Project Baltimore reports prompt bills on mold, ghost students and violence in 2022

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WBFF) — The 2022 Maryland legislative session in Annapolis is over, and this year, education was among the most debated topics.

During the 90-day legislative session, Project Baltimore investigations into mold in schools, ghost students and school bus violence had lawmakers taking action.

Baltimore County Delegate Carl Jackson introduced House Bill 665, which would give parents access to more information about potential health hazards in school.

Jackson introduced the bill after Project Baltimore interviewed Maureen Hall, a former Baltimore County public school teacher.

“It's been lonely. It's been, it's been very lonely. Sorry,” Hall told Project Baltimore in February.

We first met Hall in the summer of 2020 when health issues forced her into early retirement. Her doctors believe she was likely “exposed to mold in her school.”

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Hall didn’t know she was breathing in mold at Parkville Middle School because even though Baltimore County could release the results of indoor air quality tests the district chose not to. Instead, time and resources were spent in Annapolis on legislation that would force schools to post the results online.

House Bill 665 passed the Maryland House of Delegates, unanimously. The Senate never brought it to a vote. Jackson tells FOX45 that he will reintroduce the bill next year.

“To me, the education of our children is a bi-partisan issue,” said Carroll County Del. April Rose in March.

Rose also plans to reintroduce legislation next year, that would change how schools are funded.

“We must get this right for our kids and our taxpayers,” Rose told Project Baltimore.

Rose drafted House Bill 1365 after Project Baltimore exposed ghost students who are kept on the rolls to increase the funding a school receives. Project Baltimore found that in 2019, 6,126 students statewide were labeled “whereabouts unknown”. Taxpayers paid approximately $92,796,648, to educate students, that according to state data, could not be found.

In Maryland, schools received funding based on the number of students enrolled on one day, September 30. That one headcount is used to determine how much funding the school will receive the next year. Rose’s bill would try to create a more accurate count by requiring schools to report enrollment four times a year.

“Sorry, television folks are not the ones I listen to about bills,” said Baltimore City Del. Maggie McIntosh when Project Baltimore approached her earlier this month in Annapolis.

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“Well, you don’t have to listen to me, the bill is right here,” replied Project Baltimore Investigative Reporter Chris Papst.

When Rose introduced House Bill 1365 before the House Appropriations Committee, the chair of the Committee, Delegate McIntosh, was not there. She had left the hearing. When Project Baltimore asked McIntosh for her thoughts on the bill, she hadn’t read it.

“I was negotiating on the tax package with the governor, so I wasn’t at the hearing. And I don’t read every bill,” said McIntosh.

Later that same day, Delegate McIntosh brought House Bill 1365 before her committee, where it died. McIntosh voted against it saying a few instances of inflated enrollment do not justify the legislation. But she also said the Maryland State Department of Education should look into the issue.

One of the most heated debates in Annapolis was over school bus safety.

“This is a very simple amendment. A common-sense amendment,” Baltimore County Delegate Nino Mangione said on the house floor during a hearing in March.

Baltimore County Delegate Nino Mangione brought the topic to the house floor, on at least two occasions, as lawmakers discussed a statewide shortage of school bus drivers. At the time, lawmakers were considering a bill to commission a study on driver wages.

Mangione had seen a Project Baltimore report featuring Alisha Matthews. Matthews, a former Baltimore County school bus driver said she quit her job because of the violence and unsafe student behavior on buses.

Mangione wanted to amend the bill to add school bus violence to the scope of the study.

“If we are going to look at bus driver shortages, I think we need to look at all of the issues. Not just the financial ones,” Mangione said on the House floor in March.

Opponents said the amendment wasn’t necessary.

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“As you go about your districts, you hear from parents all the time about the bus driver shortage, from your local school system about the bus driver shortage. You didn’t hear about behavior on the actual bus itself,” said Prince George’s County Delegate Alonzo T. Washington during the hearing.

Mangione’s proposal died mostly along party lines. Republicans voted for it. Democrats voted against it. As with Jackson’s House Bill 665 and Rose’s House Bill 1365, Mangione tells Fox45 he plans to reintroduce his legislation to study school bus violence, next year. Project Baltimore will be watching to see if these bills make progress next year.