Legacy fund for Baltimore students tops $450,000 honoring Santelises

The Dr. Sonja B. Santelises Legacy Fund has topped $450,000, a level the Fund for Educational Excellence says will support at least eight Baltimore City Public Schools high school students each year. The money will be spent through annual investment income, with the first Santelises Scholars cohort expected to be named in 2027.

The fund was announced in April 2026, when it had already raised more than $250,000. Backers say it is designed to pay for pre-college experiences for city students, a targeted investment meant to open doors that often stay shut for teenagers who need help with admissions, campus visits, enrichment programs and other steps that can shape the path after graduation. The nonprofit says the project is a permanent tribute to Santelises’ commitment to expanding opportunity for Baltimore’s young people.

Santelises leaves behind a long run at Baltimore City Public Schools that made her the district’s longest-serving leader in more than 80 years. City Schools says she returned to the system in July 2016 after earlier serving as chief academic officer from 2010 to 2013, and later spent three years as vice president for K-12 policy and practice at The Education Trust before coming back to Baltimore. Her departure comes as the district calls June 2026 an essential moment in its history.

The timing matters because Baltimore City Public Schools enrolled 76,362 students in the 2025-26 school year, a figure that underscores how limited philanthropic dollars can still matter when they are tied to a defined group of students and a specific program. The district has also been working through uneven academic progress. Its four-year graduation rate rose from 68.7% for the Class of 2022 to 70.6% for the Class of 2023, and later reporting in 2025 showed further gains overall even as some student groups, including Hispanic/Latino students and Multilingual Learners, saw declines.

The Fund for Educational Excellence, founded in 1984, says its mission is to close equity and opportunity gaps in Baltimore City Public Schools. In that context, the Santelises Legacy Fund looks less like a ceremonial tribute than a narrow, measurable intervention, one that will reach a small first cohort in 2027 while City Schools continues to wrestle with chronic absenteeism, college readiness and a budget publicly described at roughly $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion.