Baltimore City schools to close for inauguration celebration

Public schools in Baltimore City will close Jan. 20 to celebrate the inauguration of the country’s first black president, Barack Obama.

The school board voted unanimously Tuesday night to declare Inauguration Day a holiday after Jimmy Gittings, president of the administrators union, and Marietta English, president of the teachers union, urged the board to close schools. Some other school districts in the Baltimore area plan to give students leeway that day to miss school, but the city’s is the only that will close.