What goes unsaid

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Cindy is a youthful-looking city planner in her early forties, with spiky hair and black leather jacket. Over coffee at the Hidden Bean, Cindy sighs in frustration. "I know a lot of people in Bolton Hill couldn't believe I ever sent my kids to Mount Royal," she says. "I'm just tired of hearing the same response or lack of response--they stutter and they look to find words that are acceptable. They kind of lament about education in the city of Baltimore as a whole."

Cindy actually lives outside of Bolton Hill in Union Square, a small enclave of middle-class families situated around a green in SoWeBo (southwest Baltimore), which is otherwise one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. When she moved there in 1988, Mount Royal was accepting students outside its "zone" to its Gifted and Talented Program (since disbanded). She is satisfied with the education her two daughters, Eleina and Lela, received there, though by the time Lela graduated from eighth grade the school was experiencing some difficulties.

Cindy is adamant about her daughters' right to a free public education, and did consider Mount Royal once again for her youngest daughter. But by that time, getting in from outside the neighborhood was virtually impossible. She is glad that seven-year-old Alicia is in second grade at Midtown, which may not be admitting kids outside the neighborhood this year if Bolton Hill fills up its ten slots. Although Bolton Hill's previous reluctance to try Midtown may have benefited Alicia, Cindy is critical about neighborhood attitudes. "A lot of parents from Bolton Hill Nursery did not send their kids to Midtown, and while they used a lot of other words for it, I think a lot did have to do with race," she says. "Everyone talked about how great [the school] was, and what a great idea," but when it came down to it, only two children followed Alicia to Midtown from nursery school.

Yet Cindy, who is white, is more comfortable with Alicia, whose father is African American, at the more diverse Midtown. She feels Lela and Eleina, who are half Moroccan, may have suffered from an attitude at Mount Royal, typical in Baltimore, that insists on dividing people into black and white categories that don't always apply. Midtown is more diverse, more bi-racial, and more open. This openness may be what is changing the minds of so many parents in Bolton Hill--parents who have been skittish about choosing a predominately black school for their children--for the first time this year. Midtown offers a convenient compromise.

 


Bolton Hill 21217

Pounding the pavement

The dream of a neighborhood school

Opting out of the "experiment"

The school on the wrong side of the street

What goes unsaid

A new year, a new class, a New School

Story Index