Voices from Baltimore: Clergy, Community Leaders Bridge Gaps

When Freddie Gray died after being in police custody–the reasons for his arrest are still unclear–something snapped in Baltimore. Frustration, anger, perhaps desperation boiled over, and soon images of police in riot gear filled our screens.

Exactly what caused the unrest may remain just out of reach for those of us who don’t live there, so BlackEnterprise.com spoke with three Baltimore residents: two members of the clergy who are also community leaders, Rev. C. Anthony Hunt and Glenna Huber, an Episcopal priest; and Shannen Coleman Siciliano, an independent education and nonprofit consultant who taught second grade in Baltimore for five years, two with Teach for America. She has also worked with two community-based nonprofits in the city: BUILD, or Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development; and Child First Authority, whose mission is to develop youth by reforming and strengthening schools. It was founded by BUILD but is a separate organization.

Siciliano says the city’s turmoil in April reflected decades of neglect: “We’re seeing a reflection of disinvestment of resources, time, and money. Baltimore does not have the property tax base to support its schools the way wealthier, suburban jurisdictions do. That’s one issue. But we also have a 50% unemployment rate in our communities.”

Seeing the disinvestment in the city’s schools as part of a larger problem, Siciliano says, “I don’t think that the issues we see in education are separate from the issues we see in the community. In order to impact education, we need to impact the city.”

To fill some of the gaps, churches and other community-based organizations have stepped in. One is Epworth Chapel United Methodist Church, which is technically outside the city, but its pastor, Rev. Hunt, says the community his church serves encounters the “same kinds of complexities as the city churches.” His church has worked with local elementary, middle schools, and high schools providing tutoring, financial support, and practical needs like hats and gloves for students in the winter.

[Related: President Obama Launches My Brother’s Keeper Alliance]

“Our approach is to close the gaps that have been identified by the school leaders. It’s based on what the school needs. We don’t have an agenda. It’s not a religious endeavor for us,” says Hunt, also a professor of systematic and practical theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, and an adjunct faculty member at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.

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Describing schools that lost their funding for extracurricular activities, Hunt says a pastor he knows stepped in by coaching a school basketball team. In light of the school funding gaps, Rev. Hunt says, “The question becomes, what can churches and other entities do to help close those gaps?”

He also noted that 15 to 20 years ago a move to stop funding all the community centers and Police Athletic centers took place. “That was the way the police were relating to the children in a more positive way,” Hunt says. “So churches and nonprofits need to provide resources that are positive for our children, places for them to go after school.”

The after school need is critical. According to a recent report from Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit public awareness and advocacy organization, the parents of 4.5 million African American children are without an after school program to enroll their children in.

To find out what the community’s needs were, BUILD held meetings; indeed, after- school programming was on its mind. “What kept coming up were opportunities for youth,” says Siciliano. “That’s why Child First was created, to develop after-school programming in schools while also organizing within the schools and developing leaders from the community and the schools to all work together to impact students’ lives.”

She continues. “There is an opportunity gap within our schools–opportunity after school, economic opportunity, so our high school students aren’t able to find jobs. There’s little to no programs for kids after school, so there are organizations and those working within the school system that are trying to do something about it, but it’s from decades of disinvestment within Baltimore communities and within the school system.”

Glenna Huber,

who came to Baltimore to do urban ministry and is formerly with the Church of the Holy Nativity, describes a rich after-school program that her church offered in the early 2000s: “Our church served kids from age 6 to 12 and worked with two schools. Before then the children had nothing to do, nowhere to go. From 3 pm to 6:30 pm is an important time to catch these children because of the drug activity. There was minimal adult supervision after school.”

“We provided food and activities like chess, choir, dance, music, art, archery, cooking. We had people come in from the churches [a Lutheran church was a partner] and from the community. Whatever talent was in the community we tried to offer to the children.”

Asked about school libraries, Siciliano describes the effects of the lack of funding and investment. “Librarians have to serve multiple schools. So you have a librarian that’s split between two schools, or you have a school that’s deciding how to use its resources, and they think should we get an additional math teacher? Or do we have a music class? And the focus nationwide on testing just derails opportunities for students. The strong focus on testing makes some schools choose a teacher who teaches a tested subject over a librarian or music teacher.”

In 2009 Siciliano was part of the team that established the Baltimore Education Coalition in response to the state’s funding cuts to Baltimore City Public Schools. She says, “There was a need for Baltimore city residents to organize and advocate on behalf of city schools and make sure that funding was maintained.”

She describes a bleak public school infrastructure. “The buildings are 40 to 50 years old, but the only funding put into them has been piecemeal–fixing a boiler here, windows there–again this reflects the lack of investment. In 2013, BEC, working with our city legislators, partners, such as BUILD, and the school system, was able to win $1 billion for school construction.” But she’s hopeful that more than just the buildings will change:

“This is a pivotal moment. I would hate to look back, and we just made more of the same–that we have shiny new walls and new windows but didn’t drastically change the education that’s happening within the building.” Siciliano says there is “conversation” occurring, but did not elaborate on concrete measures being taken to ensure a new direction in the schools’ educational approach.

Both Huber and Siciliano say that the $1 billion BEC had won has been reduced. “The bond market has changed,” says Huber, “so we have $977 million. The plan was to renovate or build new schools for a total of 50 new or renovated schools. Because of the shift in the bond market, we’re looking at five new school buildings and 28 renovated, so some schools need to be closed. We’re in that process now.”

Huber describes the school closing process as “messy,” and says there is a hint of truth to the argument that schools in poor, black neighborhoods are being closed as opposed to those in middle class neighborhoods.

But she also says that every school doesn’t need to stay open. “BCPS chose schools that didn’t have enough students in them, or that were just beyond repair, so they looked at what buildings could take the extra students as the most cost-effective thing to do.” Huber also said, however, that in general, classrooms already have too many children in them at 30 to 35 students each. She expressed concern that, with the state cuts of $60,000

and the schools operating at a deficit of $90,000 to $100,000, terminating teachers may be a solution that will make classroom sizes even larger. “The CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, Gregory Thornton, is trying to figure that out now,” Huber says.

Hunt noted that 98% of teachers in well-served communities are certified to teach their subject area. “In underserved areas, teacher certification is around 55%, so there’s a gap in the quality of education based on the qualification of the teachers,” he says.

Yet, Hunt’s church offers scouting programs to boys and girls, and says most of the scouts “end up going to college.” In 50 years of scouting, the program has produced 47 Eagle scouts–a notable accomplishment anywhere but especially in an underresourced community. The poverty rate in Baltimore is 23.8%, 8.4 points above the national rate, according to the New York Times. The median household income in the city is $41,385, below the national income level of $53,046.

Yet, Siciliano remains hopeful. “The city of Baltimore is working alongside the school design process. It’s taking a quarter-mile radius around the school and talking with the community about the infrastructure of the streets, housing issues, recreation, and traffic concerns. They’re also trying to deploy city resources to align with the school designs so that the neighborhood is also seeing improvement. We’re in the beginning stages. The first set of schools are set to open in the fall of 2018, so this is a long process and there are a lot of moving parts, but there’s potential and there’s hope and there’s a chance for Baltimore and for the state to get it right.”

Siciliano does not blame the city’s education system for the anger and unrest that erupted in April; she casts a wider net: “In no way can you say that education and the schools are the reason. It goes hand in hand with the policies, the justice system, the lack of investment in housing, in jobs, in neighborhoods. So I refuse to say it’s the schools. I think everyone needs to take ownership over the disinvestment and the injustice that’s happened in this city.”

Optimistic about the future of the city, she interprets this juncture as an opportunity for Baltimore: “This gives our city a great opportunity to look at what’s going right and to do more of those things and to invest in them that a number of individuals and organizations are doing. And there has been a focus and a commitment even at the state level to start investing more in city schools, and that needs to continue.”