Education

Baltimore County Public School students will return to the classroom in the coming weeks with fewer COVID-19 restrictions on the books but other school districts are keeping mask requirements.

The teacher shortage and students’ experiences from the past couple years leave parents worried about the coming school year and questioning if their children’s needs will be met.

Baltimore County Public Schools lost over 1,000 educators this school year, and the system has been unable to fill many of these positions.

The money would cover raises for just one year, and the school system would need to scrounge up millions more within its existing budget to sustain the higher pay in subsequent years without added cost to taxpayers.

The term “book desert” describes a geographic area in which print books and other reading materials are hard to obtain. They are usually located in areas of high poverty and income inequality.

The city encourages residents seeking relief from extreme heat to visit their local library branch — a particularly vital service as high temperatures reached the mid-90s this week. But the closures of six branches means that is not possible at more than a quarter of the library system’s 22 branches.

Sometimes, life hurts, whether or not the bell is about to ring.

Eight candidates ran for two open positions on what will be a 12-member city school board, and four have advanced: Ashley Esposito, April Christina Curley, Kwame Kenyatta-Bey and Salimah Jasani.

It’s still unclear whether the Baltimore County Board of Education is allowed to stick to a voting rule that calls for seven yea votes to approve an agenda item. Things would have been different if they hadn’t.

Six of the 10 Baltimore County board of education candidates are moving onto the general election this November after the counting of mail-in ballots from the July 19, 2022 primary finished Friday afternoon.

Baltimore County Public Schools hosted its first partnership fair for organizations in the community to partner with the school system and with one another.

High school english teacher Kerry Graham, a creative in residence for The Banner, writes about the ups and downs of being an educator in Baltimore City Schools.

Although violent incidents in Baltimore County schools rose this year, some large districts that had invested in alternative, less punitive forms of discipline saw their suspensions decrease.

School officials in Baltimore City and County are scrambling to fill 1,200 teaching positions before students return to the classroom Aug. 29, 2022. Officials attribute the shortage to plenty of available jobs nationwide, the pandemic, the financial challenges of getting a master’s in education, and the demands of being a teacher.

Eight candidates are vying for the first time for two seats on the Board of School Commissioners. Four candidates will win places in the primary in the nonpartisan race.