Baltimore City Schools’ Blueprint for Success
An Interview with CEO, Dr. Sonja Santelises
Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises is the Chief Executive Officer of Baltimore City Schools. She has spent close to 30 years focused on building high-quality teaching and learning to help students excel. She first came to Baltimore City Schools as chief academic officer, serving in that role from 2010 to 2013. She returned to Baltimore City Schools in July 2016 as CEO after three years as vice president for K-12 policy and practice at The Education Trust, a nonprofit organization focused on closing the achievement gap experienced disproportionately by African American, Latinx, and Native students and students from low-income families. Dr. Santelises came to Baltimore in 2010 from Boston, where she was the assistant superintendent for a network of 23 pilot schools with broad autonomy and a track record of successfully meeting students’ needs and improving the achievement of low-income students, particularly students of color. Prior to holding the pilot schools post, she was assistant superintendent for teaching and learning/professional development in Boston. Before joining Boston Public Schools, Dr. Santelises lectured on urban education for two years at Harvard University and spent six years as a senior associate with Focus on Results Inc., where she coached superintendents and trained school leaders in five major urban districts. Prior to that, she served as executive director of the New York City Algebra Project, the local site of the acclaimed national math reform program.
Dr. Santelises is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University. She holds a Master of Arts degree in education administration from Columbia University and a Doctor of Education in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University.
Julie Allen: Thank you Dr. Santelises for talking to us about your leadership of Baltimore City Schools as part of our “Transforming Cities” series. After you joined Baltimore City Schools as CEO in 2016, the district adopted an ambitious agenda to transform the city’s public schools -- that strategic plan, Building a Generation; City School's Blueprint for Success, remains the core of Baltimore City Schools’ strategic plan today. Can you tell us about the Blueprint’s areas of focus? Has the focus shifted in any way since 2017, and in particular, in response to challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic?
Dr. Sonja Santelises: When I started, the Blueprint really flowed from three focus areas. The first was student wholeness, students being engaged for all of their talents and needs, socially, emotionally, academically, and physically. From that focus area flowed the other two -- literacy and leadership for every adult in the system. Being a leader is not your title, it is about what you do, guiding proactive problem anticipation, problem solving, improvement, and innovation. Everybody leads, but you lead from your seat, which defines your realm of leadership. So, the focus was on those three areas -- student wholeness, literacy, and leadership, with wholeness being the real driver.
We took time in 2017 to define what education for students in under-resourced communities needs to look like. So, for example, we talked about a much smaller ratio of students to guidance counselors because when you're working with first-generation students, they require more support. We also talked about arts, music, and athletics in terms of what a full schooling experience looks like.
With the pandemic and racial unrest, we found that our focus on student wholeness became even more important than it had been. The mischaracterization of the challenges of urban schooling -- merely moving big, clunky systems around and how you teach kids reading and math -- was quickly dispelled. The world could see that in under-resourced communities and under-invested communities, there were student needs around food and housing. We saw across the country, in every zip code, students’ compounded challenges in emotional health and engagement were connected to young people being unable to see themselves in their curriculum.
The past two years centered our Blueprint work even more strongly on student wholeness. We were on the right track, but the adjustment that we needed to make was focusing on the key actions and levers to actualize meeting students’ needs as whole people in real time.
Allen: I wanted to touch for a minute on how you think about impact. The stated mission of the district is excellence and equity in education for every child at every level by focusing on quality instruction, managing systems efficiently, and sustaining a culture of excellence. The explicit goal of the Blueprint is to build a generation of young people with the skills, knowledge, and understanding to succeed in college, careers, and community, not just in Baltimore but in any city in the world. How do you think about measuring success against that goal?
Santelises: Clearly a very robust goal begs for isolating indicators that we know from years of research make a difference -- things like 3rd grade reading, middle school chronic absenteeism rates, 9th grade on-track status, and access to higher level math all have a huge influence on whether students will graduate. I think part of measuring success is having the courage to choose the right set of data points, rather than having 50, because not all data points are created equal.
I think the second piece is the other qualitative measures that we know anecdotally make a difference, but have to be captured in more formalized ways. We know, for example, the power of positive adult relationships on student learning, so the question becomes how you actualize that at scale, particularly if you're not a mentoring organization like Thread. Thread does it well, but they are a mentoring organization, not a school.
We really need to think through new indicators that have yet to be collected that will give a fuller picture of not only the challenges, but the growth, of student achievement. Our new Maryland State Schools Superintendent, Mohammed Choudhury, is very supportive of the idea that in systemically, perennially under-funded, under-resourced, and under-performing school districts, we have to center our work around growth. If you're trying to go from 13% reading at a college- and career-ready level, which is where we were when I came to Baltimore City Schools, and you want to get to 90%, that seems insurmountable for teachers, and even if it's not, the data is incredibly unhelpful in trying to move the work. So a lot of what we're trying to gauge has yet to be measured and, in some cases, the stories that people tell are as powerful as some of the more traditional measures.
Allen: Appreciating the focus on the qualitative along with the quantitative, how did data and evidence-based best practices inform the development of the Blueprint? Which system stakeholders were involved and how did district leadership engage them?
Santelises: While I know what the research says in key areas, I think it's important to match that up against what the community sees and says. People on the ground are informal educators -- coaches, rec center leaders, afterschool teachers. Those folks have really deep insight into our students, what's in their heads, how they are relating and processing. Sometimes we think that data is only from very traditional sources, and I think it's part of why we haven't yet achieved equity and excellence at scale. I don't want low-level equity; for me, real equity includes excellence and access. But we've got to listen to folks who are closest to the ground and unpack that data. While some of the people that have the key insights into how we engage that trajectory of excellence are found in university halls and Washington think tanks, most often they are in the streets, alleyways, and buildings here in Baltimore City, people doing the work underneath the radar. If we're going to be successful, we're going to have to elevate their knowledge, because our large systems that serve under-resourced communities haven’t achieved sustained excellence at scale.
Allen: Despite that, though, you are steadfast in your belief that excellence in urban education is achievable at scale. You took an incremental approach in implementing the Blueprint, piloting parts of the plan in select schools, and then scaling up. Can you describe the approach and why you thought it was critical for success?
Santelises: This is one of the places where we've adapted over time. To be frank, I think incrementalism is preferable for certain things in certain contexts, but I also think, in others it's not. So we did a cohort rollout of some of the Blueprint initiatives around SEL and literacy. The good thing about that phased approach is that it enabled us to learn and then input that learning in future iterations of the work rapidly, which was fabulous. Where the incremental approach falls short, though, is with the things that you want to be baseline across an entire district. Gradualism sometimes results in slowing down long enough that you don’t get it done. Now, based on experience, I think that the most important things are “must haves” right from the beginning.
Allen: So, earlier you mentioned the focus on leadership. What does the focus on leadership mean for the adults in the district?
Santelises: We’ve tried to acknowledge, celebrate, and develop leadership across the organization and across roles. We have established the REACH (Results in Education to Accelerate Change) Fellowship, which is for people who are aspiring to move to higher levels of formal leadership in the organization, to be considered for an executive director or a cabinet-level position or even as CEO of City Schools. We have a rich fellowship that builds their knowledge base in those areas, but also is heavily focused on culturally responsive practices.
Allen: Can you tell us about the student engagement and leadership work that you've done in the district, which has been an important aspect of the focus on leadership?
Santelises: It really has been, particularly in the push to make sure that we had more culturally relevant and historically rich curriculum for students who are under-represented in traditional courses of study. Our BMoreMe course of study is a set of academic experiences where young people really learn and dig into the history of Baltimore from the lens of their particular Black and Brown communities. It’s a different spin on space, a different take on history, and a far more integrated course of study than traditional social studies.
Allen: As I understand it, BMoreMe is a social studies curriculum that was developed to counter the negative images and narratives of Baltimore, with units in each of the middle school and high school grades that ask students to explore a compelling question connected to social studies content, allowing them to learn from a variety of relevant, engaging, and diverse sources. How is BMoreMe connected to the pillars of the strategic plan? Does the program extend beyond the classroom into the community? What role models do you lift up for Baltimore students facing challenges in a complex world?
Santelises: BMoreMe really has turned Baltimore City into its own classroom. Rather than students only spending time opening a book, what they're reading and writing about is interfaced with an exploration of their city, and that includes local community leaders. So as they're learning, they research leaders that are in close proximity, as well as leaders from the past. Students have created panels that reflect their course of study and put together a city-wide Expo of all the learning about Baltimore. The power of a community's young people being able to demonstrate to their elders and their peers their history is that it not only verifies what leadership looks like in others, but also it gives them the opportunity to lead. In one of the sixth grade units on who deserves a monument, that question in and of itself is powerful for students to hear.
Our students are given the opportunity to internalize leadership with images, impressions, and knowledge of people that actually look like them. They develop their own speaker series with local Baltimore writers, everybody from Erica Green who writes for the New York Times to D Watkins who is an award winning novelist and essayist. Being able to sit down with Erricka Bridgeford, who is a local anti-violence leader, makes an impression on young people and says to them -- your issues matter, your neighborhoods and communities matter, people that look like you matter, and you yourself matter.
Every young person deserves to know that they are seen, they are heard, they are known, and they are cared for. BMoreMe is such a great example of student wholeness. It's very grounded in literacy and it calls students to lead. So our Blueprint is not just about how adults organize themselves, but it's actually about experiences that allow students to practice their own leadership.
Allen: You have been in education leadership roles in both Boston and in Baltimore -- two very different districts. How does the local context -- the culture and the politics -- influence your leadership, management, and strategic planning?
Santelises: In so many ways, but I think the most essential way is in your entry point. So here in Baltimore, because of Freddie Gray, and because the overwhelming percentage of the population is Black and Brown students, it was a lot easier and logical to tie the work to the community and, by extension, students’ questions and concerns.
Allen: Following up on the community -- how have you, as an education leader, navigated some of the serious challenges facing Baltimore’s communities outside of school buildings, including poverty, food and housing insecurity, and police brutality and the community response?
Santelises: Earlier today, we had a youth status meeting with the mayor’s office. In those meetings, we see front and center what the other issues are, issues of safety and violence, and how they impact and intersect with schools. As a school system, you have to have a clear direction but also give space to that local context.
Allen: You have said that Baltimore students have the same capacity for success as any other students and that it is the responsibility of educators to communicate and demonstrate their complete confidence in that capacity, by charting a pathway to success for each individual child. How do you respond to the deficit mindset that often pervades the Baltimore narrative, and what is the source of your own growth mindset?
Santelises: How I think about the education that we should be providing the students in this city is that developing the social-emotional health of children is essential, but it is not sufficient, because if students feel really great about being in school and they still can't read, that's not true agency. So part of what we've tried to do, as I noted earlier, is to provide opportunities for students to lead and to see people like themselves leading. If you look at the history of the African-American community, in the face of direct, violent, hegemonic attacks in the south and nationwide, one of the responses was to protect and surround Black children with leaders in their own community. I was out last night at a community event where we had large numbers of our English language learning families and they want the same things for their children -- they want their children to have robust experiences, to have access to fulfilling their full potential.
Often when we talk about communities in need, we talk about what they don't have, about deficits. We talk about how we have to strip almost everything from the schooling experience, because we just want to focus in on the essentials. But it is those other pieces that actually bring the essentials to life. So the study of history makes reading worthwhile, while the ability to compete athletically gives you an incentive to push through that math class, and the connection with friends makes attendance worthwhile. We had very few students who said I really missed my interim assessments during the last 20 months. What they said was I missed my teacher, my friends, being able to ask questions in person.
I know that there's strength in communities and that knowledge drives my growth mindset. My mom grew up in the Jim Crow south, in Georgia. She and my dad both were very forthright about emphasizing real opportunity and they worked hard to give me access to things they did not have. But they also were very quick to point out what they did have, and they had a rich community where they saw people that looked like them in critical roles -- teachers, doctors, shopkeepers, people at Sunday services. It was a nurturing community. So, while we do clearly have great challenges in Baltimore, every community has challenges, and every community has strengths -- you just have to name them. That’s what BMoreMe really brings to light; there are things in Baltimore worthy of study, of admiration, and of emulation.
Allen: How do you see your work in Baltimore influencing other districts and education leaders? Do you see impact beyond Baltimore as part of your leadership mission in the broader community of practice?
Santelises: At some level, yes, but I have found that we have had the greatest impact where we never set out to lead beyond Baltimore. When we worked on testing during the pandemic, we won accolades for that work both in our state and nationally, but we didn't set out to develop the best state of the art testing program. We started out by focusing on our community. In my view, national impact isn’t the right focus for getting the work done. Baltimore City taxes do not pay me to think about having a national impact; they pay me to think about how we further the life outcomes and opportunities for kids here. But I know what we do inevitably has impact in other places. I call my colleagues in Indianapolis, Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia because I learn from them. Most of the good folks doing this work or just trying to do good work for kids aren’t setting out to have that national impact, but when something works, the rest of us want to know.
Allen: Last question, Dr. Santelises -- would you share with us how you came to education leadership and what motivates you to continue despite the obstacles and complexities?
Santelises: My faith keeps me going. This level of leadership is definitely about a calling because nobody should be doing this work, just to do it. It's just too hard, and there are too many pressures. For me, the other piece is that very early on, I decided that if I was going into education, I wanted it to be for members of my community and other communities that had not realized the fruit of the promise that education holds. I love content and early in my career, I could eat, breathe, and sleep content. I am an academician at my core. However, that alone does not change communities. So being part of a larger effort to build and, in some cases, build back strong healthy communities really is the draw for me. It would have been easier to choose more well-resourced places to work, but I think the advantage I bring to Baltimore is that I’ve seen what those places looks like. I know what a well-funded, robust education looks like. I know what it looks like when a state funds its schools equitably. I know what it looks like when communities of color mobilize and care for their children.
I don’t have some of the mental barriers around possibility because of the combination of my faith and my experiences. I have sat in rooms with policy wonks who really believe that we have never educated Black children well in this country, and I have to raise my hand to say that's actually not true, let me give you some examples. The challenge is we only want the answers coming from one place, and so, for me, it is a privilege to give space, whatever space I am afforded, to bring new voices into the space and to go to other spaces to listen and learn. Some of the greatest insight and wisdom I have on how to reach our young people effectively, with all due respect, is not coming from any of the three Ivy League institutions I have attended or from Washington education think tanks. The most impactful, knowledgeable information I have received in terms of really turning the corner has come from the local leaders who have dedicated and committed themselves to our children for lifetimes. They were here before I became CEO, and they will be here after me because they are the lifeblood of our communities. I’ve sat in living rooms with people in Baltimore City who know our kids better than some of our teachers and school psychologists.
For me, what is crucial is acknowledging that some of the smartest people about this work are actually not the people we have invited in or allowed in to share their wisdom, and I think they are the missing piece. While I can talk about English literature, what we really need is Uncle T's mentoring program for boys who have lost family members and friends to gunfire. His afterschool program integrates many things that these young boys need in order to be on a different trajectory. People who have gotten students out of gangs, which is really gruesome work, have knowledge I don’t have. And so I think we could just step back enough to realize that all of our research and reports, the attitude that we know how to do this better, has not worked, not at scale. We have isolated instances of people who make magic, but you cannot do this work at scale without the community.
I have two parents who came from communities that had schools that had far less and were always underfunded, but they still achieved disproportionately high outcomes because of people who knew what kids needed and knew how to deliver it even with the hegemonic attacks that they were experiencing. So that's what drives me. I know that it can be done, if instead of going to hallowed spaces and acting as if nobody knows how to do this, we let the people who know how to do this into the room.
About the Author:
Julie Allen is a Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Senior Fellow. Ms. Allen had a distinguished career in corporate law, focusing on capital markets, public company M&A transactions, and boardroom governance and counsel. Most recently, she was a senior partner at Proskauer Rose. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Read Ahead, a reading-based mentoring organization serving NYC public elementary school children, and as a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.