Abuse

Anne Arundel County school board members last night declared for the first time in public session that they won't discipline employees who failed to report suspected child abuse between 1985 and 1993. They bluntly urged PTA representatives to drop the issue.Board President Thomas Twombly said "there is nothing to be gained by punitive action against employees acting in good faith. . . . We believe this matter is closed."Last night's heated discussion of disciplinary action, which lasted about 10 minutes, began with the public testimony of Carolyn Roeding, president of the Anne Arundel County Council of PTAs.

An Anne Arundel County teacher was acquitted yesterday of charges that he had sex with one of his students 18 years ago at Glen Burnie High School.A Circuit Court jury of seven women and five men deliberated for nearly eight hours over two days before announcing its verdict shortly after 3 p.m."I am ecstatic about the verdict," said Thomas A. Newman, who was charged last October with child abuse and unnatural and perverted sex practices. "It renews my faith in the jury system and justice in America."

The United Way provides a variety of substance-abuse prevention and treatment services in Anne Arundel County. These services range from individual counseling and substance abuse-related delinquency prevention services to comprehensive, family-focused services targeted toward suicide prevention.Among the programs the United Way supports is the Annapolis Bywater Boys and Girls Club. This group provides delinquency, school drop-out, and drug-abuse prevention services to 350 area youths.Information: 547-8000, Ext. 362.THIS WAY TO THE EGRESSJoggers and bicyclists are welcome to the U.S. Naval Academy from 6:30 a.m.to sunset.

"Waste, fraud and abuse" has become such a familiar mantra in the fight to control government spending that it is easy to overlook the skewed priorities that waste more taxpayer dollars than hundreds of so-called welfare queens in Cadillacs. The Department of Agriculture's Summer Food Service Program for Children is a good example.Since 1968, the federal government has made money available to states for a summer program that targets the same students who receive subsidies for school lunches during the academic year.

A 29-year-old teacher told an Anne Arundel Circuit Court jury yesterday that he never sexually abused one of his students, but that he is a "touchy feely kind of person" who at times may have rubbed the youth's shoulders and back.Mark A. Nichols, a former sixth-grade teacher at the Annapolis Area Christian School, is accused of sexually abusing a Crownsville boy who attended the school from kindergarten through grade 10. The alleged abuse occurred while the boy was in grades seven through 10.The youth, now a 17-year-old high school senior at another school, testified that Mr. Nichols repeatedly molested him over the course of three years, touching his genitals in the teacher's home and in the teacher's classroom, where the victim volunteered as an aide because he liked the classroom computer.

I know three gentle women who are married to men who abuse and mistreat them on a regular basis.One shoved his wife down a flight of stairs not long ago. She's still in the hospital with broken ribs. Another picked a fight with his wife during a recent dinner party, then spent half an hour calling her the kind of names most of us had never actually heard spoken out loud.These otherwise wise, capable women stay married to these weasels because, they say, "The next one might be even worse," and "There aren't any good ones out there, anyway," and "Anything is better than ending up alone!"

A 39-year-old Mount Airy man faces up to 20 years in jail after his Wednesday conviction on child abuse charges.Charles Miller pleaded not guilty to charges that he forced a 9-year-old girl to perform sexual acts and fondled her after picking her up from a Brownie Scout meeting in February.Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. found Miller guilty of the charges after hearing a statement of facts read by Senior AssistantState's Attorney Kathi Hill.Hill said Miller was a friend of thegirl's family and had sexually abused her several times.

An aide at the Maryland School for the Deaf was charged Thursday with molesting three girls when they were students at the school between 2008 and 2010, Howard County police said. One of the three girls – now ages 15 and 16 and no longer at the Columbia school – recently reported her allegation to a teacher, after learning that she might not have been the only student repeatedly inappropriately touched, police said. That led to the investigation, and detectives are exploring the possibility that there may be more victims, according to police.

A 38-year-old Columbia educator was found guilty Friday of sexually abusing a third-grader by writing her dozens of explicit love letters, setting a new precedent in Maryland for child predators being convicted of a sex crime without ever touching a child in a sexual manner. Howard County Circuit Court Judge Diane Leasure ruled that Karl Marshall Walker Jr., who worked as a paraeducator at Bryant Woods Elementary School for three years, sexually exploited an 8-year-old girl by giving her notes that spoke of his passion for her, his desire to kiss her and his request that she keep their correspondence secret.

The Baltimore Child Abuse Center needs your vote for a shot at winning up to $500,000 in grant money. The center is the only Maryland nonprofit competing in the final round of Chase Bank's Community Giving contest on Facebook . The money will help the center offer free sexual abuse prevention education to kindergarten students throughout the region, said executive director Adam Rosenberg. At a news conference Monday morning, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III cast his vote on an iPad, noting that people already spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook on trivial tasks and can make a difference with one click at http://www.tinyurl.com/VoteBCAC.