Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hampstead Hill in City Journal

A City Journal article from Autumn 2008 takes a look at the use of Direct Instruction in Pre-K classrooms, including Hampstead Hill Academy.
For the full article visit: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_4_pre-k.html

"One site that has endured is Hampstead Hill Academy, a public charter school (pre-K to grade 8) operated by the Baltimore Curriculum Project, a nonprofit organization specializing in Direct Instruction. Stephanie Brown has taught DI math, reading, and language curricula there for ten years, the last five in all-day, state-funded pre-K. Eighty percent of her students come from poor homes, more than half are African-American or Latino, and one-third are immigrants still learning English. Many arrive not knowing how to hold a pair of scissors, use pronouns, speak in complete sentences, or follow simple directions. By the end of the school year, they have learned to sort objects into classes, identify opposites, recognize logical absurdities, use synonyms and if/then statements, create definitions for objects, read simple sentences, and do simple addition problems."

Collington Square in EBDI Newsletter

The January 2009 EBDI newsletter featured the following article about Collington Square School:

Collington Square School Forges Ahead

A celebration was held on Tuesday, December 9th at Collington Square School, operated by the Baltimore Curriculum Project, to mark the renovation of the school’s library. Ten years in the making, the project included upgrading, expanding, and/or building an office, stage, computer lab, IT station, and broadcast room.

Generous in-kind and monetary donations from Baltimore City Public Schools, school partners and other sources made this project possible. Some of those partners were on hand, including Mr. Henry Kahn and Rickey Hill from Hogan & Hartson LLP; Ms. Michelle Kurta, Ms. Sarah Morgan, and Ms. Jessica Rae from the Legal Aid Bureau; and Mr. Jonathan Oatis from Dickstein Shapiro LLP.

Ms. D’Andrea Chapman, Collington Square School’s principal, has more exciting plans, such as renovating the school auditorium for utilization as a community arts center focusing on visual and performing arts and increasing activities beyond the traditional school day. These activities
include middle school sports leagues and enrichment clubs.

One such standout club, The Baobab Program, is a year-long international service-learning class currently fundraising, with the operation of student businesses, for a May 2009
service-learning trip for 10 eighth graders to Central America.

There, the students will assist with rain forest community sustainability construction projects and trail preservation. For more information, please visit www.thebaobabprogram.org, or contact Ms. Kelia Murray at 410-675-7000.

Wolfe Street Featured in Obama Video

Emily Troutman, a 29-year-old writer and photographer living in Washington, spent last week going around with her video camera asking people to choose among 26 words to describe how they feel about President Obama's inauguration. As she explains on her blog, she paid a visit to Baltimore's Wolfe Street Academy, where her sister, Lauren Troutman, teaches first grade in a class where most students are learning English as a second language.

When she sent home permission slips for children to be included in her video with a picture of an Obama "Hope" poster, she writes, "the kids thought that Barack Obama was coming to school for pictures and my sister had to break their hearts! The new President is generally known in her class as, 'Rock Obama.'"
(Posted by Sara Neufeld on the Baltimore Sun's Inside Ed blog on January 27, 2009 6:03 AM)

A full-screen version of her video is available here or you can click below.


President Obama: Words for How We Feel Now from Emily Troutman on Vimeo.

Hampstead Hill Receives $100K Capital Grant

Hampstead Hill Academy is the proud recipient of a $100,000 Baltimore City Charter School Facilities Improvement grant, which will help fund the school's Early Learning Wing renovation. Mayor Sheila Dixon held a press conference on Janary 9, 2009 at the Baltimore Freedom Academy to announce the grant.

Only seven other schools received funding. Mr. Hornbeck, Ms. Chris, Ms. Swann, Dr. Berkeley and Mr. Schugam represented the school at the press conference. The grant will support Hampstead Hill's $2.5M renovation scheduled for this summer. The grant proposal was written by the Baltimore Curriculum Project. Special thanks to Alison Perkins-Cohen and Larry Schugam of BCP for their work writing the grant and securing these funds for our school.

BCP and ECSM's Club at Collington

George Wills, founder and Chairman of Wills & Associates, commented on the work of BCP and ECSM's Club at Collington in his business blog (http://www.citybizlist.com/blog/wills/) on February 9, 2009.

"The Maryland State Government must push school administrators to reform spending habits and focus on teachers in the classrooms. Students need more individual attention. I volunteered at Baltimore's "Club at Collington Square" after-school program for elementary and middle school kids. This program is operated by a private non-profit foundation: Episcopal Community Services, with high level talent from two Maryland Institute College of Art graduates who use art education and math training as creative motivators. That program, along with outreach efforts from the privately funded Baltimore Curriculum Project are examples of results rather than rhetoric. Maryland has an especially good resource in Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick. Politicians should back her efforts and those initiated by Baltimore City Superintendent Dr. Andre Alonzo."

Thursday, February 5, 2009

BCP Video of Hampstead Hill Academy

View this video of Hampstead Hill Academy from Fall 2008.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Principal Matt Hornbeck on Marc Steiner Show

Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Dr. Andres Alonso discusses the fate of Baltimore public schools in the face of the economic crisis on the Marc Steiner Show with Matt Hornbeck, Principal of Hampstead Hill Academy, and Tisha Edwards, former Principal of the Baltimore Freedom Academy.

Click here to listen to the show.