City schools plan revised: Officials say they took concerns about student safety to heart; more hearings are set.

Byline: Sara Neufeld

Mar. 17--Reacting to public pressure, Baltimore school officials yesterday released substantial revisions to a plan that calls for closing five school buildings and displacing more than 5,300 students this summer.

The revisions come a week and a half before the school board is to vote on the proposal. Under a new plan, two more public hearings will be held over the next few weeks, and the board will vote March 28, as scheduled, on only part of the proposal. It will hold another meeting April 6 to vote on the rest of the plan. The original proposal sparked emotional protests last week at three public hearings. Several speakers warned the school board to be mindful of gang conflicts that might arise from mixing students from different neighborhoods when schools are consolidated. Some also questioned the wisdom of housing a middle school and a high school on the same campus, an idea proposed for several locations that does not change in the revisions. While school…