Urban Child Symposium
The University of Baltimore School of Law and its Center for Families, Children and the Courts presented the first annual Urban Child Symposium on April 2, 2009. The event focused on the dropout crisis that plagues Baltimore city and other urban school districts. The symposium addressed the reasons children do not attend school, social problems that affect the school system and school attendance, and what school systems can do to intervene on behalf of children and families to prevent truancy and the failure to graduate from high school.
The symposium took place in the Venable Baetjer Howard Moot Court Room of the University of Baltimore's John and Frances Angelos Law Center located at 1415 Maryland Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland.
Further information:
- An April 3, 2009 blog account of the interview between reporter Sara Neufeld and Jonathan Kozol is posted at the The Baltimore Sun web blog site. Jonathan Kozol talks about what he believes are the reasons behind the dropout rates in schools today.
- Podcasts of the morning and afternoon sessions of the Urban Child Symposium are presented below. A special podcast of keynote speaker Jonathan Kozol is also presented.
- The morning session features the panel, The Urban Child in Context: Families, Schools, Neighborhoods and Lives, which was moderated by Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Families, Children and the Courts Barbara A. Babb. The podcast concludes with luncheon speaker, First Lady of Maryland and District Court of Maryland Judge Catherine Curran O'Malley.
- The afternoon session features the panels, The Urban Child in School: Attendance, Behavior and Academic Performance and A Call to Action on Behalf of the Urban Child: Solutions to the Problems Surrounding School Attendance, which were moderated by Truancy Court Program Manager and School Liaison Leigh Dalton and Senior Fellow Judith Moran, respectively.