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Mayor Catherine Pugh released her administration’s transition report in which her team not only lays out a vision for Baltimore City that focuses on improving transportation, strengthening the school system, increasing small and minority-owned businesses, and improving the health and quality of all neighborhoods, but also gives special recognition to “stakeholders such as the Open […]

This morning on WEAA’s Marc Steiner Show, leaders of the OSI-funded Baltimore Education Coalition (BEC), talked about ongoing efforts to get local leaders to fix the $130 million gap in the Baltimore City Public Schools budget for academic year 2017-18. Listen to the whole conversation here. “We’re asking for the mayor and the governor to get […]

This week Justice Policy Institute, an OSI-Baltimore grantee, released “Raising the Age: Shifting to a Safer and More Effective Juvenile Justice System,” which shows promising results from states that have raised the age of those who can be absorbed into the juvenile justice system. According to the report, in the past 10 years, half of the […]

Students at schools throughout Baltimore City mailed postcards to Mayor Catherine Pugh and Governor Larry Hogan today, in a demonstration organized by the Baltimore Education Coalition, an OSI-Baltimore grantee. The postcards urge the mayor and governor to fix the $130 million budget gap in funding for Baltimore city schools in the next academic year. The […]

This week, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency in response to the exploding opioid overdose crisis, pledging an additional $10 million for substance use resources. While it’s not yet clear how this extra funding will be used, OSI-Baltimore welcomed the news. “It is great to see the Governor putting more funding into […]

Fourteen community, advocacy, and academic groups will come together tomorrow to announce the formation of the Coalition for a Safe and Just Maryland, which will focus on reforming the state’s bail system. The Open Society Policy Center, a non-partisan and non-profit advocacy group that is part of Open Society Foundations, is among the coalition members and […]

This week’s Baltimore City Paper profiles the Baltimore chapter of Soccer Without Borders (SWB), an international sports program that uses soccer to engage underserved immigrant communities that was brought to Baltimore City by 2011 OSI-Baltimore Fellow, Jill Pardini. In Baltimore, SWB is an after school and summer sports program that includes “soccer, homework help, dinner […]

Last night, more than 2,000 students, parents, educators, and other community members joined a rally organized by the OSI-funded Baltimore Education Coalition, demand that state and local officials fix the $190 million gap in funding for Baltimore City Public Schools. Mayor Pugh, addressing the crowd, said that on Monday, she will announce a plan to […]

Hundreds of parents, students, and teachers from Baltimore City will head to Lawyer’s Mall in Annapolis tonight at 6:00 to urge Governor Larry Hogan, state legislators, and Mayor Catherine Pugh to address the $130 million budget shortfall for Baltimore City Public Schools–which amount to 10% of the system’s $1.3 billion budget. City Schools CEO Sonja […]