Around Maryland

Seven charter school operators are petitioning the Maryland State Board of Education to rewrite Baltimore City school system’s funding formula for distributing money tied to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Charter representatives and city school administrators have negotiated for months but say they were unable to resolve the dispute, which centers on a 25% administrative “fee” that the system included in its charter school formula for distributing state funds tied to the landmark Blueprint reform plan. The Blueprint is expected to infuse an additional $3.8 billion in Maryland schools over the next decade.

A former middle school teacher at the Gilman School will continue to be held without bail as he awaits trial on charges including sexual abuse of a minor, rape and perverted practice, a Baltimore County judge ruled on Monday. District Judge Karen A. Pilarski made that determination at a bail review hearing for Chris Bendann, 38, of Towson, who taught social studies at the private, independent all-boys school in Roland Park in Baltimore from 2007-2023, according to his LinkedIn page. He’s accused of sexually abusing a teen between 2016-2019.

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and the Office of the Attorney General have recommended a $92,000 payment to settle a lawsuit alleging the state’s prison system refused to allow a transgender inmate to receive hormone therapy. The proposed settlement would settle one of several lawsuits against state officials filed by Amber Maree Canter, a transgender woman who said in the lawsuit prison officials denied her request to continue a hormone therapy regimen she had started prior to her 2013 incarceration.

The founder of an extreme neo-Nazi group and his girlfriend have been charged with plotting to attack several Maryland power stations. Brandon Russel, 27, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen, and Sarah Clendaniel, 34, are alleged to have planned to shoot five electrical substations in the Baltimore area, the Washington Post reported. If convicted, the pair face up to 20 years in prison. “Together, we are using every legal means necessary to keep Marylanders safe and to disrupt hate-fueled violence,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek Barron said in a speech thanking law enforcement for uncovering the plot.

The Anne Arundel County Police Accountability Board last month released its first yearly report outlining the status of citizen complaints against police, its recommendations to improve the complaint process and the establishing procedures it conducted in 2022. The board, an entity required for all counties under the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021, has been available to process citizen complaints against law enforcement conduct since July.

City leaders gathered in front of a trash-strewn alleyway in East Baltimore Monday afternoon to kickoff a new community cleaning program that will pay residents to tackle litter and waste in their own neighborhoods. Grants from the $14.7 million “Clean Corps” initiative will go to six community groups covering neighborhoods in East, West and South Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott and city officials said. City leaders hope the new initiative will serve multiple needs, removing trash while creating jobs for underemployed Baltimoreans and establishing a new pipeline of workers for the city’s strapped Department of Public Works.

Despite historic advancements in blood transfusion technology, an estimated 20,000 Americans bleed to death every year before they can be brought to the hospital, according to Dr. Allan Doctor, director of the Center for Blood Oxygen Transport and Hemostasis at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “There’s some limited ability to give transfusions in helicopters on the way into the hospital,” said Doctor, a pediatrics professor at the Baltimore-based medical school, “but for routine ambulance runs, all you can do is just drive fast.”