BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Marie Gordon likes the sound of small class sizes and required school uniforms, two things KAPPA Baltimore Secondary school promises to deliver.

“It’s also the closest to our house,” Gordon said as she filled out an application for her son, Kieshawn Winder, a fifth-grader at North Bend Elementary.

“This gives kids a lot of opportunities to better themselves.”

Gordon and her son were among dozens of families who swarmed Baltimore school headquarters Monday evening for a fair held to educate parents on the six new combined middle-high schools opening this fall.

If Kieshawn, 10, is accepted to KAPPA, he could take foreign languages and music classes for six years, said Amanda Peyton, a French teacher leaving Dunbar High School to teach at KAPPA.

May 13 is the deadline for submitting applications to the new middle-high schools, which will be public but privately operated through contracts with the system.

A lottery will then be held to randomly select students, and families will receive acceptance letters by the end of May.

“You’ll be wildly successful at one of these schools, right?” city schools chief Andres Alonso asked Dominick Yarborough, 14.

Dominick nodded.

After exploring the fair with his mother and grandmother, Dominick said he wanted to start ninth grade at the science-themed Friendship Academy of Engineering and Technology along Northern Parkway.

“I want to be a mechanic because I’m good with my hands,” he said.

Controversy has erupted around another Friendship Academy slated to open in Canton.

Residents met Monday night to complain to city police about the vandalism and assaults they’ve suffered at the hands of students at Canton Middle School, where Friendship will open.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com