There\u2019s no amount of money Jayson J. Green wouldn\u2019t pay to save New Song Academy.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiterally, if I hit the Mega Millions of Powerball, I would just pay for everything,\u201d Green said. \u201cIf I had the means, oh, I would MacKenzie Scott<\/a> it in a minute.”<\/p>\n Until September, <\/b>Green was executive director of New Song Community Learning Center, the nonprofit that operates New Song Academy, a charter elementary-middle school that\u2019s been <\/b>in Sandtown-Winchester for more than 30 years. On Monday, Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises informed school staff in a letter that New Song will close at the end of the school year<\/a>, despite receiving a three-year charter renewal from the school board in January<\/a>. <\/p>\n Santelises said the decision was prompted by a worsening financial outlook for the school, which currently operates out of a building she said is deteriorating. Because of issues with the school\u2019s roof and HVAC system, teachers and staff are getting moved to a Harlem Park campus nearby over winter break.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear why the school can\u2019t stay there after this year. Baltimore City Schools declined to make officials available for comment and did not answer emailed questions Tuesday. Board Chair Robert Salley directed questions to the district.<\/p>\n While Green said he was surprised by the \u201cswift decision,\u201d which he learned about by reading The Banner, he was well aware of the school\u2019s financial straits. When Green took over as executive director in December 2020, New Song was \u201cin the hole already\u201d and failing to generate revenue, he said. <\/p>\n That only worsened over the years. Though Green said he <\/b>tried to fundraise as much as possible, grants dried up and some reliable donors moved or died. Funding fell off a cliff when pandemic-era money ran out, he said. More recently, donors who were laid off from federal jobs haven\u2019t been able to contribute as much.<\/p>\n Though New Song tried to patch its leaky roof and fix its HVAC system, the school\u2019s 25-year-old building was nearing the end of its shelf life with no money to replace it. <\/p>\n As a charter school, New Song is privately run but receives public funding, operating with permission from the school board. When New Song received a conditional three-year renewal in January, <\/b>its leaders were told they had to check in monthly with the school system regarding their finances, Green said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was hard because there wasn\u2019t a lot of change happening,\u201d Green said. \u201cI was doing the best I could, but I can\u2019t say that we were in a different place than where we were when we got renewed.\u201d <\/p>\n Ultimately, Green left his post at end of September because there wasn\u2019t enough money to pay his salary and he wanted to make sure staff continued to collect paychecks, he said.<\/p>\n Costs like building maintenance fall to charter operators, creating hard-to-fill <\/b>funding gaps.<\/p>\n Doug Fireside worked at New Song as a teacher in the early 2000s and as principal from 2019 to 2024, taking over after New Song applied to become a charter school. Fireside said reconfiguring the budget for that transition was hard, but he worked with the school district every year \u201cto get the most value for the money we were spending.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, problems persisted. New Song was designed to be a small school, and charter schools get public funding based on the number of students they enroll. <\/b>New Song had to pay teachers and fund classrooms without adding a bunch of kids because they physically wouldn\u2019t fit, Fireside said. Plus, New Song now competes with more schools for private dollars than it did when it opened in the 1990s. <\/p>\n \u201cEach year it became a little bit more difficult,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n New Song Academy opened in 1994<\/a>, three years after Allan M. and Susan Tibbels formed a nonprofit <\/b>to revitalize the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. Though now a charter, it was one of Baltimore\u2019s \u201cnew schools\u201d in the late 1990s, the first privately run schools in Maryland that \u201cgave students a free alternative to their neighborhood public school,\u201d according to reporting at the time by The Baltimore Sun. <\/p>\n New Song, which started as a middle school, sought that designation<\/a> to access public funding and expand to lower grades. Before, it relied on grants and $10-a-month tuition, but the school needed \u201clong-term sustainability,\u201d Tibbels said at the time.<\/p>\n The school\u2019s financial troubles aren\u2019t new. In 2006, the school struggled to secure the funding it needed<\/a> from the public school system, which was pouring more money into schools struggling with test scores after the passage of No Child Left Behind. Tribbels, who served as principal at the time, was supplementing her budget with private donations of about $500,000 a year to pay teachers and staff, according to The Baltimore Sun. Even then, it was a pace she found impossible to sustain. <\/p>\n New Song\u2019s 30-year history is closely intertwined with its neighborhood\u2019s. In 2023, four New Song students were awarded $13,000<\/a> to deliver fresh food to Baltimore\u2019s food deserts via a renovated city bus. <\/p>\n Fireside said while at New Song, he \u201creally understood what it meant to be in service to a community, not just to a group of students and parents.\u201d <\/p>\n Fireside, who now works for another nonprofit serving Baltimore City youth, said Sandtown-Winchester losing New Song isn\u2019t like losing a corner store or your favorite takeout restaurant. It\u2019s losing a community hub where generations of parents and kids have gone through the same school, and where graduates have been hired on as support staff to give back to their second home. <\/p>\n \u201cYou run the risk of furthering the disenfranchisement of the community,\u201d Fireside said. \u201cSchools must be more than just a building where kids go for 7.5 hours a day.\u201d<\/p>\n This reporting is part of The Banner\u2019s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. <\/i>Read more<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Jayson](\"https:\/\/www.thebanner.com\/resizer\/v2\/SYM5HCRCYFCJBHYPGMDG6OJXMY.JPG?auth=5a502770d676ce249bb06f09f20e2d96b3590187550271fb9a9582a9c04bf62d&quality=85&width=1024&smart=true\")
<\/p>\nAbout the Education Hub<\/h3>\n