Schools

I just caught some of the Marc Steiner show about alternative schools-he had a guest on from the Fairhaven School in Prince George's county which is a student led, democratic model based on the Sudbury school in New England. It was so interesting, and ties in with something I've been thinking about constantly. My oldest just turned 4, so we are starting to think about options for school for him. We are in the good position of trying to decide from a number of options that look interesting to us. Our zoned school, City Springs, is a charter and has a reasonably good reputation. However, it draws almost exclusively (I believe) from the Perkins Homes housing project on the other side of Central Ave. I don't think we can seriously consider it as an option for us. So, the schools we are considering are Patterson Park Charter, Federal Hill Prep and Hampstead Hill. Patterson Park is a city wide charter and accepts students from all over the city-if there are more applicants than spots they will go to a lottery. They will start offering pre-k next year, so he could theoretically go there that soon. Hampstead Hill is also a charter but is also the zoned school for Fells Point/Canton, if there is room in the class students from outside the zone can attend. Federal Hill is not a charter, but also will accept students from outside the neighborhood if there is room. The only one I have visited is Patterson Park-I went to an open house there last year. It is appealling to me in lots of ways-they offer lots of art, Spanish language from early grades, it is a community based school and requires 30 volunteer hours from parents. It is in a lovely building and takes advantage of their location on the park. They follow a project based curriculum, which sounds appealing to me although I don't know how it works in practice. Charlie's preschool is in Federal Hill so lots of his friends will be headed there. It has started to attract more and more middle class families from the neighborhood most of whom seem very happy with what is happening there. They offer the ingenuity project-a special math and science curriculum that gets good reviews. I'm a little concerned about what they offer as far as "extras"-art, music, pe etc-things I consider essential. I know very little about Hampstead Hill, but have heard there is an excellent principal-my neighbor's daughter is there after she didn't get in Patterson Park. We're considering private schools too-Grace & St. Peter's, Gilman, etc but would like to give public a shot first. I believe so strongly in school choice, and think all families should have the option of several schools-it's funny that in the dysfunctional Baltimore City school system the fact that there are choices is a bright spot, and in my view will probably be the savior of the system-it was great to see all the new groups that applied for charter schools next year-exciting stuff!

Beautiful Day

I love these unexpected nice days we get sometimes, we ran around town a lot today and enjoyed every second of it. After the library we stumbled upon a ceremony in front of the Basilica- the Archbishop Curley choir and band, plus remarks from Cardinal Keeler and a visit from the French Consul General. We didn't stay for the whole thing, but they had a beautiful day for it. This afternoon I took the kids to the Bocce court to play in the leaves. It's a sorry excuse for a playground, in this neighborhood, but it's all we've got and they had a good time. Then a walk over to Amuse for a birthday present for a party tomorrow. On the way we spotted someone powerwashing the deck at Luigi Petti, and a sign saying opening soon. Luigi Petti had truly terrible food the last time I was there (a few years ago) but it has the best outdoor space in the neighborhood so it would be great if they could get the food right. It was pajama day at school today, so C. was in his pjs for all these adventures which was pretty comical. Tonight we'll be checking out Sammy's Trattoria in Mt. Vernon, I'll be sure to report back. Tomorrow the birthday party and a Blast game-I'm looking forward to both.

Election Relief

Well, I'm glad it's over, and glad my candidates won. I think the Ehrlich and Steele campaigns made some serious missteps, particularly late in the campaign, but they probably lost due to overall anti-republican, incumbent feelings. I'm also glad to hear about apparently record turnout in the city, that's exciting and a good sign. I think Baltimoreans don't like hearing they live in a hellhole (even though a guy just wrote a book saying it's one of the worst places to live). I'm interested to see what happens next-
Sheila Dixon as mayor- I like her and think she will do ok, but I don't know if she can hang on to the job. It will interesting to see who else throws their hat in the ring-Mitchell, Mfume, Young.
Nancy Pelosi as speaker- I follow her because she grew up just around the corner from me-in fact there was a cameraman getting footage of her childhood home when I drove by earlier today. It's been converted to a health clinic which has a dr in it one afternoon a week. Kind of a shame, I think a better use of the property could be found. The D'Alessandros donated it I think, but I'd rather see it as a residence-it looks sort of derelict now. Anyway, she doesn't come across that great on tv but I know she is well respected and has the reputation of someone who can get things done. Let's hope!
O'Malley as governor-I'd love to see more attention paid to environmental issues, the Chesapeake Bay, land conservation, smart growth. I'd love to see tax credits and other incentives for individuals and businesses to explore alterntative sources of energy- solar, wind and green building. I'd like to see some increased education funding and some relief for rising state tuition.


We'll see!

Baltimore Smoking Ban

I've mentioned before that we love Red Star. It's our favorite place to eat in Fells Point. For a long time, we would always go and it would be pretty empty. I could never figure that out-it's a neat space, has free parking in a lot across the street, and pretty good food. Recently that's changed-the City Paper gave it best brunch, and since we usually go for lunch on Saturday and Sunday it's been pretty packed the last few times we've been. They need to get their act together and hire a few more people though-the waitress we had on Saturday was incredibly frazzled and it took forever. We've wondered about the situation there since I don't think we've ever seen the same server there twice-odd considering how often we go. Interestingly, they have made the entire restaurant nonsmoking in the last month. Of course I have no idea how that's effecting their bar traffic at night but it doesn't seem to be hurting them during the day, in fact I'm wondering if it's a piece of their growing popularity. I strongly support a smoking ban for the city (for the whole state really) and think the arguments against it are flat out ridiculous. I heard on NPR last night that they did a study in Massachussetts that found there were more people avoiding restaraunts/bars that were smoky than there were smokers in the entire state. Restaraunt and bar revenue has gone up in every jurisdiction that has enacted the ban. If France and Italy can do it, so can we. I know I avoid places with smoking now if at all possible. It's one of the reasons I'm considering voting against Della for state senator, apparently he's very opposed to a smoking ban. I used to have mixed feelings about this-I'm not crazy about eliminating personal freedoms, but cigarette smoke is truly offensive to a lot of (most?) people now, not to mention the health risk it carries for people who work around it. I've come around to strongly support a ban in public places. Election day tomorrow-don't forget to vote!