BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Just days after retiring on June 30, it’s been announced that former Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises has secured another job. Despite overseeing massive scandals and troubling academic outcomes as CEO, Santelises has accepted a global education role.
On July 16, news broke with a press release. The Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, hired former Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises as Vice President, Senior Fellow, and Director of its Center for Education.
According to federal nonprofit filings, CFR is an “Independent, non-partisan foreign policy membership organization.”
In hiring Santelises, CFR pointed to her expertise in “public education”, “civic leadership” and how, as City Schools CEO, Santelises championed, “academic excellence for all young people.” In her new role, she will “promote civil discourse and global learning”, according to the press release.
In the press release, the Council on Foreign Relations mentions how Dr. Santelises, during her 10 years as CEO, “Reduced the number of low-performing schools,increasedstudents’access to high-quality learning resources, and secured significant investments in schoolinfrastructure.”
But that summation of Santelises’ work in Baltimore leaves out a lot that seems relevant in a global education role.
Santelises became City Schools CEO in 2016. In 2017, one year later, Project Baltimore sued City Schools after the district refused to release public documents related to claims of grade changing.
In 2019, the case went to trial where Circuit Court Judge Jeanie Hong ruled City Schools “willfully and knowingly” violated the law by not releasing the records. Judge Hong ordered City Schools to release more than 8,000 documents and pay FOX45 News’ legal fees of nearly $200,000. When we received the records, we were able to show that failing grades were being changed to passing, throughout the city, to move students to the next grade.
In 2022, Maryland’s Inspector General for Education, Rick Henry, found over a four-year period, 12,542 failing grades were improperly changed to passing – with an estimated 10 percent of students at some schools graduating who should not have.
Later in 2022, City Schools found itself mired in another major scandal when the district was forced to refund the state $350,517, after FOX45 News exposed many students were falsely enrolled at Augusta Fells High School. One student was enrolled while in jail.
An Inspector General report found over a five-year period, nearly 1,000 (928) students were improperly enrolled – costing taxpayers nearly $10 million ($9.8m).
In 2023, Project Baltimore reported how 40% of Baltimore City’s high schools did not have one student who tested proficient on the state math exams.
In 2025, Baltimore City Schools was publicly named as the only K-12 district in America to be investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for claims of antisemitism.
FOX45 News wrote The Council on Foreign Relations asking if it was “aware of these scandals.” No response has been issued.
Santelises starts her new job in September. Her salary is not mentioned in the press release.
Dr. Santelises, last year, also accepted a job as Superintendent in Residence for The Broad Center at Yale University, where she will mentor urban educational leaders.
David Rubenstein, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, sits on the Board of Directors of The Council on Foreign Relations.
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