U.S. School in Kenya Sends 17 Boys Home

More than a third of the students at the Baraka School, a program that educates inner-city Baltimore children in rural Kenya, have been accused of misbehaving and sent home.

Seventeen youngsters were returning Friday and Saturday after having difficulties adjusting to life at the American-run private boarding school for disadvantaged and at-risk middle schoolers on a 150-acre farm in the shadow of 17,000-foot Mt. Kenya.

The school expelled eight of its 44 seventh- and eighth-graders, and suspended nine others, after several fights the last few weeks “where the boys became quite violent,” said Kate Walsh, the program’s Baltimore director. No one was hurt, she said.

“We had a number of boys who were quite difficult, and that expanded to boys who were quite well-behaved,” Walsh said. “Usually, by this time of year, there’s been a real transformation in the boys’ behavior. This year, unfortunately, it escalated in the opposite way.”

The Baraka School, in its fourth year, aims to provide a cultural experience and an escape from Baltimore’s crime-torn neighborhoods. It is funded by the Baltimore City School System and the Abell Foundation.