Baltimore schools budget nears $2 billion, families question results

Baltimore City Public Schools has approved a $1.95 billion operating budget for fiscal 2027, putting the district within reach of a $2 billion spending plan while it asks city officials to back another year of record funding. The budget, approved by the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners on May 5, is the last under CEO Sonja Santelises before Jermaine Dawson takes over July 1. City Schools now sends the plan to the Baltimore City Council for review.

The debate over what that money buys is not abstract for parents like Whitney Davis. Project Baltimore revisited Davis and her son, Darian, who attended Pimlico Elementary/Middle School and had a medical condition that kept him out of school. Davis said the district still showed him in report cards as attending class and earning good grades, a sign in her view that the system was moving him along without truly educating him.

That concern lands in a district where attendance remains a major warning light. Maryland’s report card system measures schools by student achievement, growth, graduation rates, chronic absenteeism, postsecondary readiness, school surveys and access to a well-rounded curriculum. A 2025 analysis found Baltimore City had the highest chronic absenteeism rate among Maryland jurisdictions, with nearly half of students chronically absent in the previous school year. State task-force materials set a goal of cutting chronic absenteeism by 50% from a 2022-23 baseline of about 30% by the 2025-26 school year.

The budget papers show where much of the money is slated to go. City Schools says the plan includes $33 million for literacy and math coaches, $50.4 million for social workers and psychologists, $41.4 million for fine arts teachers and additional school spending, and $24.3 million for counselors and post-secondary advisors. Other line items include $4.45 million for multilingual learner supports, $5.2 million for extended school year services for students with IEPs, $7 million for 25 Focus Forward Improvement Community schools, $17.4 million for community school coordinators and lead agencies, and $2.9 million for the Re-Engagement Center.

The district says the FY2027 budget was presented to the board on April 8 after community feedback sessions with students, parents, multilingual families, staff and partners. City Schools describes the plan as centered on student wholeness, literacy, leadership, equity and district office structure, and says it was drafted amid uncertainty about Blueprint for Maryland’s Future funding and federal support. The broader question now is whether the extra spending, up roughly $650 million since the district’s 2017 budget of about $1.3 billion, will move the numbers families care about most: attendance, literacy, math and whether schools are actually ready to serve the children inside them.