By Brett Buccheri
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
One month into his reappointment to a second four-year term by the Baltimore County Board of Education, School Superintendent S. Dallas Dance said one of his top priorities is improving school facilities.
“It still bothers me that we have schools without air,” Dance said in an interview, referring to several elementary schools that had to close during several hot days last September because they did not have air conditioning. “What I intend to do is to continue working with the county and the state to fully fund our facilities.”
Dance said air conditioning is not the only problem. He said more classroom space is needed for the growing population in the northeast and northwest areas of Baltimore County.
“We have 1,000 seats that are needed in the northeast and we still have 700 seats that are needed in the northwest,” he said.
Dance said staying focused on these issues is important for the next four years.
Dance has not been without controversy. Two members of the school board voted against his reappointment, and some parents thought the superintendent was too aggressive in his rollout of the Common Core educational standards.
“The speed in which things happened has been detrimental in some cases,” said Abby Beytin, the president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County.
The Common Core standards were adopted in 2010, before Dance became superintendent. But the rollout occurred in 2012 – and that didn’t go as planned. Dance said school officials had to go back to the drawing board and have the teachers help write the curricula.
“We wanted to accelerate our efforts to write curricula based on those standards,” Dance said. “We understand an organization this size can’t rush that, but we were under the gun.”
In his first term, Dance also organized a plan to make sure every student K-12 had a laptop so that Baltimore County’s students can be more competitive.
“We have to prepare students to be globally competitive in making sure we do it in a digital environment where kids can personalize their experience with us,” he said.
Technology has not made its way into the hands of all Baltimore County students yet, but Dance firmly believes that technology belongs in the classrooms.
“Everyone says to me that the way technology is evolving, we’ve got to let students know how to responsibly use it, but then how to leverage it to actually be innovative to get things accomplished,” he said.
Dance said he is trying to think one or two years ahead because that provides the vision that could ultimately become reality for the county.
“I think academically you stay focused on providing a full realization of your theory of action that’s outlined in the strategic plan while at the same time continuing to build trust with the community,” Dance said.
Dance, who earns $275,000 a year, said he is humbled that the board chose to reappoint him and he is happy to move forward as superintendent.
“I made it known back in August that I wanted to stay here so I was pretty excited to get that piece behind us so we could get focused on what the next four years brings us,” Dance said.
Beytin said Dance has become a positive role model for all the kids and she has seen a good amount of growth since he was appointed.
“His heart is in the right place and he really cares about the students,” she said. “I’ve been in schools with him and the students just rush up to him. They absolutely adore him.”