BALTIMORE — A protest outside of the Baltimore City Schools administration building almost turned violent this afternoon as many passionate people voiced their concerns about the grade changing procedures affecting thousands of students.
Although many people believe there was wrong doing, city school leaders insist that they did nothing wrong.
What started out as a peaceful protest in front of the city schools administration building turned into an ambush as some people pointed the blame at city school leaders.
“ Somebody has to be held responsible and somebody has to be held accountable,” one protestor said.
That was the dominant message during a protest held in response to the reportthat found more than 12 thousand students at city schools had their grades changed from failing to passing over the course of three years.
“ Our children are being miseducated in the school system and we definitely need to look at the curriculum as well,”.
RELATED: Report: Baltimore City Public Schools changed more than 12,000 grades from failing to passing
Organizers of then protest like Michael Johnson blamed the city school leaders for what they believe is a system that’s not academically challenging children like they should. Some of the other protestors were so passionate they ambushed those city school leaders who were in attendance. At one-point things got so heated one of the protestors appeared extremely angry and when following city school leaders inside the administration building he had to be escorted out.
City school leaders like Andre Riley who the director of communication said he understands the frustration.
“ What we learned is that there’s a lot of misunderstanding in some cases and it’s a lot of passion because we all are in the same place we want what’s best for students,” Riley said.
Andre Riley who's the director of communications also responded to governor Hogan who called for further investigation into the grade changes.
“ His own inspector general in his 28 page report at the very end said he did not find reason, he did not find any violations of state law,” Riley said.
He also addressed allegations regarding teachers being pressured to change grades.
“ The report did not find a concerted district level effort to provide pressure on employees to ever change grades,” Riley said.
While clarifying what’s being misreported in the report, Riley nevertheless stood firm in the city schools plea to innocence.
“When you look at that 12,000 number it quickly falls apart when you begin to you know break it down into grades and the years in which those changes took place. We are not perfect, and we understand that however we are working harder every day to be a beacon of light for our students to make certain that they are ready to go to college and have a life-sustaining career and we will always pursue that,” Riley said.
Although some people are still upset about the grade changes city school leaders said their stance has not changed, click hereto find out more information.
