Anne Arundel Schools

Schools chief in Arundel gets a bonus of $6,000 The Anne Arundel County school board unanimously approved yesterday a $6,000 bonus for Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell, boosting his salary to $237,750. Maxwell, a veteran of the Prince George's and Montgomery school systems who took over Anne Arundel schools last year, was praised by board members for a staff restructuring at Annapolis High School and for his work promoting specialized "signature" programs and magnet schools. The performance bonus follows a 3 percent cost-of-living salary increase that became effective July 1. Maxwell is the fifth-highest paid superintendent in Maryland.

SOMETIMES IT IS difficult to distinguish between how things used to be and how we think they used to be.For instance, it seems to me that most school teachers used to spend all their working years in the classroom, leaving only when they reached Social Security age. Their mission in life was singular.Perhaps it only seemed that way. I'm sure there have always been those who have taught diligently for a number of years and left the profession to explore other interests.Nonetheless, teachers in Anne Arundel County and other area jurisdictions are opting out of the profession in increasing numbers.

How hard could it be to give away $500,000 worth of new pianos? Just ask area music store owner Steve Cohen.Nearly a year ago, he dangled the offer of free instruments before the music directors of three county school systems: Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard. Cohen also threw in free delivery and some piano tuning services.Baltimore County politely declined. Howard also said no thanks. Only Arundel expressed interest. Last week -- after extended negotiations with lawyers and school administrators about whether to accept Cohen's proposal -- 19 of 27 new pianos were delivered to Anne Arundel schools.

STUDENTS SHOULD be able to express private thoughts in diaries and journals -- no matter how outrageous -- without facing school discipline, if the musings are clearly intended to remain private.In Anne Arundel County, a judge must decide whether a student was wrongly suspended in December 1997 when he wrote in his notebook: "Let everyone out of your school or kaboom I will blow the school sky high."What makes this case sensitive for both sides is that the student, then in sixth grade at Park Elementary, wrote those words on a day when a false bomb threat was made at nearby Brooklyn Park Elementary -- and during a year in which Anne Arundel schools received 155 false bomb threats.

"Let everyone out of your school or kaboom I will blow the school sky high," the Park Elementary School sixth-grader scribbled in the notebook he held under his desk.That day, Dec. 9, 1997, bomb scares were on the minds of Anne Arundel County pupils. Their gym was jammed with children evacuated from nearby Brooklyn Park Elementary because of a bomb threat.Those around the boy were giggling. The teacher, suspecting he was not doing school work, asked to see his notebook, which he showed her. The result: Police charged the 11-year-old with making a false bomb threat, and he was suspended for nearly two months.

LIKE MOST parents, I have a hard time coming to grips with the Littleton, Colo., shooting. Parents in the Denver suburb expected their children to return from school Tuesday with no greater tragedy than a bad test score or, perhaps, a failed romance.We're used to hearing about the spouses of police officers or soldiers wondering if they will return safely. We shouldn't have to worry about children making it back all right from school, whether the campus is in a poor neighborhood or an affluent one.School shootings in Littleton, Jonesboro, Ark.; West Paducah, Ky., and elsewhere the past two years have made the once far-fetched question "could it happen here" suddenly relevant in communities across the country.

Even though state test scores inched up this year, Anne Arundel schools Superintendent Carol S. Parham said she was "disheartened" that a lack of money had prevented the school district from vaulting into the same ranks as Howard and Montgomery counties.Overall, 48.4 percent of the county's third-, fifth- and eighth-graders performed satisfactorily on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) tests taken in May. That compared with 47.3 percent last year and 47.1 percent the year before, according to State Department of Education figures released yesterday.

A law that would punish students who call bomb threats into schools failed during this year's General Assembly, but a state legislator is proposing that school officials make the students or their parents pay for mischief caused.In a letter to County Executive John G. Gary and School Superintendent Carol S. Parham, Del. John R. Leopold suggested that Anne Arundel County and the school system draw up an agreement that would allow the county to submit the cost of the threats to court for restitution.

Tuesday's county executive election may boil down to this essential question: Has John G. Gary been a friend or a foe to Anne Arundel County's public schools?It's a simple question with no simple answer.AnalysisGary's tough talk and his allegations against the eight-member school board and school Superintendent Carol S. Parham have overshadowed his accomplishments. Beyond budget-writing, Gary has little power to shape education policy. That job belongs to the superintendent and school board.

NO ONE GETS PLEASURE from meting out harsh punishment TTC to children, yet stiff sentences are absolutely appropriate when students threaten bomb explosions in the schools.Hundreds of hours of community service, a night or two in a lockup and a stiff fine might pound home the point: Bomb threats, even those intended as pranks, are horribly disruptive and potentially dangerous.Yesterday, Juvenile Court Master Philip T. Caroom sentenced a 15-year-old girl to 2,000 hours of community service, just as he did last week in the case of a 13-year-old boy. Unfortunately, stiff punishment has not turned out to be the immediate, effective deterrent school and law enforcement officials anticipated.

As Maryland's public schools reopen for a new year during a time of economic turmoil, some systems are taking tough measures to stem the fiscal bleeding, such as furloughing employees, denying teacher pay raises and increasing class sizes. In Anne Arundel County, a generally well-regarded school system of 74,000 students, teachers and students returning for the first day of school today will be getting a sort of inadvertent lesson in economics. The recession has translated into teachers being furloughed for three days, larger class sizes in some middle and high schools and the savings of $50,000 by forgoing new textbooks in Anne Arundel's 120 schools.

Children poured out of the doors of Folger McKinsey Elementary School, eagerly presenting their mothers paintings and paper birds that they had made. But some of the children were showing off another item they had collected during the day - bottles of hand sanitizer. Dismissal time at the Severna Park elementary school, where one pupil was identified as likely having swine flu, was subdued Thursday afternoon because nearly half the students did not come to school. But parents who were picking up their children said that they were not very worried, even as the White House announced that an Anne Arundel County man who recently traveled to Mexico in advance of President Barack Obama also probably has swine flu, as do three members of his family.

The Anne Arundel County school board is expected today to ask for $11 million less from the county government, thanks to a an unanticipated boost in state aid. But as the board prepares to vote on -- and is expected to approve largely unchanged -- Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell's $969 million operating budget request, board President Tricia Johnson left the door open to the possibility of reinstating programs "left on the cutting room floor." Some board members have pushed for continuing the expansion of the AVID program, which provides extra tutoring and counseling to students in the "academic middle."

Amid more than two dozen reports of a harmful bacterial skin infection among Anne Arundel County high school students and staff members, school and health officials urged better hygiene but said there is no reason to be alarmed about an outbreak. Four high schools - Severna Park, Glen Burnie, Old Mill and Chesapeake - have received reports of 28 staphylococcus infections over the past three weeks. Many of the cases were reported after an initial batch at Severna Park, which fanned concern among parents who complained about what they called dingy athletic facilities at high schools.

Schools chief in Arundel gets a bonus of $6,000 The Anne Arundel County school board unanimously approved yesterday a $6,000 bonus for Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell, boosting his salary to $237,750. Maxwell, a veteran of the Prince George's and Montgomery school systems who took over Anne Arundel schools last year, was praised by board members for a staff restructuring at Annapolis High School and for his work promoting specialized "signature" programs and magnet schools. The performance bonus follows a 3 percent cost-of-living salary increase that became effective July 1. Maxwell is the fifth-highest paid superintendent in Maryland.

Anne Arundel County school officials hope new recommendations to overhaul middle schools through smaller classes, mentoring programs and more counselors will help curb an alarming statistic the district has struggled with for years: More than a third of high school freshmen have D-averages or are failing. A 49-member task force of educators and community members that spent five months studying ways to improve middle schools has suggested lengthening the school day by an hour to 7 1/2 hours for the system's 16,000 middle school students.

The way Anne Arundel schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell sees it, America is falling behind. In China, 200 million students are studying English, but 50,000 American students are learning Chinese. China's population is nearly five times that of the United States. As early as this fall, the schools chief hopes to begin a six-year Chinese sequence that would teach Mandarin to seventh-graders. In high schools, Maxwell hopes to offer Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes in the language that could help students land a job in diplomatic service, national security or in business.

The Anne Arundel County Board of Education voted yesterday against renewing a $1.4 million contract with a Crofton employment firm after some school board members balked at using the company to rehire retired administrators. Board members, some of whom said they were unaware of the 13-year-old arrangement with Human Recources Inc., criticized it - even without the inclusion of the administrators - as too expensive and possibly unnecessary. Eugene Peterson, board vice president, said he did not understand why permanent employees could not be hired through the traditional mode of advertising the jobs.

These tables show the percentage of students who scored at advanced or proficient levels on reading and math tests a part of the Maryland School Assessment. The official scores are online at Maryland Report Card Web Site (www.mdreportcard.org). Scores reported here from past years may differ slightly from scores reported online because of interim corrections. Maryland Schools 71.9 70.3 71.1 67.2 67.0 66.4 65.6 60.1 60.1 55.3 55.0 51.7 Anne Arundel County Anne Arundel Schools 76.1 74.5 75.5 73.5 73.0 73.1 72.4 68.3 69.7 67.7 69.2 65.1 Annapolis 58.8 54.4 54.5 55.9 57.5 55.2 60.6 47.8 50.3 46.3 46.7 54.0 Arundel 82.0 82.2 78.5 80.5 76.9 78.8 82.1 75.3 69.8 69.1 69.0 69.9 Brooklyn Park 70.9 63.4 65.1 63.5 61.9 63.1 64.3 48.9 52.9 46.0 48.7 43.7 Central 85.8 88.0 87.8 80.8 81.9 80.3 82.1 81.3 87.5 80.8 83.6 77.8 Chesapeake Bay 78.4 76.7 76.8 74.7 75.2 77.0 73.5 73.5 75.3 69.5 69.5 65.7 Chesapeake Science 78.4 NA 92.0 NA NA NA 70.0 NA 72.0 NA NA NA Corkran School 63.3 69.7 71.0 73.7 66.0 66.3 62.3 64.7 65.6 62.7 65.6 51.6 Crofton 88.8 90.6 92.4 91.1 88.2 92.4 85.9 81.7 83.1 87.0 89.4 80.7 George Fox 80.4 69.3 70.8 68.1 67.3 67.7 70.8 68.0 62.4 59.8 64.3 67.7 J. Albert Adams 18.2 38.5 47.7 25.0 27.2 17.5 8.3 15.4 18.2 15.0 20.0 10.0 Lindale 66.6 66.0 66.1 63.9 60.9 63.3 62.5 57.2 59.5 57.8 61.0 51.4 MacArthur 71.4 68.2 69.4 67.3 71.4 72.0 63.3 59.5 56.2 58.2 53.0 55.1 Magothy River 92.8 90.2 90.0 85.5 88.4 89.7 89.6 90.2 89.3 82.7 88.1 88.1 Marley 58.2 60.8...

Will Hutchison, an eighth-grader at Crofton Middle School, brought 150 pounds of food to school over four weeks last fall. Though he's a growing 13-year-old, the food wasn't for him. His contribution helped the school tally 75,450 pounds for the Maryland Food Bank's annual Harvest for the Hungry Kids Helping Kids Drive. On Wednesday, Crofton Middle School was honored as the state's top donor to the effort. In fact, Anne Arundel schools took the top four slots and seven of the top 10 out of 365 schools that participated.