Nordstrom
It is sad to see the Westfield Annapolis mall losing such flagship stores as Nordstrom , Lord & Taylor, Sears, along with so many other smaller stores. I hope that other businesses will come in to replace them, but I’m not too optimistic.
In the meantime, however, there could be an opportunity for a win-win solution. Sears has an automotive center with a garage for vehicle maintenance. The City of Annapolis is planning to build a new public works center with a vehicle maintenance garage for $7 million dollars, which will undoubtedly cost more.
The city should approach Westfield Mall/Sears to see if it can lease the Sears space and perhaps even put some city services in the property. While just out of the city, it still offers ample parking for customers and employees — taking pressure off downtown — and has easy access to all arteries into the city. And employees will have access to dining, coffee, etc., in a covered space for year-round convenience.
Perhaps county customer services could go in there too, creating a hub for citizen service. I’d rather see viable stores go in the mall. But if that doesn’t happen, using vacant space to serve the public is better than letting the space go empty while spending even more taxpayer money to build and maintain even more city-owned infrastructure.
MICHAEL COLLINS
Annapolis
John Rosemond
In response to John Rosemond’s column, I think his 15-30-5 formula can be a great resource for parents being thrown into teaching with no preparation (The Capital, May 7). However, the beginning of the column focuses on attempting to skewer the idea of smaller classrooms, and the work of modern teachers, while offering nothing but anecdotal evidence.
While Rosemond may have felt perfectly served by a classroom with dozens of students, we have 70 years of studies and pedagogy that tells us students learn better in smaller classrooms where they can feel seen and heard. I also would hazard a guess that those teachers were able to control their classroom through discipline methods that have justifiably been removed from our educational systems, as they relied on children fearing their teachers instead of learning the consequences of their actions.
He also asserts that student achievement was higher in the 50s than now, and while I would be interested to see what statistic he’s using, the goal post of education has changed significantly. Now, many educators are working to teach students the fundamental skills they need while balancing modern pedagogy that emphasizes critical thinking over memorization with a school system still using outdated standardized testing to measure student achievement.
Learner-centered teaching, which emphasizes smaller classrooms and student participation, is not the problem in the school system, lack of funding and support for teachers is. What would Rosemond propose, increase class sizes so that teachers who already spend numerous hours outside of class grading and preparing lessons are now forced to double that workload?
Maybe now that so many people are taking on the work of teaching their own children, our society will have more appreciation for the difficult work that teachers do every day and we can focus on getting them the resources they need to shrink class sizes even further.
KATE KEENEY
Crofton
No ballot
I just went on the Maryland State Board of Elections website to find out why I had not received my absentee ballot for the 2020 Primary Election.
Low and behold they had me listed as inactive. I voted in both the 2018 primary and general elections that year at the polls. And no, nothing has changed since 2018, e.g, name, address, phone number, party affiliation, sex, etc.
I went through the process online to get a 2020 Primary absentee ballot. This does not give me any confidence about voting by absentee ballot.
KAREN BOYD
Edgewater
