After three years of controversy and repeated calls for his replacement, Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Dr. Darryl Williams has announced he will not seek a new contract.
But similar calls for new leadership in Baltimore City Schools have yet to be successful.
“It’s very much frustrating,” said Yolanda Pulley, a former candidate for Baltimore City mayor. Pulley is also the founder of People Empowered by the Struggle, a nonprofit that has repeatedly called for new leadership in Baltimore City Schools.
So far, it’s been unsuccessful, but this week, Pulley watched a similar effort succeed in Baltimore County.
“Clearly, they have their educational justice,” Pulley said. “I’m just going to ask, where is Baltimore City’s educational justice, at this point?”
Pulley tells Project Baltimore, when she heard Dr. Williams was stepping down, she was embarrassed for Baltimore City.
“The battle cry clearly is not loud enough,” she said. “Or, we just have some arrogant people sitting in leadership.”
Dr. Williams became BCPS superintendent in July 2019. This week, he announced he will not seek a second contract. The decision follows three years of controversies and pressure from multiple groups asking the school board replace him. Those groups include members of the Baltimore County Council, the Randallstown NAACP and the Baltimore County Parent and Student Coalition.
Similar demands have been made in Baltimore City. In 2021, multiple rallies were held at City Hall and North Avenue, calling for City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises to resign.
“Look at the crime in Baltimore City. Look at the poor education. I lay that squarely at the feet of the Baltimore City Board of Education,” Dr. Christopher Metzler told Project Baltimore in August 2021, when he joined efforts to file a class action lawsuit against City Schools.
Pulley’s non-profit helped organize the rallies. But unlike in the County, where the superintendent stepped down, there’s been little, if any, change in City Schools leadership.
“It speaks to the lack of compassion, the lack of urgency, the lack to fulfill a child’s education needs,” said Pulley.
Project Baltimore has reported on alarming statistics concerning education in City Schools.
In 2021, 41 percent of Baltimore City public high school students earned below a 1.0 grade point average during the first three quarters of the school year.
In 2022, Project Baltimore reported that 77 percent of students tested at Patterson High School were reading at elementary school levels.
And now, state testing results just released show only 7 percent of third through eighth-grade students in City Schools are proficient in math, which means 93 percent are not doing math at grade level. And through all of it, the same leadership has stayed in place.
City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises was hired by the Baltimore City School board, which until this year, was entirely appointed by the mayor.
Mayor Brandon Scott is a strong supporter of Santelises. He’s celebrated her, even as student test scores dropped to some of the lowest in the country.
“Because of the arrogance of our school board, they refuse to do what the people have asked, even though they are collecting our taxpayer money,” said Pulley.
But in Baltimore County, the structure is different than the city. Baltimore County’s school board is half elected and half appointed by the governor.
“It’s just not a good look right now,” Pulley told Project Baltimore. “It seems like Baltimore County is more deserving than Baltimore City.”
Pulley and her group are still calling for Dr. Santelises to resign or be replaced by the school board.
These calls for change from city residents, so far, have not worked. But after seeing Dr. Williams step down, Pulley said, she is not giving up.
“We don’t want to see ourselves as failed leaders,” said Pulley. “But at the end of the day, if we don’t clear up our educational system, we all have failed. We have created educational homicide.”