Welcome to Great Kids Up Close

In the last four years, Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) has ramped up its communications with students, families, school staff and communities, partners and Baltimore City at large. It has improved and expanded its communications tools, using them frequently to make sure Baltimore stays abreast of what is happening in its public schools, where its future is being shaped.

The momentum and changes of the last year in City Schools have made for a lot of communicating. But amid all the e-blasts, reports and letters about students’ record academic gains, and all the news coverage about transforming the school system, a big piece has been missing. City Schools has not had a way to communicate widely and often about its students and what they are doing in school each day: the projects they are working on and the things they’re learning; the awards they’re winning and the challenges they’re facing; who they are, their hopes and their dreams. This is the stuff City Schools is made of and, more than anything, what it is about— 84,000 great kids with great potential.

To tell these stories, in the fall of 2009 City Schools launched Great Kids Up Close, a website designed to give students, school communities and the greater Baltimore community an up-close glimpse into what is happening in schools and what students are doing day in and day out. Through a mix of articles, news briefs, video clips, photos and artwork, the website celebrates students, teachers and school communities, their hard efforts and hard-won accomplishments. It informs students about important opportunities, programs and changes that affect them. And it lets the larger community get to know City Schools’ kids.

Great Kids Up Close invites viewers—especially students—to help tell the stories of the students and schools they know by directly submitting content to the website, be it articles, photos, poetry, artwork, videos, etc. Look for the Your Turn icon at the top of the page and follow the simple instructions. Enjoy the web site—and getting to know City Schools’ great kids.