How violent neighborhoods threaten otherwise safe Baltimore schools

Nadia Brooks has just a four-block walk to school but a critical choice of paths: dart across four lanes of traffic without a crosswalk or walk past the Edmondson Village Shopping Center where five students were recently shot, one fatally. “I don’t think that either way is safe,” the 18-year-old said. In her risk analysis, gunfire is more dangerous and unpredictable. So, she runs across Edmondson Avenue. Her friend Zion Mack, 17, takes two MTA buses and a train, standing on street corners where men sometimes leer at her. She texts her parents as she gets to each stop to tell them where she is on her 45-minute journey or calls and talks to Brooks. Once at the front door of Edmondson-Westside High School in West Baltimore, they go through a metal detector and backpack search, a measure that some students feel is invasive and demeaning, before a blue paper band is slipped over their wrists to show they are weapon free.