say they felt valued from their first interaction with admissions. “It wasn’t a turnstile,” says Lima. “We felt that we counted, and the relationship felt personal.”

Making the Most of the Open House

Unlike public schools, which take in new students year-round, most independent schools follow an admissions process much like a college or university. Since the timeline can begin almost a year before new students would attend the school, NAIS recommends parents seek out deadlines early—for both admissions and financial aid—by calling or visiting the websites of potential schools. Then, keep careful track of the dates, and allow plenty of time to meet them.

Once you’ve defined your family’s ideal school and narrowed down a list of the best contenders, it’s time to see the schools in action. Open houses, held in the fall and winter, give parents an opportunity to experience an institution’s mission and environment for themselves. Individual school tours, planned in advance with the admissions department, offer parents and families a more personalized look at the school. 

“When you come to an open house or a visiting day, really dive into it,” suggests Pat Whitehead, executive director at The Waldorf School. Find out how the school will meet the needs of your child by asking questions—beyond what might be found on the brochure. “Your job is to dig deep, to ask as many questions as you want. Prepare your list of questions before you go into the school.”

While children should always be involved in the decision-making process, the degree obviously varies depending on age. “One of the hardest things for parents, particularly parents of kids going into middle school, is to be clear about who is making the decision,” says Whitehead. “You have to listen to your child’s experience and their feelings, but you should remember that you have their long-term needs in mind in a way that they don’t. The here and now is really important, and your child needs to feel heard. But so, too, is the long-term educational strategy, and the parents understand that.”

An integral way to involve children is through shadow days, where they are paired with a student ambassador and attend classes with them for all or part of a school day. Visit days offered Sereena and Caroline Knight the opportunity to get an inside look at schools and share their experiences with their parents. “We encouraged them to not just look at the person they’re shadowing with, but to look at the girls beyond that person. In some instances, we were surprised at the feedback,” says Knight. “But at Bryn Mawr, they definitely felt a connection that they told us about.”

In addition to the organized school tour and visit days, Angela Lima recommends parents get to know the school away from the glitz of admissions events. “Don’t just go through the steps the school wants, when they put their best foot forward,” she says. “Visit on random, non-open house days. Attend other events and interact with current students.” At Waldorf, she was won over by the sense of community evident in the everyday details—children there exuded warmth, holding doors open for one another and saying good morning.

“Don’t be frightened by the process,” advises Whitehead of WSB. Think of choosing the right school as establishing a partnership between parents and educators that begins from the first admissions inquiry and continues through graduation. “You’re going into a partnership that is going to last for quite some time,” she says. “The parents and school will hold that child between them. It’s not to be taken lightly.”

After several years of day care, Deserea Russell felt her oldest daughter, Madison Speaks, then 4 years old, was ready for a more stimulating environment that would prepare her for kindergarten.

So the Columbia mom, who had just made a move from Washington, D.C., began the search for pre-K programs in Howard County. After attending several open houses and applying to a few local schools, she was most impressed by Glenelg Country School in Ellicott City.

Each fall, families like the Russells across the Baltimore region enter the final stages of the independent-school research process—a sometimes daunting experience, which is why admissions advisors suggest starting at least one year in advance. Most open houses and admissions events begin in the fall, with final applications due in the winter, and acceptances and final selections in the spring.

For Russell, what was intended to be a pit-stop on the way to public kindergarten ended up igniting a passion for independent schooling. Seven years later, both of her daughters remain at Glenelg—Madison Speaks, now 11, entered sixth grade this fall, while her younger sister, Zaria, 8 years old, follows in third grade.

“Our intention was to move on from Glenelg after pre-K, but I went to a kindergarten informational for public school, and I was intimidated by how large the class sizes could be and how they weren’t offering some of the curriculum or programs that we had come to expect from GCS,” Russell recalls. “So we decided to stay there.”

With this in mind, Russell advises other parents to keep an open mind when it comes to educational options.

“Maybe you don’t expect to come this far out of your area, or pay tuition, or even choose a private school, but you have to do what’s best for your child,” she counsels. “Your child may not survive or thrive in a setting where there’s a lot of students and might not get that special attention they need.”

She says taking her 4-year-old daughter along to the open house and observing her interactions confirmed the family’s decision to choose Glenelg. Says Russell, “You can see in their eyes if they like it.”

Do Your Research

Finding the Right Match

With more than 120 independent schools in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region, there is an abundance of qualified institutions to fit each child’s needs. To find the right match, it’s important to determine your family’s top priorities in a school, from its price and location to learning style and diversity.

First, it’s a good idea for families to establish a set of basic criteria that they’d like in a potential school. Weigh options such as faith-based or nondenominational, co-ed or single gender, traditional or progressive, large or small, cost, and local, commuting, or boarding programs.

Once the family’s criteria has been established, the next step is prioritizing which elements are most important, for example, a religious framework or the teaching philosophy, since it may not be possible to meet both criteria in a single institution.

With their priorities defined and at top of mind, families can better evaluate a school during admissions events. “Having reviewed the website ahead of time and coming with questions that they can address while they’re here is extremely helpful for parents to make the most effective use of their time while they’re at an open house,” says Karen Wootton, director of admissions at Glenelg Country School.

Located on a 90-acre campus in Ellicott City, the school enrolls students in pre-K through 12th grade.

While cost is a very important factor in a family’s final choice, Wootton suggests parents not cross any schools off their list based on tuition alone.

“Families who need to seek financial aid are sometimes reluctant to share that information from the start because they’re afraid that it might jeopardize or affect somehow the success of their application process,” she says. “The fact of the matter is, it does not. And I don’t know of any independent schools out there that consider whether a family is applying for aid or not in their admission process.”

In Baltimore, the median day school tuition for the 2017-2018 academic year was $23,840, according to the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). A third of the region’s more than 46,000 students received financial aid, with the average award for a single student at $13,354. That’s about 56 percent of the average tuition price—and a big difference in affordability for most families. (For more about how to afford a private-school tuition, see our sidebar on footing the bill.)

In fact, Wootton emphasizes the importance of transparency in all aspects of the application process. “It’s important for families to be open about their needs,” she says. “Don’t hide anything from the school, because it’s only to the child’s benefit when the parents and the school work together to make sure that we have all of the information that we need in making sure that it will be a good fit for the student.”

Prioritization allows families to narrow down the serious contenders on their list and focus their efforts during the next step of the school selection process: open houses and visit days.

The First Look

Navigating the Open House

Most Baltimore-area schools hold open houses for prospective families during October and November. Don’t be shy about checking these events out, either, even if your child won’t be applying the same year.

Rossini suggests parents attend open houses the year before they plan to start the application process.

At The Park School, a co-ed, nonsectarian pre-K-12 school in Baltimore County, formal admissions events include tours with principals, open houses, parent interviews and tours, and student visit days. Ranked in the top 10 percent of private K-12 schools in the country by Niche, a website with comprehensive rankings and report cards for schools and neighborhoods across the country, Park was founded in 1912 and is rooted in the progressive educational philosophy of John Dewey. It has 820 students making up its lower, middle, and upper schools.

“Sometimes parents visit a school with specific expectations about what they will see and hear,” says Ruthie Kalvar, director of admissions at Park. “It may close them off to aspects of school life that they never even thought about.” Instead, Kalvar suggests families learn about the school’s philosophy and then look for it in action. At Park, that philosophy includes curriculum devoted to intellectual inquiry, experiential analysis, and collaboration.

“During a visit, we recommend looking for students who are really engaged and thinking, rather than being told what to think, memorizing, and repeating,” says Kalvar. “Your observations and responses to your questions should reveal the opportunities that students have for growth, for individual and collaborative challenges, and for the opportunities they have to develop and pursue passions both inside and outside of the classroom.”

The chance to get on campus, see facilities in person, and meet faculty and staff at an open house may be enough to drop a few options off your list, or push others to the top. But admissions professionals agree it’s just the first step in getting to know a school’s inner workings.

“Stay engaged with the school. Attend events that you are invited to, not only open-house events but musicals, plays, sporting events. Read the school’s newspaper if they have one, and any magazines that are sent home to you,” says Wootton. “Try your best to understand the culture of the school to help you know if it’s the best fit for your child. There are many options out there, just as there are when students are looking at colleges. Each school presents unique qualities that may or may not be the right fit for every child, but just try to do your homework throughout the admissions process.”

Third Base

Completing the Application Process

You’ve made your lists, done your research, and picked your top contenders. Now it’s time for the application process, which wraps up in the winter months of December and January for most local schools.

If your child has his or her heart set on a specific school, do what you can to demonstrate that to the admissions team, both in your application and by attending as many prospective events as possible.

For older children, Glenelg conducts an interview during the shadow day.

“I always enjoy it when the student shares something with me that helps me remember who they are—not just their favorite class in school or what kind of sports they play, but maybe a story that they can tell me about a project that they completed, or a trip they took, or something that is unique about them,” she suggests. Stories like these can help the child stand out in the minds of admissions professionals. “If they can think of something ahead of time to talk about for their interview, that can be very helpful for the student.”

Families that approach the application process with a positive mindset have the most to benefit, says The Park School’s Kalvar.

“You will not only learn about schools and their distinctive features, but you’ll also gain immeasurable insight into your child, your family, and Baltimore, too,” she says. “It’s always interesting to hear opinions about schools, but it’s a good idea for families to remember that people look at schools through different lenses. What feels right for one student and family might not feel right for another. Context is important, and you should set out to gather as much first-hand information as possible.”

Kalvar points to the school’s sense of community as one of the best indicators of a potential fit. “Make sure you feel welcomed and comfortable and that the school understands and appreciates who your child is,” she says. “It’s important to remember that today’s parents must consider what’s possible beyond their own experiences they had in school. Twenty-first century learning requires a different sort of engagement on the part of students. Keep an eye out for schools that are willing to grow and change—and get excited for the new possibilities that lie ahead for your child.”

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Archbishop Curley High School
Lower Open house: 10/27 and 10/28, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
3701 Sinclair Ln. 410-485-5000.
Grades: 9-12, all male. Enrollment: 560. Affiliation: Roman Catholic/Franciscan.

Archbishop Spalding High School
Open house: 10/28, 12-3 p.m.
8080 New Cut Rd. Severn. 410-969-9105.
Grades: 9-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 1,253. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

The Auburn School, Baltimore Campus
Open house: 10/3, 9-11 a.m.
7401 Park Heights Ave. Pikesville. 410-617-0418.
Grades: K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 63. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Baltimore Lab School
Open house: Third Thursday breakfast tour each month 9-10:15 a.m.
2220 St. Paul St. 410-261-5500.
Grades: 1-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 137. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Beth El @ Federal Hill
Open house: Call for tour information. 1530 Battery Ave. 410-528-6001.
Grades: 2-5 years of age, co-ed. Enrollment: 40. Affiliation: Jewish.

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Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School
Lower School Open House: 11/16 and 12/5, 8:45 a.m. Middle School Open House: 11/27, 7 p.m. High School Open House: 11/19, 7 p.m.
3300 Old Court Rd. Pikesville. 410-486-1905.
Grades: 15 months-grade 12, co-ed. Enrollment: 950. Affiliation: Jewish.

The Boys’ Latin School of Maryland
Open House: 10/14, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
822 W. Lake Ave. 410-377-5192.
Grades: K-12, all-male. Enrollment: 630. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

The Bryn Mawr School
Open House: 10/21, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
109 W. Melrose Ave. 410-323-8800.
Grades: K-12, all-female except co-ed Little School. Enrollment: 678. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Calvert Hall College High School
Open House: 11/11, 12-4 p.m.
8102 La Salle Rd. 410-825-4266.
Grades: 9-12, all-male. Enrollment: 1,175. Affiliation: Roman Catholic and Lasallian.

Calvert School
Open House: 10/18, 11/14, 9-11 a.m.
105 Tuscany Rd. 410-243-6054.
Grades: K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 592. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Cambridge School
Open House: 10/15, 9-11 a.m., 10/16, 6:30-8 p.m., 11/5, 9 a.m., 3/7, 9-11 a.m.
110 Sudbrook Ln. Pikesville. 410-486-3686.
Grades: K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 121. Affiliation: Christian.

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The Catholic High School of Baltimore
Open House: 10/20, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
2800 Edison Hwy. 410-732-6200.
Grades: 9-12, all-female. Enrollment: 320. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

Columbia Academy Elementary and Middle School
Open House: Call for times.
10350 Old Columbia Rd. Columbia. 410-312-7413.
Grades: Junior K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 150. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Concordia Preparatory School
Open House: 10/13, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
1145 Concordia Dr., Towson. 410-825-2323.
Grades: 6-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 310. Affiliation: Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

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Eastern Technical High School
Open House: 10/18, 6-8 p.m.
1100 Mace Ave., Essex. 410-809-0190.
Grades: 9-12, co-ed. Enrollment: approx. 1,181. Affiliation: Non-sectarian, public.

Fork Union Military Academy
Open House: Call for appointment.
4744 James Madison Hwy. Fork Union, Virginia. 1-800-GO-2-FUMA (1-800-462-3862).
Grades: 7-12, and post-grad program, boarding, all-male. Enrollment: approx. 367. Affiliation: Christian.

Friends School of Baltimore
Open House: First Look@Friends: Several dates Oct-Jan, 9-11am.
5114 N. Charles St. 410-649-3200.
Grades: Pre-K-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 803. Affiliation: Quaker.

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Garrison Forest School
Open House: Parent visit days, Lower school: 10/12, 8 -10 a.m.; Middle school: 10/24, 7:45-9:30 a.m.; Upper school: 10/25, 8-10 a.m.
300 Garrison Forest Rd., Owings Mills. 410-363-1500.
Grades: Pre-K-12, all-female except co-ed pre-K. Enrollment: 550. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Gilman School
Open House: Call for times, 10/5 through 11/30.
5407 Roland Ave. 410-323-3800.
Grades: K-12, all-male. Enrollment: 1,023. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Glenelg Country School
Open House: 10/19, 11/6, 12/5, 9 a.m.
12793 Folly Quarter Rd. Ellicott City. 410-531-8600.
Grades: age 2-grade 12, co-ed. Enrollment: 750. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Greenspring Montessori School
Open House: Call for times.
10807 Tony Dr., Lutherville-Timonium. 410-321-8555.
Grades: 18 months-grade 9, co-ed. Enrollment: 252. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

The Highlands School
Open House: Call to schedule tour.
2409 Creswell Rd. Bel Air. 410-836-1415.
Grades: 1-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 80/rolling admissions. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Harford Day School
Open House: 11/6, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
715 Moores Mill Rd. Bel Air. 410-838-4848.
Grades: Pre-K (age 3)-grade 8, co-ed. Enrollment: 300. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Immaculate Conception School
Open House: Middle School: 10/18, 6:30-8:30 p.m.; Pre-K to Grade 8: 11/8, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
112 Ware Ave., Towson. 410-427-4903.
Grades: Pre-K (age 3)-grade 8, co-ed. Enrollment: 535. Affiliation: Catholic.

Institute of Notre Dame Open House: 11/3, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
901 Aisquith St. 410-522-7800.
Grades: 9-12, all-female. Enrollment: 354. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

Jemicy School Open House: Call to schedule tour.
11202 Garrison Forest Rd., Owings Mills (upper school). 11 Celadon Rd., Owings Mills (lower and middle schools) 410-653-2700.
Grades: 1-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 394. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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John Carroll School Open House: 10/27, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
703 E. Churchville Rd. Bel Air. 410-879-2480.
Grades: 9-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 659. Affiliation: Catholic.

Krieger Schechter Day School
Open House: 11/28, 7 p.m. Drop-in days: 10/17, 12/12, 1/9, 9 a.m.
8100 Stevenson Rd. 410-486-8640.
Grades: K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 295. Affiliation: Jewish.

Loyola Blakefield
Open House: 10/21, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
500 Chestnut Ave., Towson. 410-823-0601.
Grades: 6-12, all-male. Enrollment: 970. Affiliation: Jesuit Catholic

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Maryvale Preparatory School
Upper School: 9/28 and 10/25, 8:30 a.m., Middle School: 10/12 and 11/6, 8:30 a.m.
11300 Falls Rd. Lutherville. 410-252-3366.
Grades: 6-12, all-female. Enrollment: 425. Affiliation: Catholic.

McDonogh School
Upper School: 10/28, 3-5 p.m. Middle School: 10/28, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Lower School: 10/11, 10/24, 11/6, 9 a.m.
8600 McDonogh Rd. Owings Mills. 410-363-0600.
Grades: Pre-K-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 1,384. Affiliation: Non-sectarian

Mercersburg Academy
Open House: 10/8, 12/10, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
300 E. Seminary St. Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. 717-328-6173.
Grades: 9-12, plus post-grad year, boarding, and day, co-ed. Enrollment: 435. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Mercy High School
Open House: 10/20, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
1300 E. Northern Pkwy. 410-433-8880.
Grades: 9-12, all-female. Enrollment: 350. Affiliation: Catholic.

Mother Seton Academy
Open House: 11/4, 12-3 p.m.
2215 Greenmount Ave. 410-563-2833.
Grades: 6-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 75. Affiliation: Catholic.

Mount de Sales Academy
Open House: 11/4, 12-3 p.m.
700 Academy Rd. Catonsville 410-744-8498.
Grades: 9-12, all-female. Enrollment: 510. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

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Mount Saint Joseph High School
Open House: 10/28, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
4403 Frederick Ave. 410-644-3300.
Grades: 9-12, all-male. Enrollment: 924. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

Notre Dame Preparatory School
Open House: 10/13, 8:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
815 Hampton Ln. Towson. 410-825-6202.
Grades: 6-12, all-female. Enrollment: 800. Affiliation: Catholic.

The Odyssey School
Open House: Call for tour times.
3257 Bridle Ridge Ln. Stevenson. 410-580-5551.
Grades: K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 164. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Oldfields School
Open House: 11/12, call for times.
1500 Glencoe Rd. Sparks Glencoe. 410-472-4800.
Grades: 8-12, all-female. Enrollment: 180. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Our Lady of Grace Pre-school
Open House: 9/18, 9-11 a.m.
18310 Middletown Rd. Parkton. 410-329-6956.
Grades: Preschool, co-ed. Enrollment: 35. Affiliation: Catholic.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Open House: Call for times.
1704 Old Eastern Ave. Essex. 410-686-4972.
Grades: Pre-K-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 502. Affiliation: Catholic.

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Our Lady of Perpetual Help School
Open House: 10/17, 10 a.m.; 11/14, 10. a.m.; 12/6, 7 p.m.
4801 Ilchester Rd. Ellicott City. 410-744-4251.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 240. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

Our Lady of Victory Catholic School
Open House: 11/16, 9-11 a.m.
4416 Wilkens Ave. 410-242-3688.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed Enrollment: 194. Affiliation: Catholic.

The Park School of Baltimore
Open House: Call for times.
2425 Old Court Rd. 410-339-7070.
Grades: Pre-K-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 822. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Pauline Mash School for Early Childhood Education
Open House: Call for tour information.
8101 Park Heights Ave. 410-602-2245.
Grades: 8 weeks-5 years of age, co-ed. Enrollment: 120. Affiliation: Jewish.

Peabody Preparatory Institute of The Johns Hopkins University
Open House: Call for times.
21 E. Mount Vernon Pl. 667-208-6640.
Grades: Music and dance instruction for all ages and abilities, co-ed. Enrollment: Approx. 2,000 per week at four locations. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Redeemer Classical Christian School
Open House: 11/1, 6:30-8 p.m.
6415 Mount Vista Rd. Kingsville. 410-592-9625.
Grades: Pre-K-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 250. Affiliation: Christian.

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Roland Park Country School
Open House: Middle/upper school: 10/14, 1-4 p.m. Lower school: Several dates October-January, 8:30-10 a.m., call for dates.
5204 Roland Ave. 410-323-5500.
Grades: Pre-K-12, all-female except co-ed preschool. Enrollment: 610. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

St. Francis of Assisi School
Open House: 10/6, 12-2 p.m.
3617 Harford Rd. 410-467-1683.
Grades: Pre- K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 260. Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

St. James Academy
Open House: 11/15, 9-10:30 a.m. Coffee with headmaster: 11/29, 12/5, 8:30-9:30 a.m.
3100 Monkton Rd. Monkton. 410-568-7573.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 300. Affiliation: Episcopalian.

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Saint James School
Open House: 10/20, 1/21, call for times.
17641 College Road, Hagerstown. 301-733-9330.
Grades: 8-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 238. Affiliation: Episcopalian.

St. John’s Parish Day School
Open House: Call for times.
9130 Frederick Rd. Ellicott City. 410-465-7644.
Grades: Age 3-grade 5, co-ed. Enrollment: 350. Affiliation: Episcopalian.

St. Mark School
Open House: 10/8, 11/12, 9-11 a.m.; 1/29, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.; 3/14, 9-11 a.m.; 4/16, 1-3 p.m.; 5/1, 9-11 a.m. 26 Melvin Ave. Catonsville. 410-744-6560.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 340. Affiliation: Catholic.

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St. Paul’s School

Open House: Upper School: 10/4, 11/8, 12/6, 8:45-10:15 a.m., Middle School: 10/2, 10/23, 11/13, 12/4, 8:45-10:15 a.m., Lower School: 10/16, 9-11 a.m.
11152 Falls Rd. Brooklandville. 410-823-0061.
Grades: Pre-K-4, lower school is co-ed. Grades: 5-12, middle/upper school is all-male. Enrollment: 758. Affiliation: Episcopalian.

St. Paul’s School for Girls
Parent information sessions: Upper School: 10/23; middle school: 10/26; Joint middle and upper school open house: 11/7.
11232 Falls Rd. Brooklandville. 410-632-1082.
Grades: Infants-grade 4, co-ed; 5-12, all-female. Enrollment: 444. Affiliation: Episcopalian.

St. Timothy’s School
Open House: 10/20, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
8400 Greenspring Ave. Stevenson. 410-486-7401.
Grades: 9-12, boarding and day, all-female. Enrollment: 200. Affiliation: Episcopalian.

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St. Ursula School
Open House: 11/16, 8:30-11 a.m., 1/27, 1-3 p.m.
8900 Harford Rd. Parkville. 410-665-3533.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 639. Affiliation: Catholic.

St. Pius X School
Open House: Call for times.
6432 York Rd. 410-427-7400.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 170. Affiliation: Catholic.

Sandy Spring Friends School
Open House: 10/14, 1-3:30 p.m.; 5/21, 8:15-11 a.m.
16923 Norwood Rd. Sandy Spring. 301-774-7455.
Grades: Pre-K-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 575. Affiliation: Quaker.

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The School of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen

Open House: 10/9, 11/16, 1/29, 4/16, 8:30-11:30 a.m.
111 Amberly Way. 410-464-4100.
Grades: K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 377. Affiliation: Catholic.

Severn School (now merged with Chesapeake Academy)
Open House: Call for times.
1185 Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd., Arnold (lower school) and 201 Water St., Severna Park (middle/upper school). 410-647-7700.
Grades: Pre-K-12, co-ed. Enrollment: 844. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

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Shady Side Academy Senior School
Open House. Call for times.
423 Fox Chapel Rd. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 412-968-3000.
Grades: 9-12, co-ed, day and boarding. Enrollment: 460. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Springdale Preparatory School
Open House: Call for Times.
1000 Green Valley Rd. New Windsor. 855-405-8600.
Grades: 5-12, day and boarding, co-ed. Enrollment: TBA. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

Trinity School
Open House: All grades: 10/12, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.; kingergarten: 11/8, 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m.; all grades: 11/11, 11 a.m. after 10 a.m. mass; 12/6, all grades: 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
4985 Ilchester Rd. Ellicott City. 443-498-5040.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 350. Affiliation: Catholic.

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Waldorf School of Baltimore
Open House: Call for times.
4801 Tamarind Rd. 410-367-6808.
Grades: Pre-K-8, co-ed. Enrollment: 133. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

West Nottingham Academy
Open House: Call for times.
1079 Firetower Rd. Colora. 410-658-5556.
Grades: 9-12, day and boarding, co-ed. Enrollment: 130. Affiliation: Non-sectarian.

John Paterakis, 87

For good reason he was called the Bread Man: John Paterakis’ family-owned company, H&S Bakery, with him at its helm, has produced kazillions of loaves, rolls, muffins, and bagels over the past seven-plus decades. Additionally, through its Northeast Foods subsidiary, H&S has cranked out an untold number of hamburger buns as the principal supplier for McDonald’s. Of course, the nickname also applies to Paterakis’ multimillionaire status.

And yet, he was a decidedly unpretentious man, who lived in the same Timonium home for nearly 50 years, drove the same car until its odometer exceeded 200,000 miles, and dressed casually, seldom seen in a suit. But despite the pains he took to operate under the public radar, Paterakis nonetheless left an indisputable imprint on the city and state. As a developer, he transformed the once-desolate waterfront between Fells Point and the Inner Harbor into a gleaming mix of shops, residences, offices, and hotels, collectively known as Harbor East. As a philanthropist, he generously supported the Ronald McDonald House charities, Greek businesses, and Greek Orthodox churches. And as a political kingmaker, he contributed significant sums to the campaigns of governors (Spiro Agnew, Marvin Mandel) and mayors (William Donald Schaefer, Kurt Schmoke, Sheila Dixon, Catherine Pugh).

Paterakis’ extraordinary success stemmed, in part, from his intrepidness: spending $1.5 million (in 1965, a lot of dough) on an automated, mass-production plant to manufacture buns for McDonald’s before he had secured a deal with the fast-food behemoth; and shelling out $11 million in 1985 on behalf of the cash-strapped city to develop that decrepit waterfront strip curiously called the Gold Coast, and then forging ahead with the project when the city refused to honor its pledge to buy back the land.

“John Paterakis was the quintessential self-made businessman,” notes Donald Fry, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee. “He not only built a great company, but was completely dedicated to Baltimore and making it a great place to live, work, and raise a family.

“The city is fortunate that Mr. Paterakis had the foresight and willingness to take a risk and develop the challenged stretch of land that we now call Harbor East. That area is now recognized as a crown jewel for Baltimore, and has been a catalyst for jobs and economic activity. His legacy as a business and civic leader will run deep in the city’s blood for many, many decades.”

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Helen Delich Bentley, 92

Helen Delich Bentley brought a combative nature and a sharp tongue to her roles as a reporter covering the port of Baltimore, chair of the Federal Maritime Commission, and Republican congresswoman who served from 1985 to 1995—attributes forged during her upbringing amid challenging circumstances in rural Nevada. That intensity and fierceness earned her both friends and enemies in high places. Throughout, she tirelessly championed the city, the state, and, especially, the port, heading the maritime commission during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Today, the port bears her name.

In 1994, she achieved a rare setback, losing the Republican gubernatorial primary to Ellen Sauerbrey. Afterward, she worked as a lobbyist for the maritime and defense industries.

“She came up when women weren’t supposed to accomplish anything,” says David Blumberg, the chair of the Maryland Parole Commission and a decades-long Bentley friend. “When they hired her at The Sun, she said, ‘I’m not doing society stuff, I’m not doing cooking things, I’m not doing helpful hints—I’m a reporter.’ So they made her their port reporter, which was the most untenable position possible for a woman. But she embraced that, because she was as tough as any longshoreman she had to cover. The thing with Helen was, yeah, she had salty language and everybody knew it, but she could communicate with that segment so effectively . . . she was able to transcend any kind of difference that she may have had with people she was writing about or representing or serving.”

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David Modell, 56

Former Baltimore Ravens president, and son of Art Modell, David Modell passed away after battling lung cancer for nearly two years. Modell worked his way up the gridiron corporate ladder, starting as a grounds crew member for the Cleveland Browns when he was just 14 years old and eventually becoming president of the Ravens, a title he held from 1996 until 2004.

During his tenure, David made many monumental decisions for the organization including the hiring of former head coach Brian Billick, which led to the team’s first Super Bowl victory in 2000. “The foundation he laid led to one of the model franchises, I believe, in the NFL,” the team’s senior VP of public and community relations Kevin Byrne told BaltimoreRavens.com. “One of his keys, like his father, was he wanted the fans involved.”

In the wake of Modell’s death,The Ravens shared a story that exemplified just that: After the team had flown back from Tampa following its first Super Bowl win, they stopped right outside M&T Bank Stadium so that a crowd of fans could hold the Lombardi Trophy, which went on a tour for a year after that. “He wanted to get 100,000 fingerprints on it,” Byrne said. “He wanted the community to enjoy the trophy.”

In addition, it was Modell who was instrumental in getting the fans’ input on the team’s name and colors, as well as what amenities would be included inside M&T Bank Stadium. Modell also made sure to include a nod to Baltimore’s football past by resurrecting the “Marching Ravens” band, which played for the Baltimore Colts. “He is the godfather of the Marching Ravens,” band president John Ziemann told BaltimoreRavens.com. “I always told him he was the P.T. Barnum of the league.”

After 2004, Modell served as a consultant for the team, as well as on the board of directors of 3ality Technica, a 3D broadcast company. He lived in Baltimore with his wife, Michel, and their twins, daughter “Fee” (Aoife) and son “Bertie” (Bertram). He is also survived by daughters Breslin and Collier, and sons Arthur and David Jr., as well as his older brother John.

Modell was lauded for his accomplishments by the local media including Baltimore, which named him to our “40 Under 40” list in June 2001. “Luck clearly plays a role in getting to and winning the Super Bowl,” he told us. “But if you dream big dreams, are relentless in your pursuit of those dreams, and never give up, great things will happen. —Jess Mayhugh

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HARRIS / The Baltimore Sun

W. Dale Hess, 86

Like the home run kings of baseball’s so-called steroid era, W. Dale Hess—a successful Harford County developer, businessman, and farmer who served in the General Assembly for 15 years—will forever have the equivalent of an asterisk placed beside his name, based on his conviction in federal court on charges of mail fraud and racketeering in connection with a complicated racetrack scandal that also brought down former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel.

Elected to the House of Delegates as a Democrat in 1954, Hess ascended through the ranks as a key ally of Mandel, eventually serving as vice chair of the House’s powerful Maryland Ways and Means Committee. He also accumulated tracts of land in Harford County.

In 1970, Hess gave up his General Assembly post to become a vice president of Tidewater Insurance, a company that, five years later, became entwined in a federal corruption probe involving Mandel. Ultimately, Hess, Mandel, and four others were found guilty in 1977. (Hess served 18 months of a three-year sentence; in 1987, their convictions were overturned on what amounted to a technicality.)

Hess resumed working as a developer, owning apartment buildings, a shopping center, and a fast-food franchise. But his legacy remains tied to his participation in the racetrack scandal. In Thimbleriggers, Brad Jacobs’ perceptive 1984 book about Mandel, Hess is described as “a former Future Farmer of America who graduated to millionaire political fixer.”

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Quentin Lawson, 83

Quietly, doggedly, and professionally, Quentin Lawson spent more than 40 years performing the kinds of man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit administrative tasks that advance public agendas rather than personal ones. In other words, he never created headlines. And yet his management and policy-making expertise in human services, leadership development, and, most notably, education, bettered countless lives, particularly those of African Americans.

For city schools, he oversaw teacher-training programs and an initiative to decrease dropout rates. For the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, which he co-founded, Lawson sought to increase the number of African Americans in the top ranks of government.

Courtesy of The Baltimore Sun

As executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, he wove the connective tissue among academic, nonprofit, and government institutions necessary to improve African Americans’ economic, educational, and political standing.

Finally, as head of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, he worked to enhance the educational experience for teachers, administrators, and, especially, students. Nancy Grasmick, former state superintendent of schools and now the Presidential Scholar for Innovation in Teacher and Leader Preparation at Towson University, points out that “Quentin Lawson was recognized in this state and the nation as a policy expert on education who advocated for high-quality education for African-American children before this goal was on the national agenda.”

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Daniel Berrigan, 94

Handsome, urbane, and uncompromising, Daniel Berrigan came across as the undisputed rock star among the activist, renegade Catholic priests who, beginning in the 1960s, protested against the Vietnam War and nuclear arms in particular, plus racial, social, political, and economic injustice in general.

An award-winning poet and prolific author, Berrigan—along with brother Philip, also a Catholic priest, and seven others—staged a non-violent signal event in the anti-war movement: the 1968 ritual burning of draft cards at the Catonsville Selective Service draft board. Their group’s subsequent trial on charges of destroying government property galvanized activists nationwide. Found guilty, the Berrigan brothers went underground but were quickly arrested, with Daniel serving about two years in a federal prison. (Philip served two and a half years.) Daniel’s one-act play based on court transcripts, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, was made into a 1972 film produced by Gregory Peck.

Together, in 1980 the Berrigans established the no-nukes Plowshares Movement, their efforts resulting in repeated arrests, once for taking hammers to nuclear warheads at a weapons plant in 1980. Later, Daniel worked with AIDS patients and stoked the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

“His death symbolizes an ending of an era,” notes veteran local peace and justice activist Max Obuszewski. “One of my great memories is getting arrested with Dan in New York City’s Times Square as we protested Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program. Afterwards, the arrestees gathered at Dan’s apartment in Manhattan, a combination art gallery and resistance museum. Historic memorabilia covered most of the wall space.

“His wake and funeral at St. Francis Xavier church in Manhattan were memorable for the number of people who came out to honor this revolutionary. Before the funeral, hundreds of us marched in the rain from Maryhouse [where The Catholic Worker newspaper is published] in the East Village to the church. At the altar there was a banner that read, ‘Daniel Berrigan: priest, poet, prophet presente.’”

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AP Photo/NFL Photos

Willie Richardson, 76

While most of his teammates turned in subpar performances in the Baltimore Colts’ shocking 16-7 loss to the underdog New York Jets in 1969’s Super Bowl III, wide receiver Willie Richardson shone, catching six passes for a total of 58 yards. That came as no surprise, considering he was coming off sensational back-to-back seasons in 1967 and 1968, during which he caught a combined 100 passes, including 16 for touchdowns, efforts that earned him two-time Pro-Bowl status.

Drafted by the Colts in 1963 out of Jackson State College (now University), Richardson—a relatively diminutive 6 feet 1 inch and 198 pounds—played seven seasons with the team, then spent one with the Miami Dolphins, before finishing his career back with the Colts. Overall, he caught 195 passes for 2,950 yards and 25 touchdowns, retiring after the 1971 season. But he stayed in town, where he owned a liquor store, helmed sports director duties at Channel 45, and served as football coach at Johns Hopkins. In 1980, he returned to his native Mississippi, working for the state government for 25 years.

“He had all the attributes of being a phenomenal, all-around athlete,” recalls Richardson’s former Colts teammate, running back Tom Matte. “He had great hands for receiving and was wonderfully coordinated. [Colts quarterback Johnny] Unitas had a a lot of confidence in him. Willie would always get out there and get open, and that’s what helped keep us going. He was one of the integral parts of our team when we had so much success, when we were very, very close-knit.”

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Ted Marchibroda, 84

Moving over from his post as offensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins, Ted Marchibroda assumed head coach duties for a 1975 Baltimore Colts squad that the previous season had chalked up a woeful record of two wins, 12 losses. He quickly reversed the team’s fortunes, as the Colts went 10-4 to cop the AFC East division title, then repeated as division champs in 1976 and ’77, although they lost in the first round of the playoffs all three years. After dismal seasons in 1978 and ’79, he was fired.

An innovator, Marchibroda pioneered the hurry-up/no-huddle offense as offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills from 1989 to 1991, a team that made it to the Super Bowl four consecutive times (1990 to 1993).

AP Photo/Darron Cummings

Later, he revived a moribund Indianapolis Colts franchise, and, in 1996, returned to Baltimore to serve as the Ravens’ first head coach, retiring after three losing seasons.

“He was a man of vision when it came to professional football,” recalls former Colts defensive back Bruce Laird, who played under Marchibroda from 1975 to 1979. “He developed the three-wide-receivers formation before anyone was really into it. But the biggest thing about Ted was he knew how to talk to his football team and how to have them understand that winning is a process. In the NFL, just wanting to be a winner is not enough: You have to work at it, you have to believe in it—and he was able to get that across to 50-some guys year-in, year-out.

“He talked to his team every day. I thought that was very important. We had a rapport. He knew his players, their personalities, their likes and dislikes. He was a gentleman who really taught a group of young men how to win.”

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Louis Grasmick, 91

Louis Grasmick batted a thousand—literally! Justly hailed for his achievements as a businessman, developer, philanthropist, and political go-to guy for Mayor William Donald Schaefer, Grasmick also holds the obscure but noteworthy distinction of briefly playing major league baseball, pitching in two games for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1948, and connecting for a hit in his lone at-bat.

More pertinently, Grasmick expanded his Pier 6-located lumber company from a small operation catering to the maritime industry into an international concern. Locally, he supplied goods to the National Aquarium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and the World Trade Center. Additionally, his company helped plan and develop The Anchorage condos.

A key member of Schaefer’s kitchen cabinet, Grasmick spearheaded a successful city initiative to raise money to house the homeless, and put time and energy into his role on the board of the Department of Recreation and Parks.

Ever charitable, Grasmick, along with his wife, former state schools superintendent Nancy Grasmick, gifted the Johns Hopkins Heart Institute with $2 million and, at Schaefer’s urging, convinced his long-time friend, ex-City Solicitor and Judge George L. Russell Jr., to head the commission that launched the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture.

“He was such a bright star in this community,” recalls Russell. “Beginning in the early ’70s with a drive to build the new Provident Hospital, we participated together in a lot of charitable events. There were so many things he was involved with, particularly as a top fundraiser for various projects and causes. He was just so dedicated to public service.”

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Courtesy of The Baltimore Sun

Leroy “Roy” Hoffberger, 91

After securing grants and donations from businesses and foundations, plus state bond money, the American Visionary Art Museum needed one last financial infusion to ensure its 1995 opening. Unhesitatingly, AVAM co-founder Roy Hoffberger—attorney, businessman, philanthropist, and art collector—reached into his own pocket to auction off a clutch of his cherished German Expressionist works on paper.

Hoffberger personified menschdom, walking the walk and talking the talk, a philosophy encapsulated in the subtitle of his 2014 memoir Measure of a Life: What we leave behind is far more important than how far we get ahead.

His family’s foundation, which he chaired, has benefited numerous local medical, academic, and religious programs, and he gave privately, too.

“Roy had so much impact on the arts in Baltimore in so many directions,” says former BMA director Doreen Bolger. “It’s actually hard for me to think of anyone else who approaches his stature. He was a co-founder of AVAM. He was chairman of the board and a major donor to MICA, arguably the nation’s leading art school—the graduate program in painting bears his name. He formed an amazing collection of rare German Expressionist works, a significant number of which have been given to the BMA. Any one of these legacies would qualify him for everlasting gratitude. But all three? Wow!”

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Thomas Ward, 89

In 2007, a Bolton Hill burglar found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Retired judge and former Baltimore City Council member Tom Ward, 80 at the time and out for a walk in his neighborhood, heard cries for help and leaped into action, tackling the suspect (6 feet tall!) and holding him until police arrived.

An attorney, Korean War veteran, and long-tenured member of the Mount Royal Democratic Club, Ward loved the city, working hard to protect its historic fabric. In 1967, he alone among council members voted against the proposed East-West Expressway, which would have wiped out vast swathes of several neighborhoods, particularly Fells Point. Ward also co-founded the Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point.

Jed Kirschbaum / The Baltimore Sun

He was elected to the Baltimore Circuit Court in 1982, retiring in 1997, and, in 2014, was appointed chairman of the Baltimore City Liquor Board.

“One of the best friends that I ever had, who was originally a political enemy,” says city councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke. “We went to war every time there was an election. But I’ll never forget the most wonderful thing happened: At one time, finally, I was invited to the Mount Royal Christmas party at Maryland Institute, and Tom Ward was there to welcome me. And it was like a coming-out party for me, like I had really made it. He was a skinny Irish guy with all the power they bring to every challenge. And he just never quit. He was honest, he was insistently ethical, and he was wonderfully loved—and feared.”

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Allan Prell, 79

An unusual combination of creative showman and meticulous newsman, WBAL Radio talk show host Allan Prell entertained listeners with novel antics, and, not incidentally, brought a left-of-center point of view to a station dominated by conservative on-air commentators. For example, there was the time Prell presided over a passel of taffy makers while broadcasting from WBAL’s penthouse. And the time listeners ear-witnessed the predictable chaos that ensued when he brewed root beer amid the comings and goings of colleagues in the station’s elevator. Not forgetting his weekly Craigslist-like “Honest Al’s Yard Sale,” whereby he hawked sundry items—some in worse-for-wear condition—offered up by his audience.

More seriously, Prell, an unvarnished liberal, sat down for a weekly informed exchange with staunchly conservative WBAL talk show host Ron Smith in a segment called “The Friday Tiff,” during which they would discuss —sometimes contentiously—current political affairs. Prell held court at the station from 1982 to 1999, when, after tensions apparently rose between him and WBAL management, he decamped to a post at a Seattle radio station, and, later, one in the Washington, D.C. area.

“He was the last moderate voice that ‘BAL had, the last holdout before they went to strictly conservative voices,” recalls Michael Olesker, former long-time columnist for The Baltimore Sun and commentator on both local TV and radio (where he worked with Prell), who now does radio broadcasts for the national Talk Media News and writes columns and blog posts for JMORE. “And he was one of those rare birds from talk radio who actually left the studio to do some real reporting—went out and did some of his own legwork—whereas most radio talk show guys sit in the sanctity of the studio and pretend to see the whole world.”

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Jody Albright, 82

Tireless, implacable promoter and enabler of arts and culture left an indelible imprint both citywide and statewide by helping to create Artscape, launch the original Children’s museum at the Cloisters, found the Baltimore Book Festival, establish School #33 Art Center, and set up BMA tours for city students via the Art to the Schools program.

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Nathan Barksdale, 54

Convicted drug kingpin claimed to be the model for drug warlord Avon Barksdale on the HBO series The Wire. (Show creator David Simon said this was partly true.) Sentenced to 15 years, the real-life Barksdale participated in the anti-violence Safe Streets program upon his release, but was re-arrested in 2014 on drug charges and died in prison.

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Andre Brewster, 90

Piper & Marbury law firm managing partner represented numerous eminent local companies while shepherding the firm’s considerable expansion. Additionally, he protected key tracts as co-founder/board member of Baltimore County’s Land Preservation Trust, and, as board chairman, guided Johns Hopkins Hospital through crucial growth.

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Reginald “Reggie Reg” Calhoun, 50

Personable DJ initially made his rep on the city’s club music scene, before becoming a dominant on-air force in the mid-90s with 92Q (WERQ-FM), where he recognized the talent of emerging rapper Jay Z before he broke big nationally.

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Johnny Dark, 82

Highly rated Top 40 radio DJ at WCAO-AM when the station ruled the local airwaves during the 1960s. Holds the distinction of emceeing The Beatles’ 1964 concert at the Civic Center, the only time the group appeared in Baltimore.

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Edith “Edie” Dasher, 71

Co-founder (with husband Jim) of Worthington Valley nonprofit Garden Harvest farm, a donater of organically grown/raised fruits and vegetables, eggs, and meats to local soup kitchens and homeless shelters, while also offering on-site instruction in sustainable farming methods.

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Chris Delaporte, 75

Far-sighted director of Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks oversaw transition of municipal golf courses and the city zoo into nonprofits, brainstormed the Patapsco River’s Middle Branch’s rowing club, and brought Outward Bound to Leakin Park; later helped plan Oriole Park at Camden Yards as chief of the Maryland Stadium Authority.

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Julie Drake, 64

Assistant state’s attorney prosecuted the city’s most notorious child abusers, among them a mother, under the spell of a religious cult, who starved her 1-year-old son to death. As head of the State’s Attorney’s Office’s family violence division, she closed loopholes in the law in order to help prevent child abuse.

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Dr. Lawrence Egbert, 88

Physician and anesthesiologist who, as medical director of the national assisted suicide organization Final Exit Network, unapologetically advocated for “death with dignity,” purportedly helping arrange the deaths of approximately 300 people, prompting the state Board of Physicians to revoke his medical license.

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D.A. Henderson, 87

Spearheaded the World Health Organization’s successful initiative to eradicate smallpox in the 1960s and 1970s, before becoming dean of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose facilities and enrollment he greatly expanded. Also advised the White House and Department of Health and Human Services on bioterrorism.

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Joye Marino, 77

Doyenne of Baltimore hairstylists and colorists ran her Roland Park salon as a cozy coffee klatch, catering to local ladies and celebs alike, with a clientele that included Sen. Barbara Mikulski, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, and stripper Blaze Starr, whose flaming red hair hue she concocted.

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Carolyn Manuszak, 82

Assumed presidency of tiny women-only Villa Julie College in 1964, and, over 35 years, transformed it into a co-educational institution with 10 times as many students, a significantly larger campus, and the school’s first four-year degree and master’s programs, paving the way for its rebranding as Stevenson University nine years after her 1999 retirement.

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Tom Marr, 73

Memorable radio personality who started as a news reporter with WFBR-AM, ultimately becoming the station’s news director and member of its Orioles broadcast team for nearly a decade. Best remembered, however, for his subsequent role as a perceptive, informed conservative talk show host at WCBM-AM.

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Harry Meyerhoff, 86

Real estate developer and thoroughbred- racing enthusiast hit the jackpot as principal owner (with then-wife, Teresa, and son, Tom) of Spectacular Bid, who won the 1979 Kentucky Derby and Preakness before coming up short as a Triple Crown winner by finishing third in the Belmont Stakes. The colt returned to dominate the sport in 1980, copping Horse of the Year honors.

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Lou Michaels, 80

Versatile 13-year NFL left-footed placekicker/defensive end spent six solid seasons (1964-1969) with powerhouse Baltimore Colts teams, connecting on 107 field goals and scoring 586 overall points, but missed two key field goal attempts in the Colts’ deflating 16-7 loss to the upstart New York Jets in 1969’s Super Bowl III.

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Sidney Mintz, 93

The Johns Hopkins University anthropology professor (he co-founded the department) meticulously probed how food wrought enormous influence on international political, economic, cultural, and social institutions, writing about the phenomenon in several books, most unforgettably 1985’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.

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Susan Souders Obrecht, 61

Fashionable, formidable, and energetic publishing exec overhauled a sleepy Baltimore County community newspaper chain whose properties included the Towson Times, building it into a more dynamic operation. Later, she owned and operated regional lifestyle magazine Mid-Atlantic Country, before acquiring Baltimore magazine for two years, 1992 to 1994.

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Milt Pappas, 76

Right-handed starter won 110 games (and appeared in two All-Star games) for the Orioles between 1957 and 1965, before being traded to the Cincinnati Reds for outfielder
(and 1961 National League MVP) Frank Robinson.

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Royal Parker Pollokoff, 86

Ubiquitous Channel 11 presence from the 1960s to the 1990s played the kid-friendly part of P.W. Doodle, rode herd on countless children contestants on bowling program Pinbusters, and, perhaps most famously, shouted, “Hey, you kids, get off that furniture!” in a voice-over for a long-running slipcover commercial.

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Gene Raynor, 80

Parsed the complexities of city politics for public and press alike as director of the Baltimore City Board of Elections under Mayor William Donald Schaefer. He performed the same task statewide when Schaefer become governor, while also dabbling as a restaurateur at the Waterfront Hotel and Dalesio’s.

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Carl Schoettler, 83

Baltimore Sun news feature writer infused his prose with style, insight, and attention to detail and texture, whether profiling high-visibility figures or covering major news events such as the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

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Lor Scoota, 23

Promising rapper (born Tyriece Watson) on the cusp of attaining national recognition with rhymes that deftly captured the gritty reality of Baltimore’s streets was murdered while driving shortly after hosting a charity basketball event that also served as an anti-violence rally at Morgan State University. The crime remains unsolved.

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William Steinmetz, 89

Designer and artist who, along with his wife, Betty Cooke, established The Store Ltd. in The Village of Cross Keys in 1965, selling thoughtfully selected home goods and clothing, plus elegant jewelry designed and made by Cooke. The MICA alum also served the college as a trustee and devoted benefactor.

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Robert Timberg, 76

Naval Academy grad who suffered life-altering wounds as a Marine in Vietnam, then became an esteemed political reporter with The Evening Sun and The Baltimore Sun. In 1995, he authored the well-received book The Nightingale’s Song, which recounted the Vietnam War experiences of fellow Middies, including Sen. John McCain.

We spend a lot of time focusing on gender equality issues (gender discrimination, equal pay, and sexual harassment, to name a few), but in honor of Women’s History Month, spend some time looking back at our local and national history and reflect on how women of the past paved the way for future generations of female change-makers.

Women’s History Month at the B&O
March 1-31. Throughout Women’s History Month, visit this downtown museum to learn about the history of women’s involvement in the railroad industry and how they helped to construct the B&O Railroad. B&O Railroad Museum, 901 W. Pratt St. Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Free.

Conjure Woman: Faith Healers, Hoodoo, and Spirituality
March 2. Spend the afternoon exploring the history of conjure women in the black community, featuring a discussion and lecture about the roots of the mystical tradition. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St. 1 p.m. Free-$8.

Celebrating Lillie May Carroll Jackson
March 7. In a partnership with the Walters Art Museum and Morgan State University, ceramic works by Robert Lugo featuring portraits of prominent Baltimore civil rights leader Lillie May Carroll Jackson and her daughter Juanita Jackson Mitchell will be on display at 1 West Mount Vernon Place. Attend this special talk to hear from experts at the Walters about the life and legacy of these two women. Lillie May Carroll Jackson Museum, 1320 Eutaw Pl. 6:30-7:15 p.m. Free.

Women Artists in Antiquity
March 10. Hear Patrick Crowley, assistant professor of art history at the University of Chicago, give a thought-provoking lecture about contributions from female artists of antiquity. The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. 2-3:30 p.m. Free.

Maryland Women Through History
March 15. Presented by the Maryland Historical Society, this afternoon program examines the lives of historical local women from colonial times through the 20th century, with a special emphasis on Baltimore socialite Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. Enoch Pratt Free Library, 1303 Orleans St. 1 p.m. Free.

Women of the Wine World
March 28. Learn about how the centuries-old world of wine was shaped by women, and take notes on prominent female winemakers who continue to produce some of the most sought-after bottles of reds and whites. Bin 604, 604 S. Exeter St. 6-8 p.m. $10.

Women in Maryland
March 31. From spies and detectives to suffragists, local author Lauren Silberman will share her research on some of the Old Line State’s most noteworthy women. B&O Ellicott City Station Museum, 3711 Maryland Ave., Ellicott City. 3 p.m. $12.

When Jacq Jones was a junior at St. Olaf College, the Minnesota school’s health services didn’t provide condoms to its students. Frustrated by the lack of access to contraceptives, she joined a group of classmates who put “free condom” envelopes on the back of their dorm room doors. Although that was a few decades ago, Jones’ ongoing passion for helping others express their sexuality in a safe, consensual manner is the driving force behind Sugar, her 11-year-old, education-focused sex toy store in Hampden.

“I feel that sexuality is a basic human right,” says Jones. “Whatever that looks like—from someone who is asexual to people who are into things that I haven’t even thought of—there should be access to information and products that help you express that.”

After several years of working everywhere from Planned Parenthood and Women Accepting Responsibility in West Baltimore to the New York City sex store Babeland, Jones wanted to create a business that combined retail and pleasure-based sex education with nonprofit qualities, such as a mission statement and a close-knit community. With encouragement from her wife, Shelley Ziegler, Jones opened Sugar on Roland Avenue in March 2007.

Since then, Sugar has grown into a sex-positive community staple that not only offers a wide variety of products such as wrist restraints, vibrators, and massage oils, but is also devoted to educating customers of all ages, genders, and sexual orientations on new ways to celebrate their sexuality.

The shame-free store, now located around the corner on West 36th Street in Hampden, hosts about three workshops every month—including a free, 20-minute session on the first Friday of the month—that are taught by instructors who span a variety of genders and ethnicities. “We want to ensure that all different kinds of people feel comfortable shopping here,” says Jones.

Thanks to the mainstream success of films such as Fifty Shades of Grey, Jones says she’s seen an increase in the public’s overall comfort with sex toys. As the demand has grown—with more people exploring “adding whipped cream to hot chocolate,” as Jones puts it—companies are now making products with quality materials at a lower cost, allowing stores such as Sugar to offer customers high-end toys at more accessible price points.

This cultural shift opens the door for Jones to continue the work she has been doing since college—helping as many people as possible have safe and positive sexual experiences. “The Baltimore community is incredible,” she says. “I want to do everything I can to give that support back to them.”

Back when she was working as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley 11 years ago, Jamaya Moore attended a friend’s modeling session and was hooked on how the makeup artist gave the models a confidence boost by simply applying a fresh face. She enrolled in local webinars and classes to learn about the cosmetics industry and has gone on to work as a makeup artist for big-name clients such as Under Armour, MTV, Dior, and NBCUniversal. (Check out her handiwork on this month’s cover.)

In 2015, after noticing that her clients and other makeup artists were coming to her with questions about building a business, Moore started Pretty Much Academy (PMA) as an online course that gives budding makeup artists a platform to learn and grow together.

“The program is bigger than just makeup,” says Moore. “It creates a strong community for women who are trying to discover or rediscover themselves.”

Since then, the customizable program has evolved into a one-month online subscription that includes one-on-one sessions with Moore as well as access to lessons such as goal-setting, developing client relationships, and contracts. Through the networking app Mighty Networks, PMA participants can access makeup trainings, get industry news, and connect with other members.

“The community fostered by Ms. Jamaya has allowed [my fellow PMA artists and me] to talk, bounce ideas off of each other, practice techniques, and discuss business plans—things that are normally taboo to discuss with other artists but essential to growing your brand,” says Perryn Morris, a former PMA participant.

Going forward, Moore says she wants to extend her reach to young women working to break into the cosmetics industry and hold PMA conferences to bring women together and utilize their power.

“PMA is a platform for us to connect, collaborate, grow, and help each other with learning about the beauty industry and enhancing your brand,” says Moore. “Whether you’re a professional or an everyday woman, these things are intertwined. It’s [more] than a makeup lesson.”

The Maryland Department of Education is introducing a new star-based rating system today that allows parents, teachers, and students a way to find out how their school is performing. Each school will receive a star rating—one being the lowest, maximum five stars—based on academic achievement on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC test), absenteeism rates, graduate percentage, and a well-rounded curriculum.

The new rating system allows the public to compare schools across districts around the state. Next year, the ratings will include results of a survey given to students and educators asking how they view their school.

“This new Maryland report card, in my opinion, is the first time we’ve had such a complete picture of system performance so that educators and parents really have something to view that’s transparent and easy to understand,” said Karen Salmon, state superintendent of schools. “It also looks at areas that we should be looking at, like chronic absenteeism, preparation for postsecondary success, access to a well-rounded curriculum and also graduation rate for the high school— it’s very good to be very comprehensive.”

The information will also more organized than its current format. Everything will be presented on one page that allows parents and educators to see not only how many stars a school has earned, but other data that went into the rating, including the number of points the school earned for each factor and its percentile ranking compared to other schools in the category. The total earned points percent, or the total number of points earned by the school across the measures, divided by the total possible points, is also included.

The star ratings were required by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act in 2015. This new system, approved by the Maryland State Board of Education last June, will be more nuanced and will judge schools based on more than just test scores and graduation requirements.

This new report card is also going to help school districts better identify their lowest-performing schools—those in the bottom five percent. School administrators will work with the state to develop improvement plans, and some federal funds will be available to help make changes at those schools.

“We will be providing additional funding and also additional support to do professional development,” Salmon said. “So those schools will get additional assistance and resources towards those particular schools. That’ll be a team effort.”

Walking into the Baltimore Youth Kinetic Energy collective, you’re greeted by the organized chaos of stray bicycle parts, hand-painted signs, and neighborhood youngsters busily at work. 

BYKE, which was launched in 2014 by Johns Hopkins graduate Chavi Rhodes and Baltimore native Alphonso Blackstone, has grown a lot in its three years. Rhodes, who earned her master’s in public health, started the collective as an outlet for city youth. The bike shop that she and Blackstone frequented didn’t allow kids, but Rhodes saw an eagerness in them to learn about and help with bike repairs. “In a city that has so much passion for bicycles among youth, it made no sense that there were no programs or resources designated for them,” she says.

Located on Oliver Street, the kids-only collective operates as an after-school program. It offers credits to volunteers that can be used toward parts or their own set of wheels, which are donated by local institutions, residents, and police. Volunteer duties range from stripping old bikes to teaching others how to make repairs. “I got my first non-junky bike from here,” says Sean Bushee, 14, who volunteered eight times over four weeks to earn the credits. Bushee is now helping to repair a friend’s ride, too.

The goal of BYKE is to teach kids about work ethic and responsibility—skills that Rhodes feels could not be gained by simply buying or trading a bike. These mechanics-in-training learn from mentors, like Blackstone and his good friend, Lee Peterson, both of whom have been fixing bikes since they were kids themselves. “My father took my bike apart, laid all the tools on the ground, and said, ‘If you want to ride it, fix it,’” says Peterson. “So I did. Now that’s been my hobby my whole life.”

In the future, they hope to take BYKE on the road with a youth-run mobile repair truck, but for now, Blackstone just plans to continue being a role model. “I want to help them do the right thing, gain life experience, and pass it on to the next kid,” he says. “I want them to see that it’s not all bad experiences out there. There’s also a lot of good.”

It’s a steamy Friday in July and Sonja Santelises is sitting in a stuffy conference room on the fourth floor of Baltimore City Public Schools’ district headquarters, reflecting on her first year as city schools CEO. There’s a lot to reflect on. 

Since taking over from Gregory Thornton in July 2016, Santelises has faced a dizzying array of obstacles and crises. From Thornton—who was forced out by the school board less than two years into a four-year contract—Santelises inherited stalled negotiations with the Baltimore Teachers Union and an ongoing lawsuit in which 16 charter schools are suing the school system over claims of insufficient funding. 

Also inherited from previous administrations is the 21st Century Schools Building Project, a $1 billion initiative to renovate or replace decrepit city school buildings. Then there are the perennial struggles: stemming declining enrollment, improving test scores and graduation rates, attracting and retaining high-caliber professional talent.

On top of all that, Santelises encountered some specific challenges: Last December, news broke that the school system was facing a $130 million budget gap for this fiscal year, a shortfall that would likely necessitate cutting about 1,000 positions, combining classes, and eliminating programs like art and music. In the end, lawmakers, parents, educators, and activists rallied, eventually extracting an extra $60 million in state funding to help close the deficit. Layoffs still resulted—115 positions in total, including 13 classroom teachers—but disaster was avoided. 

So how does she evaluate her eventful first year in charge of the district that educates 82,000 kids, employs 11,000 people, and commands an annual budget of roughly $1.3 billion?

Santelises hoots at the question with the knowingness of a prisoner who has just escaped the guillotine and begins a long answer that grows in certainty and righteousness as she continues. 

“I mean, there are always some regrets . . . personnel-based ones here or there, but overall, to be sitting here and not have combined first-, second-, and third-grade classes throughout the district because we had to cut 1,000 teachers? I’m okay with that.”

She yawns—due to the stuffy air, she says—but rhetorically, she’s ramping up. 

“I mean, yes, do I regret that we’re not funded at the level that outside experts, commissioned by the state, have said that we should be funded? Sure. But I am also thrilled that we had a community that mobilized on behalf of its children. . . . We had advocates, we had parents, we had young people, we had principals and teachers who all poured out and said, ‘Our kids are worth it, and you might not give it to us, but we will be heard.’ And I think people were surprised. [People initially thought,] ‘Well, it’s just Baltimore.’”

Nothing frustrates Santelises more than hearing the district and its students maligned. In fact, it was hearing such talk during the unrest following Freddie Gray’s death that motivated her to pursue the CEO position. At the time, Santelises—a married mother of three—was working a cushy job at The Education Trust, a prestigious Washington, D.C., think tank, where she enjoyed a healthy work-life balance and the freedom to research issues deeply and advocate for educational equity without politics and public bureaucracy. 

But watching students from Frederick Douglass High School clash with police at Mondawmin Mall that April afternoon—and listening to subsequent characterizations of those students as hopeless delinquents—“incensed” her.

From 2010 to 2013, she had been chief academic officer for Baltimore City Public Schools, so she knew a different side of the school system and its students, one that bore little resemblance to the caricatures being perpetuated on cable news.   

“At least at the time that I was here as CAO, Douglass was really on the rise,” she says. “Like, I had been in Douglass. I had been in an AP English class. I had seen the cheerleaders getting ready for the football game and the band practice. I just had this thing about proving people wrong, and I felt like our kids were just being blanketed as something that they are not.”  

Almost exactly a year after the clash at Mondawmin, she accepted the CEO position, and then began her new role on July 1, 2016. 

With degrees from Brown, Columbia, and Harvard, and more than 25 years of professional experience as an educator and administrator in urban school systems under her belt, it is a position for which she is eminently qualified. Her best asset, though, may be her “nothing-to-lose” attitude. 

“I told a group of funders when I came back—they were pushing on something—and I said, ‘Let me be real clear: I am not back here because I need a job. . .  . I am back here because of the kids and families of Baltimore.’” 

Growing up in Massachusetts, just north of Boston, Santelises was drawn to education early. 

“If you hear my mom tell the story, I always loved chalkboards and writing. I loved playing school,” she says.

Her father, Jackson Brookins, a chemist-turned-industrial-relations-executive for Eastman Kodak, was supportive of the idea. Her mother, Verna, a former social worker who headed up community relations for Polaroid, was not. 

“For [educated] black women from her generation in the South there were two [options],” Santelises explains. “More than likely, you became a pastor’s wife . . . or you became a teacher. So in my mother’s mind, she wanted something else for me.”

While her mother may have initially discouraged education as a profession, both her parents worked to create a culture of learning for Santelises and her younger sister, Shahara, now a college professor. Santelises’ father, whom she has described as “her intellectual anchor,” was the ringmaster of the dinner table, instigating intense debates on current events. From her mother, who was a district minister in the Pentecostal church, Santelises inherited what she calls “the speech oratory piece” of her personality. 

Though her family was Protestant, Santelises attended Catholic high school, an experience for which she is now grateful. She says her school’s focus on faith and service fit her personality. Furthermore, the school—in its own way—promoted what educators now call “equalizing educational opportunities” and “growth mindset.” (In layman’s terms, an “equalizing” environment is one in which every child—regardless of socio-economic status—is believed to have great potential; “growth mindset” is a philosophy that states that hard work and discipline are skills that can be developed.)

“I remember Sister Mary Louise reaming somebody out who had, like, close to perfect SAT scores,” Santelises says. “She was saying, ‘I don’t care what your SAT scores are, because if you can’t get your work done on time and it’s not done well, nobody cares what your doggone SAT score is!’ 

“So there was really a work ethic,” she continues. “It was the assumption that you work to get smart. And for an African-American girl in a predominately white school, it actually was a big deal. . . . There was really this sense of, ‘You want to come in here and do the work? Go into any [level] class you want to.’”

After high school, Santelises headed off to Brown University, where she double majored in English and international relations. What she was going to do after graduation, though, remained a question. She toyed with the idea of applying for some kind of government post in West Africa, or maybe going back to grad school for international relations. But a stint substitute teaching in her hometown sealed the deal. She loved teaching. It was as simple as that, and her mother would just have to understand. (“She’s long since been okay with it,” Santelises notes.) 

Soon after this realization, Santelises met with a young go-getter named Wendy Kopp at the Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square. Kopp was hatching an idea for a corps of teachers who would be deployed to some of the most disadvantaged districts in the nation. Santelises signed on and moved to New York City to help recruit and place promising candidates for what became Teach for America. From there she became a teacher and curriculum specialist at an elementary school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, eventually helping to found its affiliated middle school. After that, she took a job with the New York City chapter of the Algebra Project, a nonprofit that works to increase math skills in low-income students. 

Also while in New York, Santelises met her husband, Luis, an entrepreneur and businessman. The couple moved back to Boston, where Santelises enrolled in the selective Urban Superintendents Program at Harvard University. Though she loved the program, she still wasn’t sure she wanted to commit to a career as a district administrator. 

“I was like, ‘Central office? Who the heck would want to go work in a central office?’” she says, mock indignantly. “Like, that is the most unimportant, unrelated work. [The important work] is here, it’s in the schools.”

Gradually, though, she came to see the possibilities, joining Boston Public Schools as assistant superintendent for professional development, then interim deputy superintendent, and finally assistant superintendent for pilot schools, a roll that saw her supervising 23 pilot schools in the district.

Then in 2010, Andrés Alonso, a former Harvard classmate, reached out. He was three years into his tenure as schools CEO in Baltimore and he needed a new chief academic officer. He had offered—and Santelises had declined—the same position in 2008, but he sensed that, this time, she was ready.

“I had enormous respect for her always, and now she had had a set of experiences in a district that was doing some interesting things. I thought that she had probably gotten stronger over time,” says Alonso.

But there were other candidates in the mix, so Alonso arranged for he and a team of trusted Baltimore colleagues to travel to New Jersey for a day of secret interviews with the finalists. 

“I did not signal to the team that I had a preference because they were all strong,” recalls Alonso. “What was so funny was after her interview, during the small debriefing, a couple of people sort of turned and said, ‘Do you really think we can convince her to come to Baltimore?’”

So in 2010, Sonja Santelises and her family—which by then included her eldest daughter, Katriel, and fraternal twin girls, Francesca and Talia—relocated to Baltimore, settling in Roland Park. 

She got to work right away, assembling her own team of deputies who helped her identify and expand upon “pockets of excellence” and standardize teaching practices. 

“One of the things I was most proud of as CAO was we developed a rubric for ‘This is what good teaching looks like in Baltimore City,’” she says. “It’s not idiosyncratic. It’s not what you feel. There is a craft. Yes, you absolutely adapt situationally, but you don’t just rip up everything we know just because somebody feels like they might want to do it a little differently.”

She also identified what she terms “content-anemic” elementary curricula. “Second graders can learn about the Aztecs. You don’t have to give them generalized stories about pets all day,” she insists.  

This is the work Santelises hopes to continue now that she has returned. In July, she unveiled the district’s “Blueprint,” a strategic plan outlining the school system’s priorities, which include literacy and student wholeness—i.e. providing an environment that nurtures a student’s mental, physical, emotional, and academic needs.

“We’ve got to be able to do both,” she insists. “You can create a nurturing environment that’s validating . . . but without setting a standard? That, for me, is professional malpractice.”

She is also realistic about the fact that—for now, at least—she will have to do this with fewer resources than she would like. Without naming names, she questions the wisdom of the special tax increment financing deals the city has approved for mega developments (like Harbor Point and Port Covington) because—among other reasons—they initially add population without collecting commensurate taxes. But she is undeterred. 

She happened to be reading a biography of Mary McLeod Bethune, the pioneering African-American educator, during the budget crisis, and says it “grounded” her, reminding her that there are people who have had to do more with even less. 

“Black churches have opened basements, people have taught kids to read in swamps when it was illegal. Like, we will educate people,” she says. 

“I come from a long line of African-American educators—and the same is true in the Latino community and the same is true in low-income communities in West Virginia—there are always people who are going to care about the education of the most vulnerable.”

Wednesday was a big day in Clifton-Berea, a disadvantaged neighborhood in East Baltimore that usually doesn’t receive a lot of attention unless there’s a tragedy, like the six homicides the neighborhood has experienced already this year. 

But this week’s commotion was of a celebratory sort, as residents, educators, and public officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the neighborhood’s new Fort Worthington Elementary/Middle School. 

The school is the first building completed as part of Baltimore City Public Schools’ (BCPSS) ambitious 21st Century School Buildings Program. The program—a partnership between BCPSS, the Maryland Stadium Authority, the city, and the state—dedicates $1.1 billion toward the renovation or reconstruction of at least 23 city school buildings within the next decade. Funded in part by Baltimore City’s 5 cent bottle tax, the initiative aims to modernize learning facilities throughout the city, many of which suffer from unreliable heating and cooling systems, antiquated amenities, and even unsafe drinking water. The new Fort Worthington, which can accommodate up to 700 students in grades K through 8, was completed on time and on budget at a cost of $37 million.

The new school’s opening heralds a victory for public education advocates who lobbied for the 21st Century School Buildings Project and its atypical funding model. Normally, school districts use capital improvement funds to pay for construction and renovation on a per-project basis. But BCPSS’s capital improvement funding is so anemic—and its need is so great—that an alternative financing model was sought.   

“If we had had to wait for [capital improvement funding] money to get new schools, we’d be getting, like, one school every two years,” explained Sonja Santelises, the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, who we profile in our September issue. 

The 21st Century School Buildings Program’s $1.1 billion in funding allowed BCPSS to launch several projects at once, and now those projects are coming to fruition. One other school, Frederick Elementary, located in Southwest Baltimore, will open this month. Two others—John Eager Howard Elementary School and Lyndhurst Elementary/Middle School—are slated to open in January 2018. And more schools around the city are in various stages of construction. Information about the 21st Century School Buildings Project, including status reports on the other schools, is available at the 21st Century Schools website.   

On Wednesday, community members oohed and ahhed as they streamed into the gleaming new facility filled with natural light, vibrantly colored furniture, and tech-equipped classrooms. 

RaShawn Stanley, a rising seventh grader at Fort Worthington who spoke at the ribbon cutting ceremony, says she loves the new school and thinks that it will provide an improved learning environment. “It’s hard to learn when your school is broken down and you have so many distractions around you. So this will be better,” she said.

In addition to new classrooms, there’s an art room, band and music rooms, a guidance center, a media center with an attached video production studio, and a technology lab. The 102,000-square-foot school also houses spaces that can be used by the community, including a health suite and indoor and outdoor recreation and play areas. 

“Take a moment to look at where we are,” said Cheryl A. Casciani, the chair of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners. “You are in a Baltimore City public school and it is beautiful. And that is what our children deserve.”

Santelises agreed, telling the crowd in the school’s new blue-and-white gymnasium that the project “says we are not educating [students] for a past. We are educating [them] for a future that many of us adults will never see.” 

With that in mind, scroll through the slideshow below to see images of the brand spanking new Fort Worthington Elementary/Middle School.   

Some people jiggle their leg—others click their pens or doodle in their notepads. Fidgeting and finding outlets to control these ticks aren’t new, but there is a trendy toy that has spun its way into the hands of consumers everywhere to help channel these urges. 

A fidget spinner is a palm-sized toy that has a central core and usually 2-3 propeller-like blades that users can spin with two fingers. The kid’s toy is said to relieve nervous energy, even calming ADHD and psychological stress.

“They really came fast out of nowhere,” said Flora Stelzer, co-owner of Shananigans Toy Shop in Roland Park, whose original supply of fidget spinners didn’t last long before they had to order more. “We would get 10 phone calls a day from people asking us to look for them. We had kids line up after school waiting for them.”

Stelzer says the popularity started for her store in April, when kids ages 6-14 would ask for the toy in high demand.

But, in reality, the origin for the fidget spinner dates back further. While there is no clear inventor of the product, Catherine Hettinger is cited as being the creator of the toy by The New York Times and The Guardian because of a “spinning toy” she got a patent for in 1997. But Hettinger acknowledges that there is no concrete connection between her own invention and the fidget spinner.

The little gadget has taken over the Internet and is sold by everywhere from Amazon to street vendors. Videos of fidget spinner tricks have gone viral, with one YouTube video garnering more than 42 million views.

Unlike most toys that have had their five minutes of fame (think slime or hoverboards), these spinners claim to actually be helpful to users rather than solely existing for entertainment. 

Dr. Pilar Trelles, a psychiatrist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, acknowledges the benefits in an interview with health.com and encourages using gadgets like this along with actual treatments. Trelles admits that the effectiveness of these spinners depend on each individuals place on anxiety/autism/ADHD spectrums, so it won’t work for everyone. 

One post on Amazon furthers this and claims that they can be “helpful for anxiety, focusing, ADHD, autism, quitting bad habits, staying awake. Definitely a blessing for someone with a nervous disorder where keeping the hands busy is a symptom.”

While fidget spinners have primarily been used as entertainment or an anxiety reducer, they can also be a source of scientific inspiration. Such is the case for artist C. Harvey, the mobile maker manager at Open Works in Greenmount West.

Coming from an engineering background, Harvey noticed that there weren’t enough high quality and relevant STEM programs for black youth so she wanted to introduce 3D printing technology, in a way that was non-intimidating and relatable to their lives.

“These kids don’t relate to making sailboats or robots, so I asked them what they would want to invent if they had 5 million dollars and they said fidget spinners,” Harvey said.

So with 3D printing pens in hand, Harvey went over to a local recreation center to meet with kids K-8 and that’s exactly what they did. The kids were excited to make their own spinners, and learned a lot about how to use advanced technology the entire time.

With that said, not everyone has such a positive attitude towards these toys. Though many find the spinning to be calming, others find the spinning to be incredibly distracting. So much so that schools and some individual teachers from multiple states including Florida, Connecticut, and New York have already banned these toys from classrooms.

According to a report on WMAR, spokesmen for the Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County Public School systems say they haven’t experienced any problems to impose a similar district-wide ban.

Though this gadget seems to be taking the world by storm, Stelzer at Shananigans is sure that this is only a fad. She laughs and says, “they’ll be on to something else soon, maybe even by the time you print this.”

Numbers Game

South Caroline Street
April 20, 2017

In the auditorium of City Springs Elementary/Middle School, four fifth-graders are set to take the stage for a battle of wits against four “celebrity” adults. The annual quiz show knock off—Are You Smarter Than a Baltimore Public Schools Fifth Grader?—serves as both a fundraiser for the Baltimore Curriculum Project, which operates several neighborhood charter schools in the city, and usually, a source of some embarrassment for the adult team.

The format is straightforward: The two teams alternate answering questions in every imaginable academic field, including geometry, ratios, musical composition, the American Revolution, French literature, Greek poetry, and the science of cells. Thus far, the fifth-graders remain undefeated.

This year’s students—Bryan Burroughs, Miyonna Johnson, Soraya Johnson, and Luis Matzul from Govans Elementary, City Springs, Hampstead Hill Academy, and Wolfe Street Academy, respectively—jump out to a 3-0 lead initially, successfully tackling questions about metaphors, photosynthesis, and the formula for measuring the volume of a rectangular prism.

Eventually, Fox 45 meteorologist Vytas Reid, WYPR’s Gil Sandler, CareFirst vice president Maria Tildon, and notably, city schools CEO Sonja Santelises, rally. “I may have to resign if I miss this,” Santelises jokes before nailing a tough astronomy question. Later, the kids drop a geography query, opening the door for an adult-team comeback and some trash-talking by Reid, who cracks that he “needs a moment to massage his medulla oblongata,” which is actually part of the brain stem that deals with automatic functioning such as breathing, not thinking.

After several rounds of back-and-forth volleys, including final correct answers from Luis about a French literary device and one from Reid about the solar system, the score ends in a tie at 9-9 when Santelises misses (or maybe throws) a final question on fractions.

“I’m 90 years old,” Sandler says afterward. “As soon as I saw the math questions coming, I wanted to hide under the table.”

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Almost Famous

Pratt Street
April 11, 2017

On the packed deck outside the Hard Rock Café, the original members of Baltimore’s popular one-hit rockers—The Ravyns—are playing their single, “Raised on the Radio,” which found its way onto the soundtrack of the 1980s teenage classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (The enthusiastic jeans and T-shirt crowd appears just old enough to recall all of the above.)

“Everybody remembers that movie and that song,” says Tim Tilghman, 54, host of Radio RockonTour on WLOY, with a smile. “And everybody remembers Phoebe Cates”—the young actress who had a memorable bathing suit scene in the film.

The Ravyns’ six-song set is meant as a kickoff for a bigger reunion show in 12 days in Annapolis. But the band is clearly happy to be together again this evening. Guitarist and singer Rob Fahey, who wrote their signature song, explains he was simply transcribing his own teenage years when he discovered rock ’n’ roll, which became his lifelong obsession—lasting stardom or not.

Raised on the radio
Just an all-American boy
I found my favorite toy

“Being a musician, I’m just still trying to get better,” says Fahey.

In their heyday, the band opened for Billy Idol, the B-52s, and on their biggest night, Styx at the Baltimore Civic Center.

“The phone rang at 10:30 in the morning and I was the one who woke up and answered it,” recalls keyboardist Kyf Brewer. “It’s Styx’s promoter and he says their opening act can’t make it, is there a chance that we can play? I tell him we’re booked for a late gig at the Dulaney Inn, which was true.

“Anyhow, we open and we’ve never been on a stage anywhere near that size. After we finish playing, the event staff tells us to throw some guitar picks and drumsticks into the front row—which we can’t even see because it’s so dark and the stage is so big. Long story short, the picks and drumsticks barely roll off the end of the stage and end up landing on the security team.

“Then we went and played the Dulaney Inn.”

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Grape Friends

Claremont Street
April 30, 2017

On a warm Sunday, in the street alongside Our Lady of Pompei, the 14th Annual Highlandtown Wine Festival is well underway when someone refers to the neighborhood here as “little, Little Italy.” Joe DiPasquale, whose grandfather opened the original DiPasquale’s Marketplace on this block more than a century ago, gently corrects the visitor. “Oh no, this is big Little Italy. Not the other one,” DiPasquale says, referring to the popular Italian restaurant destination near the Inner Harbor. “Always was.”

For decades, the Rev. Robert Petti of Our Lady of Pompei organized a local wine and food get-together, which the festival has supplanted as a community fundraiser. Petti used to collect grape orders—trucking them in from California—for those in his congregation who toiled as basement winegrowers, similar to those in the festival’s competition this afternoon. DiPasquale assumed that task after the beloved priest passed away in 1984. 

“We get a tractor-trailer delivery every October,” DiPasquale explains. “There’s still about three-dozen basement winemakers in this neighborhood.”

For the first time ever this year, the same basement winemaker—Dominic Petrucci—sweeps first-place honors in the red and white categories. Petrucci’s chief competitor, Dominic Parravano, won top honors in the festival’s first year and, ever since, the two men—both stonemasons by trade, both immigrants from the same small town south of Rome—have become rivals not just in business but in winemaking after arriving separately in Highlandtown in the ’70s.

Parravano, who still lives on this street, dug his basement down an extra 7 feet to make room for larger fermentation tanks years ago. Petrucci eventually moved his operation to a bigger cellar in Cockeysville. Although the guest judges choose Petrucci’s wines in both categories this year, it’s not as if it settles the issue of which stonemason is the better winemaker once and for all.

“We usually have about 30 entries,” says DiPasquale. “But it’s pretty much the battle of the Dominics every year.”

While on the week-long voyage, the students toured the University of Ghana, visited a woodcarving village, attended African drumming and dancing workshops, and toured the Elmina slave castle.

During this past year’s curriculum, they were also introduced to the works of Ghanaian playwright Uncle Ebo Whyte. On the last day of the trip, students were able to attend one of Whyte’s plays, “Women on Fire” and had the chance to meet him.

The students were able to apply what they were taught this year as well as immerse themselves in a new culture—and it’s all coming to a head March 20-25 during a week-long Africa Now festival.

Although the festival is exclusively for BSA students and parents, some events are open to the public. One event in particular, on March 24 at 6 p.m., features students in Tunisian- and Congolese-inspired musical and dance pieces, respectively, followed by a documentary the students filmed while in Ghana.

The next day will feature workshops of storytelling, coloring, and an African art petting zoo followed by a short performance from the TWIGS after-school acting program. The idea behind the festival, workshops, and trip as a whole is for these BSA students to bring back their global experiences to their classmates in Baltimore.

For most people, the task Sharayna Christmas had last summer might have seemed overwhelming. She, along with the African Diaspora Alliance, was charged with shepherding 13 teenagers, some of whom had never left Baltimore, through Cuba, a country that had for years been cut off from the U.S. and lacked the comforts of home. But Christmas—executive director of Muse 360 Arts, which offers youth from diverse backgrounds artistic training and experiences—is no stranger to this type of journey.

Since 2007, she has taken similar groups to nine countries associated with the African diaspora. “The idea is to see people of African descent embracing their cultures,” Christmas says. “They have a pride and love for their countries and have developed an identity that’s missing here in Baltimore.”

The mostly high school-age students have to fundraise to pay their way, as well as prepare a research project to present upon their return. And this year marks a new chapter for the program. Starting this month, students will meet monthly, and, to prepare for international travel—next year’s destination is the Brazilian state of Bahia—they’ll visit Washington, D.C., and New York.

The hard work is worth it, says 17-year-old Hydeaia Hale of West Baltimore. In Cuba, her days were packed with dance and drumming workshops and a visit to a slave plantation. But her favorite part was a talk by Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando. “She told us it was a blessing to talk to young people,” says Hale. “That’s why I like to travel—it opens me up to new experiences, and shows people like Gloria that there are black youth who want to do good things with their lives.”

You can tell a lot about a person’s status in Washington, D.C., by the location of their office. The Oval Office, of course, is the ultimate seat of power. But a close runner-up—coveted by aspiring politicos from sea to shining sea—is a piece of prime professional real estate in the West Wing. And since 2014, that’s exactly where Broderick Johnson has been—in a second-floor office decorated with family photos, University of Michigan sports memorabilia, and, oh yeah, framed images of him with his friend and boss President, Barack Obama.

As an assistant to the president, Cabinet secretary, and leader of the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, Johnson is part of the inner circle of the Obama administration in a way that few others can claim. As Cabinet secretary, he liaises with the heads of federal departments and agencies on behalf of the president. As an assistant, he is a trusted voice in Obama’s chorus of formal and informal advisers. And as the head of My Brother’s Keeper (MBK), he coordinates the administration’s efforts to improve outcomes for boys and young men of color, an initiative President Obama has said “goes to the very heart of why I ran for president.”

So, yes, as Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said of Johnson at an April event at Frederick Douglass High School, “He’s a very important person in the White House.”

But just who is he exactly? Well, he’s a Baltimorean, for starters, and a West Baltimorean, specifically. And though he has spent the majority of his adult life in D.C., his Baltimore upbringing continues to shape him, and indeed, the country, especially through his leadership of My Brother’s Keeper, which Obama launched in February 2014 in the wake of several high-profile police shootings of young, black men.

At the April event with Sec. Vilsack—which promoted federal urban agriculture initiatives by marking the opening of the high school’s garden and orchard—Johnson deviated from his prepared remarks to acknowledge how personally meaningful it was for him to be there.

“This neighborhood is very special to me, this school is very special to me,” he told the students, faculty, and community stakeholders assembled in the historic high school’s library that day. “Sixty-one years ago, my parents met here. . . . But it wasn’t until almost a year ago to the day that I visited this very special, hallowed place.

“I came back,” he continued, “because we, of course, were very concerned about what had happened in Baltimore with the Freddie Gray situation, and what had happened, especially, to you students here at Frederick Douglass. There was a lot of negative press about you all, right? As though you all were running around burning the neighborhood, tearing things down. I know that you all do a lot of very positive things that people don’t talk about. So to be here with you and talk about this very positive, new experience of the garden means so much.”

If Johnson, 59, sounds like he knows whereof he speaks, he does. Growing up in nearby Park Circle—the son of hard-working, devoutly Catholic parents—Johnson often found himself in conflict with the limitations placed on him in a Baltimore he describes as only “technically integrated.”

“My mother would tell me about how, when I was a toddler, there were stores in Baltimore that would not allow her to take me into the dressing room to try clothes on,” Johnson recalls, sitting in a wingback chair in his West Wing office a few months after his April visit to the school.

Another instance of subtler racism prompted a parental intervention that proved pivotal for Johnson.

“My second-grade teacher called my parents,” he says with a bemused chuckle. “Apparently, they were called to hear that their son was a bit of a hoodlum—or on a path to being a hoodlum and going to reform school. My parents’ reaction to that was to put me in Catholic school. But that was their attitude—he’s going to do good things in life so let’s take him and put him in a different environment.”

Johnson admits that he, like many 7-year-old boys, may have been a “bit of a knucklehead,” but he says he was hardly a budding delinquent. Instead, he remembers aspiring “to be a leader,” and, at his new school—the now-defunct St. Ambrose Catholic School in Park Heights—he became one.

“I became an altar boy,” he notes. “I also became a safety patrol person. And by the time I reached the seventh grade, I think I was the head of the altar boys and the head of the school safety group.”

Johnson thinks that what happened to him is indicative of an enduring tendency to view black boys as inherently violent or dangerous.

“It is reflective of something we, in the work around My Brother’s Keeper, still deal with today. We still see that in suspensions and expulsions.”

(Indeed, a recent academic analysis of data from public schools in 13 Southern states found that black students were expelled and suspended at rates disproportional to their white classmates. And black boys and young men were censured most of all.)

“I don’t know,” says Johnson wearily when asked why his teacher might have taken such a severe view of his 7-year-old self. “It was just something she didn’t see in me—or did see in me.”

After graduating from Woodlawn High School—his parents moved the family to the county after the ’68 riots—Johnson matriculated at The College of the Holy Cross, a prestigious Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts. After a bumpy, hard-partying freshman year, he switched his major from history to philosophy and found a mentor in philosophy professor George Hampsch, a former Trappist monk whose classes emphasized social justice.

“It made a huge difference,” Johnson notes. “I think it was just the value of questioning things, to get to a point where you were comfortable with, say, your own personal values, your own meaning in life. [It also] helped me get through a lot of political confusion at the time in my own head about do you try to make change outside of government? Do you try to make change inside of government?”

Johnson graduated from Holy Cross in 1978, thinking he’d become a philosophy professor. But after a couple years of graduate studies at Bowling Green State University, he realized it would be “a dead end.” Instead, he enrolled at the University of Michigan Law School—crossing paths with fellow future Obama administration officials Ken Salazar and Valerie Jarrett in the process.

Jarrett, senior adviser to the president and a close personal friend of the Obamas, remembers Johnson as a “very studious, serious young man with a huge heart.”

“The issues that he cared about [then] are the same ones he cares about today,” she says, adding that he was focused then, as now, on “how he could use his legal education to make a difference in the world.”

As law school graduation approached in 1983, Johnson briefly considered returning to Baltimore to practice law. But he found the city unreceptive.

“In those years, the Baltimore firms were just kind of not interested in the idea of [hiring] returning African Americans,” he says. “So in a period when Baltimore could have used returning people who could have been leaders of Baltimore institutions and good role models, something was going on there that was troublesome and hurt the city.”

Though Johnson acknowledges that it was a disappointment at the time, he now says he has no regrets.

“Life has turned out the way it has, and it has been great. I’ve been able to help my hometown in considerable ways from here,” he says.

In 1986, Johnson started his political pilgrim’s progress as an aide in the House of Representatives Legislative Office, where he worked on landmark legislation such as the Immigration Reform and Control Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. After three years, he left the Hill to work for a law firm before returning to Capitol Hill in 1993 as chief counsel for two House committees. Then, in 1998, he was brought into the Clinton administration as the deputy assistant for legislative affairs, lobbying the House of Representatives on behalf of the president’s agenda. He calls the experience “incredibly exhilarating,” though the excitement was somewhat tempered by the Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment trials.

“It was a lot more somber than people perhaps talk about,” he recalls of that time. “Essentially, I never felt like [President Clinton] was going to have to leave office, but I guess it was kind of a close call at times. . . . But I do remember, there was, just as importantly, a sense we had work we had to get done, legislatively.”

After the Clinton administration, Johnson decamped to the private sector, working as an executive for AT&T. By this time, he had met, fallen in love with, and married Michelle Norris, the radio journalist and former host of All Things Considered. The couple has a son and a daughter. Johnson also has an older son from a previous marriage.

In 2003, in the midst of this happy time, Johnson got a request from a friend that would alter the direction of his life. This friend knew a state senator and former community organizer from Chicago who was interested in running for Illinois’ soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat. The candidate was bright, hard-working, charismatic, and ambitious, but he didn’t know many people in Washington. Would Johnson be willing to meet him and think about supporting him?

“I said, ‘Sure,’” Johnson recalls. “He came to [AT&T’s] offices [in Washington, D.C.] and there were four or five of us in a huge conference room. Then we had a fundraiser for him, and a couple months later got to know him [personally].”

Though Johnson found the candidate—who bore the distinctive name Barack Obama—“cool” and “obviously brilliant,” he didn’t necessarily think he was meeting a future president. That changed a year later when Johnson, who was then working for the presidential campaign of John Kerry, watched Obama—still just a candidate for U.S. Senate—take the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Boston and deliver the keynote address.

“That was quite something . . . trying to navigate these narrow corridors to get him down to the stage and he had people stopping him along the way as they all tried to pronounce his name,” he recalls with a laugh. “It was pretty clear to me that he could run for the highest office one day after he’d given that speech.”

Of course, Obama would run for president—and win—in 2008 and 2012, becoming the country’s first African-American chief executive. Both times, Johnson was along for the wild ride as an adviser, part-time in 2008 and then full-time in 2012.

“He provided the campaign with enormous counsel and advice that I found invaluable,” recalls Jarrett.

That’s why no one was surprised when Johnson formally joined the administration in February 2014.

“I had been trying since 2008 to get Broderick to come into the administration,” says Jarrett. “I thought Broderick would have the gravitas to be the primary conduit between the cabinet and the White House. His breadth and depth of knowledge of policy, as well as strategy, made him uniquely qualified. And he has the complete trust of the president. I think Broderick’s moral compass and sense of true north are identical to the president’s.”

Johnson accepted, knowing the president was looking for not just a Cabinet secretary, but a leader for the soon-to-be-launched My Brother’s Keeper, as well. The public-private initiative sets standards for and helps facilitate action in communities looking to address the opportunity gap for young men of color. Currently, there are My Brother’s Keeper communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 19 tribal nations. Maryland alone has eight, including a Baltimore chapter, which was launched in January 2015.

Johnson—whom Jarrett calls “Mr. Baltimore to the administration”—admits he takes a special interest in the city’s MBK community, which has introduced mentorship and job-training programs. And he has already had meetings with Baltimore’s likely next mayor, Catherine Pugh, about strengthening the program in her administration.

Johnson says it’s all about ensuring My Brother’s Keeper survives, even after the Obama administration ends. President Obama has pledged to continue the work post-presidency, and a nonprofit version of My Brother’s Keeper has been established to facilitate that. And Johnson says he and other administration officials are working to “embed” MBK-related efforts in federal departments and agencies “by virtue of things like multi-year grants and initiatives.”

“Whether the next president calls it My Brother’s Keeper or not, these approaches and these multi-year efforts will continue,” he promises.

As for Johnson himself, he jokes that the first thing he’ll do on Jan. 21, 2017, is book himself into a spa somewhere. More seriously, it’s likely he’ll return to the University of Michigan—where he has taught before—as a part-time adjunct professor, focusing on law and government courses.

“It’s practicum,” he explains. “Here’s how someone who is a law student can get into a career [doing] some of the things I’ve been able to do.”

Johnson then points to a dry erase board hanging on a wall in his office. On it are written motivational phrases that Johnson says help him get through the unrelenting 12- and 14-hour days that White House work demands. One in particular—“Make the improbable, probable”—resonates with Johnson when he thinks about his future—and his past.

“So like, for me, it was improbable, going back to the second-grade teacher, that I would end up being able to do the things I’ve been able to do, absolutely improbable,” he declares. “But it’s probable that my kids will be able to do these things and that the kids in these MBK pictures will aspire to be able to do things and lead generations of their own children and grandchildren for whom things will be more probable than people would have expected.

It is absolutely true.”

How was it, being inducted by Michelle Obama?
It was surreal. I still haven’t entirely processed it yet. Being in the White House was like a walking dream. Everything seems strangely familiar from TV but also so exciting and surreal. I highly doubt anything in my life will be as nerve-wracking and cool as reading a poem there. Were were also lucky enough to have a conversation about writing with Michelle Obama’s speechwriters and that was very fun. Michelle Obama is so nice and wonderful. Knowing that the First Lady is passionate about poetry and this program is so rewarding as a writer.

What do your future plans look like?
This is really long-term, but I’ve always wanted to be an English teacher. I love seeing people get excited in English class. I’ve been lucky enough to have good English teachers in high school—pretty great ones—and just seeing my classmates come to life discussing old and new works of literature makes me so happy.

Would you ever consider being a poet as a career?
I’m always going to want to write poetry—I’m always going to find downtime to write, just because I feel nervous when I don’t. I have so many things to say. So I’ll always write, but teaching is really what I think I want to do with my future.

Has living in Maryland inspired or influenced any of your writing?
I’ve written some Baltimore-based poems. I’m really inspired by John Waters and Divine and that whole counterculture of Baltimore. This city has a unique spirit and lots of poetic potential. There are small groups working hard to create poetry communities, but I don’t see any poetry readings comparable to what you could find in D.C., for example. While I don’t have any set ideas in mind just yet, I know I would love to work with Baltimore residents in creating a poetry workshop or something of the sort.

Do you have any advice for young poets or writers?
Yes. Make friends with English teachers. Make friends with teachers that love words. I promise they’ll be great guides and inspirations for you. Also, keep yourself open to wonder and amazement. Don’t close yourself off to what’s going on around you. Sometimes I like to just sit and observe. When I’m waiting for the bus, I’ll just look at the way the light is hitting a building.

And this is another piece of advice: Carry an notebook so you can write down all the little things that come to you in the day, because I think being a poet means being receptive to the world around you and knowing how to translate that into words. Be receptive to the world around you.