Erika Brockman walked into a mid-January Baltimore City school board meeting feeling hopeful for Southwest Baltimore Charter School. Four hours later, she left devastated.

The charter she helped open and two other schools were facing potential closure at the end of the school year, based on a November recommendation from Baltimore City Public Schools and its CEO, Sonja Santelises. The school system cited serious academic struggles, though Southwest parents insisted that their kids were thriving.

Ahead of the school board’s Jan. 14 vote, rumors swirled that Santelises was going to change her mind. She did, recommending that Southwest stay open — but not under the guidance of its charter operator.

Instead, the board voted to convert Southwest to a traditional city school next fall. In a letter to the school community, Santelises said she was moved by their testimony to keep the school open but she couldn’t recommend charter renewal.

The unusual decision caught the school by surprise. It’s been years since the city closed one of its 31 charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated. Transitioning Southwest to district control is a rare move that comes with a lot of uncertainty. Though parents and advocates said they’re grateful the school building won’t be abandoned, they’re still afraid of losing the community and culture they’ve built over decades.

“For people who have been in community and in relationship for 20 years, this is absolutely devastating. This is traumatic,” said Brockman, who was the school’s founding executive director but no longer has an official role there. “Staff members are crying. Kids are crying.”

At the vote, Board Chair Robert Salley had to deliver his closing remarks over sobs. Tensions from the meeting bled into a heated, emotional conversation in the lobby. At Southwest the next day, hand-drawn mini posters in pink, purple and blue hung in hallways that said “Give SBCS a Hug,” with pull tabs like “kindness,” “good vibes” and “space” available under instructions to “Take what you need.”

The impending conversion to a traditional school could lead to a staff and family exodus, said McKenzie Allen, executive director of the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools. “It’s no longer Southwest Baltimore.”

The school may stay open, but teachers and kids will still feel the disruption.

In her letter, Santelises said the school system is committed to a smooth transition for kids and families that maintains “some level of continuity.”

Diamond Staley, head of Southwest’s parent teacher-organization, said days after the vote she’d talked to at least one parent who plans to pull her daughter out of the school next year. While Staley said she and other parents are going to give the transition a one-year chance, the staff is non-negotiable. If Principal Nina Johnson walks, so does Staley.

Parents have said they felt Southwest is a place where Johnson, teachers and fellow families care about their kids and see them as more than a test score.

Johnson declined to comment.

Staley, like many Southwest parents, doesn’t live in the Pigtown neighborhood. If she leaves, she’d want to explore another charter, private school or even homeschooling. Her daughter has never attended a traditional public school.

“It’s just so many unanswered questions and it’s like, who wants to be going through day-to-day with that much uncertainty?” Staley said. “It’s just a lot of waiting and seeing.”

Office of New Initiatives senior executive director Angela Alvarez presented the district’s charter renewal recommendations to the school board and the public. In an interview, she said all staff members get to choose if they want to stay or not, and the district hopes they do. She added that while charter principals can sometimes feel “isolated,” they can work within a community learning network when heading a traditional school, and principals with less than three years of experience get coaching.

“There’s a governance change that is happening,” Alvarez said. “Some things about how the school operates will be different.”

For example, as a traditional school, Southwest is eligible for district funding that charters have to shoulder on their own.

The school is situated in a part of West Baltimore that has experienced population loss and enrollment decline, Alvarez said. Currently, Southwest uses a charter lottery system and will remain application-based “for the near future.” The district will honor already submitted applications and continue to accept them based on availability through the summer for new families. All currently enrolled students can stay and as of right now, there are no plans to establish a traditional attendance zone.

The district “heard really clearly from the community” that families value the project-based and expeditionary learning opportunities at Southwest, so the district wants to preserve those priorities, Alvarez said.

How that will work, and other details such as the name of the school, will need to get worked out in the future.

Maybe.

Remaining a charter school isn’t completely impossible for Southwest. Another charter operator could apply to take it over, with a letter of intent due February 3 and an application due March 6 for the 2026-2027 school year.

Southwest leaders have already gone looking for a different operator. Enter KIPP, a national network of public charter schools with 278 K-12 schools across the country, including an elementary and middle school in Baltimore.

Timothy Smith, Southwest’s executive director, said KIPP Baltimore’s math and foundational literacy data, alongside its “vast” financial resources, would make it a good fit to address the school system’s concerns with Southwest Baltimore.

KIPP Baltimore declined to comment on whether it plans to pursue taking over Southwest.

The district will host its first community meeting on the impending transition Feb. 6.

“We’re going to have to work to really wrap around that community and support the community, rebuild community with folks who are upset,” Alvarez said.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.