County Executive James T. Smith Jr.
400 Washington Avenue
Old Courthouse Mezzanine
Towson, Maryland 21204
410-887-2450
E-mail Address: jimsmith@co.ba.md.us
Dear Friends of Baltimore County,
As summer draws to a close, the students and teachers of Baltimore County are beginning another school year of school. There’s nothing like a new school year—a fresh start, and a new class of kids ready to learn—to remind all of us how proud we should be of our students and our teachers. In Baltimore County, our students are taught by some the best teachers in the country, and we are committed to ensuring they have all the support they need to help them succeed.
All of our teachers and all of our students deserve to be in school buildings that are safe, modern, and conducive learning. For the past three years, school renovation and construction funding has been the highest priority on our legislative agenda in Annapolis. Thanks to the hard work of our State Delegation, Baltimore County secured $35 million in State funding for school renovation and construction this year. Baltimore County’s contribution will add more than three times as much—just over $107 million. Forty-six percent of Baltimore County’s Capital budget will go toward building better schools.
Of that funding, we will dedicate $79.5 million to renovation projects at Holabird, Loch Raven, Woodlawn, Catonsville, Deep Creek, Perry Hall, Old Court, Cockeysville, General John Stricker, Pikesville, Lansdowne, Deer Park, Pine Grove and Hereford middle schools, completing our middle school renovation program. This will allow us to begin the renovation of our high schools in 2008. To help accomplish that, we have programmed another $40 million in current expense money, along with $72 million in the bond referendum for Fiscal Year 2008. In addition, we have forward funded the construction of two badly needed new schools at Woodholme Elementary and Windsor Mill Middle. The first middle school constructed in Baltimore County in 22 years, Windsor Mill Middle School opened last week to provide a state of the art setting for the education of the children in the Randallstown community. Our budget also includes $23.7 million for the construction of Vincent Farms Elementary School, a new school which will serve students in the northeast.
We are also committed to attracting and retaining the best teachers in the nation in Baltimore County, and to giving them all the tools they need to succeed. In each of the last three budgets we have raised salaries for teachers and put more teachers in the classrooms. In the past four years, salaries for new teachers in Baltimore County have gone from sixteenth in the state to fourth.
Working with Superintendent Dr. Joe Hairston and the school board, we have implemented nationally recognized programs like the Advancement Via Individual Determination, or AVID, which open the door to rigorous academic programs to students who in the past might not have taken advantage of such an opportunity. Our SAT scores and Advanced Placement participation in the county is at its highest level in the history of the school system. We’ve expanded all-day kindergarten programs, and just this spring eight of our high schools were recognized by Newsweek magazine as being among the finest in the nation—that’s 30 percent of our high schools.
For third, fifth and eighth graders, state assessment scores in reading and math have risen between 9 percent and 18 percnet. A recent study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education shows that our almost eighty percent graduation rate for African American males leads the nation, and is what one researcher called “the benchmark for the whole country.”
September is a season of new beginnings. Baltimore County is committed to funding better school and supporting our teachers so that these beginnings will continue to turn into the academic excellence we have become accustomed to from our students.
I would also like to bring an important project to the attention of the citizens of Baltimore County. We are working to update our Geographic Information systems and verify residential, commercial and institutional addresses all around the County. This effort, called Project Map Check, is expected to take place from August 30, 2006 through the spring of 2007. During that time authorized County contractors will visit every public and private structure in the County to validate the address and location information. James T. Smith, Jr.
Baltimore County Executive
Revised September 1, 2006
Courthouse 