Posted on 12/21/23
| News Source: FOX45
A Baltimore City teacher who has seen the devastating impact of violence on young people now hopes to use that insight as the next mayor of Baltimore.
Wendy Bozel recently sat down with Project Baltimore and revealed her plan to save the city, by first saving the school system.
The 62-year-old mother of three has never run for political office, but says she felt like she had to enter the mayoral race. If elected, she says she would be very involved with the public school system.
Bozel started with City Schools ten years ago at Sinclair Lane Elementary, where she saw firsthand the district’s disfunction and disorganization.
“The heat was broken. So, in order to fix that problem, they put in a portable boiler that pumped in heat, said Bozel. “Half of the school was 100 degrees, and the other half was maybe 30 or 40.”
Bozel’s classroom was in the hot section.
“It's very difficult when you have kids that are special needs,” Bozel said. “So, I brought in fans for their desks. I tried to do anything I could to make it a little more bearable for them.”
Today, Bozel teaches Home and Hospital, which is a program for students who cannot attend school due to medical conditions.
“I got them when they’re to a point where they’ve been put together by Shock Trauma or Hopkins,” said Bozel.
But it’s the reason why Bozel’s students can’t attend school that convinced her to run for mayor.
“After the third student that I was teaching was shot and paralyzed, I realized I had to do more than just teach students in Baltimore City, that I needed to make them safe and change the school system.”
Bozel says three students became six, and all of them were injured in gun violence.
“If you look at the people that are in our prisons right now, most of them don't have a high school education. And so, what other choice do you have? It's crime. So, if you want to stop crime, you have to change your school system,” Bozel told Project Baltimore.
Which is why Bozel says her main platform as mayor would be fixing Baltimore City Public Schools.
“It’s broken, and we need to change,” she said.
Bozel sees two main problems within Baltimore City Schools she believes must be immediately corrected. The first is that the district must “centralize school funding.”
About 15 years ago, under then-CEO Andres Alonzo, principals were given control of their individual school budgets. Bozel says that policy has created 165 individual City schools that all have different books, different technology, different resources. She says principals are focused on budgets, and not education.
“I feel like schools will be able to change if the principals can do their jobs instead of worrying about millions of dollars in budgets,” she said. “They're not chief financial officers, let’s get them making sure kids come to school, make sure the teachers are teaching. That's the first thing that we have to address.”
Bozel says this directly leads to the second problem, student attendance.
“It doesn't matter what's happening at the schools if the kids aren't coming to school," Bozel told Project Baltimore.
In 2016, when current school CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises took over, 23 percent of Baltimore City students were chronically absent. In 2019, that number had nearly doubled to 42 percent. By 2022, 58 percent of Baltimore City students were chronically absent, the highest level in the state.
Bozel says she pulled the records for her students, both the victims and perpetrators of crime, and found all of them were years behind in their education. She says all of them missed 50 to 100 days of school per year.
“If kids aren't coming to school, why aren't they and what are they doing? Well, a lot of times that we've seen in the news, it's crime. So, we have to implement programs where kids could make money, maybe an internship where they learn a skill, make a little bit of money in high school, maybe also a middle school. And that way they are making money. They have a reason to come to school,” explained Bozel.
Ten candidates, so far, have announced they are running to be Baltimore’s next mayor. Current Mayor Brandon Scott is the only one who has publicly supported Dr. Santelises. Other candidates, such as former mayor Shiela Dixon and Yolanda Pulley have already called for the CEO’s resignation.
Project Baltimore asked Bozel if she supports Dr. Santelises.
“Unless she can pivot to having schools be run centrally, I would have to call for her resignation because it's not working,” said Bozel.
Project Baltimore asked Bozel if she sees any indication that Dr. Santelises is going to make significant changes.
Bozel replied, “No, I really don't see that.”