After staying quiet for nearly a week, a member of the Baltimore City Council said he will push for a public hearing to address growing concerns that a city school promoted hundreds of students despite them repeatedly failing their classes.
Councilman Robert Stokes, chairman of the city’s Education Committee, said Friday he intends to question Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises about students being bumped up despite missing hundreds of days of class or passing minimum curriculum requirements.
“It’s needed,” Stokes told FOX45. “It’s definitely needed. So we just need to have transparency with the community, with the council, so we can move forward and not ignore what’s happening with this young man and who else it’s happening to.”
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The move comes after a Project Baltimore investigation found that hundreds of students were failing basic classes such as English and math, with the top grade point averages at Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts hovering at 0.13.
Tiffany France, one of the mothers profiled in the investigation, said she thought that her 17-year-old son would be receiving his diploma in June but learned that after four years of attending, her son is being moved back to ninth grade.
According to transcripts, France’s son passed only three classes in his four years of high school, earning a 0.13 grade point average. Perhaps more shocking is that the low GPA put France’s son near the top half of this class. He was also late or absent from school for 359 days.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday demanded a full investigation into the West Baltimore high school and called on leaders to address publicly what happened and why so many students fell through the cracks.
“This is completely unacceptable,” Hogan said. “It’s worse than anything I’ve heard in the whole time that I’ve been governor. The fact that this particular school in the Baltimore City school system is failing that many kids is just outrageous.”
Stokes said he will introduce his plans for a hearing to the full City Council in the “coming weeks” but did not provide an exact date.
“The idea was just to have the hearing for the whole council and for the public,” Stokes said. “It’s not just gonna be for the council.”
However, as of Friday afternoon, a representative for Baltimore City Public Schools said that they had not received a notice from Stokes or anyone on the council about a possible hearing.
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“We will respond to the invitation once we do,” a spokesperson told FOX45.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to councilmembers as well as the mayor’s office for comment. None of those requests were returned.
